Justia U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

DHS Agent Goehring obtained a warrant for Calligan's girlfriend's Fort Wayne house. His supporting affidavit reported that, 10 days earlier, customs agents had intercepted a package containing one kilogram of a synthetic cannabinoid controlled substance (5F‐ADB), addressed to that house, with Calligan as the addressee. Calligan had received more than 50 international shipments there. Calligan had Indiana convictions for attempted murder, criminal recklessness, and unlawfully resisting police, and a pending gun possession charge. Although police delivered the package, agents had replaced the controlled substance with sugar. After Calligan accepted the package, the officers executed the warrant and found money, a gun, and a notebook that contained the package’s tracking number and a recipe for making 5F‐ADB into a consumable product. In the warrant return, Goehring inaccurately reported that police had also recovered 5F‐ADB, the package’s original contents.The Seventh Circuit affirmed Calligan’s convictions for possessing a firearm as a felon, importing a controlled substance, and attempting to distribute a controlled substance. The court rejected arguments that because the warrant application said police would deliver actual drugs, the agent’s replacement of the drugs with sugar took the search outside the warrant’s scope and that Goehring’s warrant application relied on materially false representations that police would deliver drugs to the home before the search. The warrant was supported by probable cause and had no triggering condition and, in any event, police relied on it in good faith. View "United States v. Calligan" on Justia Law

Love sold crack to a confidential informant. Officers searched his apartment and found crack in the kitchen and found two guns and ammunition in an adjoining room, about 15 feet from the drugs. Love pleaded guilty to three drug counts and one felon-in-possession count (18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1)). A violation of section 922(g)(1) causes a default sentencing range of up to 10 years but the Armed Career Criminal Act increases the penalty to a 15-year mandatory minimum if the defendant had three previous convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses, 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1). Love’s prior convictions included Illinois armed robbery (1994), federal distribution of crack cocaine (2009), and Indiana Class D battery resulting in bodily injury (2015). Love argued that he received a “restoration of rights” letter without an express reference to guns after he was released on the 1994 Illinois armed robbery conviction and that his Indiana Class D battery-resulting-in-bodily-injury conviction was not a crime of violence. The judge held the armed robbery conviction was an ACCA predicate but that the battery-resulting-in-bodily-injury conviction was not, as a categorical matter, a “violent felony,” so Love was not an armed career criminal. The judge sentenced Love to 96 months’ imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Love committed three ACCA-predicate offenses. View "United States v. Love" on Justia Law

Herrera, an Illinois state prisoner, filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against three correctional officers of the Cook County Jail for failing to protect him from assault and denying him prompt medical care. In his timely filed original complaint, Herrera named each of the defendants “John Doe” as a nominal placeholder until he could ascertain the proper identities of the officers. Herrera then twice amended his complaint to include their actual names—but did so outside of the two-year limitations period set by Illinois law.The district court denied a motion to dismiss, reasoning that suing “John Doe” defendants constituted a “mistake” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c)(1)(C)(ii), so that Herrera’s amended complaint “related back” to his original complaint. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Knowingly suing a John Doe defendant is not a “mistake” within the meaning of Rule 15(c). Whether Herrer satisfies the factual test for equitable tolling is beyond the scope of an interlocutory appeal and should be considered on remand. View "Herrera v. Cleveland" on Justia Law

In 2009, Brown, then 13 years old, was tried as an adult, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 60 years' imprisonment. Brown unsuccessfully sought post-conviction relief in Indiana state courts, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel.On remand the federal district court granted Brown a conditional writ of habeas corpus, noting that the court had admitted an out-of-court statement (a jailhouse confession to another detainee) by the co-defendant. The statement was hearsay as to Brown but implicated him in the shooting. Brown could not cross-examine his co-defendant. Brown’s lawyer failed even to ask for a limiting instruction. The conditional writ ordered Indiana to vacate Brown’s conviction and release him from custody unless it elected to retry Brown within 120 days. The state appealed. Brown filed a cross-appeal, challenging the denial of his motions to authorize discovery and expand the record in light of statements made by the elected county prosecutor in a 2018 campaign debate that Brown asserts contradicted the prosecution’s theory at trial. Within 120 days, the state moved to vacate Brown’s murder conviction, to initiate retrial proceedings in a new criminal case, and to transfer Brown to pretrial custody. In March 2021, the state court vacated Brown’s conviction. The Seventh Circuit dismissed the state’s appeal. The state court’s vacatur of the conviction ended its jurisdiction under both 28 U.S.C. 2254 and Article III of the U.S. Constitution. View "Brown v. Vanihel" on Justia Law

ATF agents and Chicago police officers went to the “Back of the Yards” neighborhood to replace court‐approved global positioning system trackers on cars belonging to members of the Latin Saints gang. Shortly after the officers arrived, they came under gunfire. A federal agent was shot and seriously injured. Godinez, a member of the gang, was charged with the shooting. In the government’s view, Godinez, tasked with guarding the neighborhood, mistook federal agents for rival gang members and shot the agent.The Seventh Circuit affirmed Godinez’s convictions for forcibly assaulting a federal officer while using a deadly weapon, 18 U.S.C. 111(a) and (b), and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1)(A)(iii). The district court properly admitted ballistics evidence concerning the shots fired. Although the gun was not recovered, that does not render inadmissible the physical evidence (casings) that was recovered. The chain of custody need not be perfect. Testimony about a gunshot detection system— ShotSpotter—should have been handled differently. The court did not adequately explore ShotSpotter’s methodology before admitting the evidence. A rational jury, even without the improperly admitted evidence, could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Godinez shot the agent. View "United States v. Godinez" on Justia Law

