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

The husband of the attorney representing the ex-wife of Perillo’s boyfriend called 911. Perillo was arrested in possession of multiple weapons and disguises while hiding in the caller’s SUV. Perillo was released on bond and fled. After she was re-arrested, her cellmate cooperated with the FBI in setting up a “sting” in which Perillo hired a hitman (undercover agent) to kill the attorney. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit kidnapping, 18 U.S.C. 1201(c), and to commissioning a murder for hire, 18 U.S.C. 1958. Before sentencing, Perillo moved to withdraw her plea. The court denied Perillo’s motion and sentenced her to concurrent terms of 324 months for conspiracy to kidnap and 120 months for commissioning a murder for hire and ordered Perillo to pay $75,000 in restitution. The Seventh Circuit dismissed her appeal. Perillo’s plea agreement included a valid appellate waiver. The fact that other specific terms of the sentence were mentioned and restitution was not mentioned does not remove restitution from the “all provisions” language. To enter a knowing and voluntary plea, Perillo did not need to know of every defense theoretically available to the charges. She needed to know only the defenses that she could plausibly raise, given the nature of the charges and the evidence against her. Entrapment was not such a defense for Perillo. View "United States v. Perillo" on Justia Law

Lee was sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was reduced for his substantial assistance to the government and was later reduced to 112 months because of a retroactive Sentencing Guidelines change. After he was discharged, he began serving his supervised release. Lee missed numerous scheduled drug tests and probation meetings. He chased his girlfriend, Roland, down a flight of stairs and repeatedly kicked her after she fell. Lee fled, but was ultimately arrested. He called friends from jail, cajoling them to get Roland to change her story. The court found that Lee had violated the conditions of his supervised release. Lee argued that the battery was a state court misdemeanor and a state court “probably would have made both parties go to counseling.” The district court sentenced Roland to 30 months’ imprisonment, citing Lee’s numerous violations of supervised release leading up to the attack and the need to deter further criminal conduct and protect the public. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that Lee did not argue that a longer sentence would unjustifiably subject him to harsher treatment than similarly situated defendants in the district court, Lee also complained that the district court failed to complete a form stating the reasons for his sentence. It is not clear that the court has an obligation to do so when revoking supervised release, but, in any case, Lee suffered no prejudice from the failure to complete this administrative task. View "United States v. Lee" on Justia Law

Indiana Child Protective Services removed Swallers’s daughter from his custody. Swallers responded with a deluge of federal filings and filed “Common Law Liens” (each $10,000,000) against all the judges in the Southern District of Indiana except Judge Young. Judge Pratt ordered the Marion County Recorder to expunge any liens that Swallers had filed against Judges Lawrence, Barker, Magnus‐Stinson, Pratt, and Young. Swallers was charged with filing a false lien and encumbrance against a federal judge, 18 U.S.C. 1521, and with possessing ammunition as a felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). That case was assigned to Judge Young. Swallers moved for Judge Young’s recusal; 28 U.S.C. 455(a) requires recusal in any proceeding in which a judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, Judge Young denied the motion. Swallers pled guilty to the false lien charge; the felon‐in‐possession charge was dismissed. None of the judges named in Swallers’s liens submitted a victim‐impact statement. Judge Young imposed the agreed‐upon "time served" sentence. Swallers sought to vacate his conviction on the ground that Judge Young should have recused himself. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Judge Young was not a victim of Swallers’s liens; there was little risk that his professional relationship with the victims would interfere with the case because the crime had little effect on them. This is not a case in which a well‐informed observer would perceive a significant risk that Judge Young would decide this case on a basis other than its merits. View "United States v. Swallers" on Justia Law

Wheelchair-using detainees sued Cook County, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, based on purportedly inaccessible ramps and bathroom facilities at six county courthouses. The district court certified a class for purposes of injunctive relief. The named plaintiffs also sought damages individually for the same alleged violations. The district court held an evidentiary hearing on the equitable claims and entered a permanent injunction, finding that the defendants had violated the ADA. Relying largely on the same findings, the court granted the plaintiffs partial summary judgment on liability in their personal damage actions, then submitted the question of individual damage awards to a jury. The Seventh Circuit vacated in part. The district court improperly relied on its own findings of fact when it granted partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs on their damage claims. When equitable and legal claims are joined in a single suit, common questions of fact should be tried first to a jury unless there are extraordinary circumstances or an unequivocal waiver by all parties of their jury trial rights. The court upheld the class certification. View "Lacy v. Cook County, Illinois" on Justia Law