In 2016, the Seventh Circuit affirmed Resnick’s conviction and life sentence for sexually abusing two young boys, brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Resnick had entered a plea of guilty to charges brought in Florida with respect to one boy. Plea negotiations broke down with respect to charges brought in Indiana with respect to the other boy.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Resnick’s motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate his conviction and sentence, rejecting an argument that his defense counsel provided ineffective assistance during the plea process, throughout the pretrial and trial proceedings, and at sentencing. Resnick’s rejection of the amended offer means that he, not trial counsel, is responsible for the sentence he ultimately received. The court rejected challenges to counsel’s handling of evidence. Dueling experts on the correlation between child pornography possession and contact offenses was highly unlikely to sway the verdict, given that there was substantial evidence that directly showed Resnick sexually abused the boys. Any expert testimony on Resnick’s behalf would have been considerably undermined by his plea agreement from the Florida proceedings, in which he admitted he deleted child pornography from the computer. The law surrounding the admission of his refusal to take a polygraph was far from clearly established at the time of his trial. View "Resnick v. United States" on Justia Law

Dingwall was charged with three counts of robbery and three counts of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. She admits the robberies but claims she committed them under duress, in fear of brutal violence by her abusive boyfriend, Stanley. Dingwall sought a ruling on evidence to support her duress defense, including expert evidence on battering and its effects. The duress defense has two elements: reasonable fear of imminent death or serious injury, and the absence of reasonable, legal alternatives to committing the crime. The district court denied Dingwall’s motion. Dingwall then pleaded guilty, reserving her right to appeal the decision on the motion in limine. The Seventh Circuit reversed, noting that the cases are close and difficult, often dividing appellate panels. “Dingwall surely faces challenges” Stanley was not physically present for any of the robberies, Dingwall actually held a gun, and there is a dispute about whether Stanley threatened harm if she did not commit these specific offenses. Those facts present questions for a jury; the immediate physical presence of the threat is not always essential to a duress defense. Expert evidence of battering and its effects may inform the jury how an objectively reasonable person under the defendant’s circumstances might behave. View "United States v. Dingwall" on Justia Law

Officers used a confidential informant to arrange four controlled drug buys from Rollerson. Officers obtained search warrants for an apartment and for Rollerson’s home, then stopped Rollerson for speeding. They recovered a gun and marijuana from his car. Rollerson, a convicted felon, said that he “was the only one who had something to do with the drug sales.” In Rollerson's home, police found $150,000 in cash that Rollerson admitted were drug proceeds. Rollerson had a key to the apartment, which contained four kilograms of fentanyl, 52 grams of heroin, 97 grams of cocaine, and 236 grams of tramadol, plus digital scales, firearms, and mail addressed to Rollerson. Rollerson was convicted on certain drug and firearm charges but acquitted on other drug charges. The Seventh Circuit affirmed his 276-month sentence. Rollerson claimed that the prosecution did not present sufficiently reliable information that he sold heroin and fentanyl during four controlled drug buys for which he was not charged and that those uncharged controlled buys and other drugs for which he was acquitted were not “part of the same course of conduct … scheme or plan” as his offenses of convictions. The record at sentencing on the controlled buys was sparse but absent contradictory evidence, a police officer’s affidavit attesting that the buys occurred provided the “modicum of reliability” needed to find by a preponderance of the evidence that Rollerson committed those additional crimes. View "United States v. Rollerson" on Justia Law

In 1993, Millis and Creeden committed two armed robberies. State police stopped them and searched their vehicle, which contained ammunition, a pistol, and cash from the robberies. The traffic stop was found to be pretextual but Creeden had already implicated Millis as the getaway driver. Millis was convicted of aiding and abetting: an armed bank robbery, the use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, a Hobbs Act robbery, and possession of a firearm by a felon. Millis’s previous convictions, a 1992 Ohio conviction for aggravated assault and a 1991 Ohio conviction for selling marijuana, plus his federal armed bank robbery conviction qualified him as a career offender. The district judge sentenced him to a below-guidelings 410 months’ imprisonment, stating, “if I had discretion ... I would sentence him to about 25 years.”Millis repeatedly sought post-conviction relief. Attempting to benefit from intervening legal changes concerning career offender designation, Millis invoked the 28 U.S.C. 2255(e), “savings clause” to seek habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2241. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of relief. The savings clause is a narrow exception to the rule that federal sentences must be collaterally attacked under section 2255. Millis’s sentence on his guidelines counts fell within the range for a non-career offender, so his career offender designation did not result in a miscarriage of justice, as required for savings clause relief. View "Millis v. Segal" on Justia Law

Johnson, an inmate at Dixon Correctional Center in Illinois, sued medical professionals under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that they were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs because none of them referred Johnson for surgery to repair his hernia. In 2011-2016, Dixon's medical professionals evaluated Johnson more than 90 times, including for treatment of his often-uncontrolled diabetes. Johnson complained, intermittently, of hernia pain but the hernia was at times undetectable, and even when detected, it was small and reducible. Johnson claims that the defendants told him that he would not receive surgery unless his hernia became strangulated or incarcerated. They prescribed over-the-counter pain medication and abdominal binders to manage his symptoms.A court-appointed expert, Dr. Toyama opined that the standard of care in treating a “medically fit” individual with an umbilical hernia is surgical repair but when an umbilical hernia is not strangulated or incarcerated, surgery is not urgent and usually scheduled as an elective procedure. Toyama reiterated that Johnson’s medical records showed no evidence that Johnson’s hernia was strangulated or acutely incarcerated and testified that Johson’s medical records established that his hernia never changed significantly, that he continued to be physically active. When asked whether he had any criticisms of the defendants’ treatment, Toyama answered, “No.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in the defendants’ favor. The record failed to support that they acted with deliberate indifference. View "Johnson v. Dominguez" on Justia Law