Hamer, a former Intake Specialist for Housing Services and Fannie Mae, sued her former employers, citing the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. 621, and Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e. The court granted the defendants summary judgment. The deadline for her Notice of Appeal was October 14, 2015. On October 8, Hamer’s counsel filed a “Motion to Withdraw and to Extend Deadline.” The court extended the deadline to December 14. Hamer filed her Notice of Appeal on December 11, consistent with the order, but exceeding the extension allowable under Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(5)(C). The Seventh Circuit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, reasoning that the statutory requirement for filing a timely notice was jurisdictional and Rule 4(a)(5)(C) limits a district court’s authority to extend the deadline to 30 days. The Supreme Court vacated, holding that statutory time limits are jurisdictional but that those imposed by rules are not—though they remain mandatory if properly invoked. On remand, the Seventh Circuit reached the merits and affirmed. Rights under nonjurisdictional rules can be waived in docketing statements; defendants’ docketing statement included affirmative statements that Hamer’s appeal was “timely”. Hamer did not establish a causal link between her EEOC complaint and an adverse action. To retaliate against a complainant, decision-makers must be aware of the complaint. Hamer has not established a genuine dispute about the decision-makers’ knowledge; all filed affidavits asserting they were never told of Hamer’s plan to file an EEOC complaint. View "Charmaine Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services" on Justia Law

Defendant, a long-time leader of the Chicago-area Latin Kings street gang, had 10 convictions, including a 2008 Illinois conviction for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. He served his prison sentence; the statute was later invalidated. In 2014, he was convicted of aggravated discharge of a firearm and has remained in prison. In a federal racketeering prosecution, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. 1962(d) and argued that the judge should reduce his sentence for the time he had already served in prison on charges related to conduct that was part of the ongoing racketeering conspiracy. He did not dispute the factual allegations and received no criminal history points for the 2008 conviction. Because telephone recordings showed that he continued to act in furtherance of the conspiracy while in prison, the probation officer counted the 2014 offense toward his criminal history score and not toward the score for his underlying offense in accordance with the Guidelines. The district judge, noting the prison sentence he was still serving, imposed a 210-month sentence, at the bottom of the Guidelines range, to be served concurrently with the remainder of Defendant’s state sentence. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, citing the discretionary nature of the Guidelines relating to downward departures for discharged prison sentences. The court rejected an argument based on the inequality of Defendant serving more time than his codefendants, who had previously avoided prison time despite ongoing participation in gang activities. View "United States v. De La Cruz" on Justia Law

Camp Drug Store filed a proposed class action, alleging that Cochran Wholesale had violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 227, by faxing unsolicited advertisements to class members. The parties entered into early mediation and reached a settlement. Cochran would “make up to $700,000.00 available” but was not required to create a separate account to hold the funds or to deposit them with the court. Each class member could submit a claim for $125; if the value of the claims exceeded the total available funds, each timely claim would be subject to a pro‐rata reduction. Any funds that were not claimed by class members were to be kept by Cochran. Each representative plaintiff was entitled to an incentive award of $15,000, and class counsel was to be paid one-third of the Settlement Fund ($233,333.33). The total Cochran actually paid to claimants was $220,625.00. The court approved the settlement but reduced the proposed attorney fee to $73,468.13 and incentive awards to $1,000. Camp argued that the settlement created a common fund against which the reasonableness of the fee award should be assessed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting the “common fund” argument.. Given the early stage at which the litigation settled, the reductions in the fee and incentive awards were not an abuse of discretion. View "Camp Drug Store, Inc. v. Cochran Wholesale Pharmaceutic, Inc." on Justia Law

Doe claims that she was sexually assaulted by a security guard at her middle school while she was in eighth grade. She filed suit under Title IX, 20 U.S.C. 1681(a). To obtain damages, Doe was required to prove that a school official had actual knowledge of the alleged conduct. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in the school district’s favor. A reasonable jury could not have found that Ptak, the principal at Doe’s middle school, had actual knowledge of the security guard’s misconduct. It is undisputed that Ptak was unaware of Doe’s allegations of sexual abuse until after Doe had graduated; during Doe’s eighth‐grade year, no teacher or staff member had reported any incidents or concerns regarding the security guard and Doe to Ptak. Nor does Ptak recall seeing any physical contact between Collins and Doe during that school year. Doe relied on events that occurred during the previous school year to establish that Ptak had actual knowledge of the risk that the security guard would abuse Doe. View "Jane Doe No. 55 v. Madison Metropolitan School District" on Justia Law

Blackwell stole cash and drugs from Thomas. To punish her and recover his cash and drugs, Thomas kidnapped Blackwell’s younger brother and sister in Indiana and had them taken to Michigan and Kentucky before law enforcement found them. Convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and two counts of kidnapping, Thomas was sentenced to life in prison. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments that Blackwell was allowed to offer inadmissible and prejudicial testimony; that the district court should have excluded cell-site location information about cell phones associated with Thomas; that the court erred in its Sentencing Guideline calculations; and that the court erred under Alleyne v. United States, by failing to have the jury decide that the kidnapping victims were under 18 years old, which increased the mandatory minimum sentence. Thomas had not raised any of those issues in the district court. The district court did not plainly err in dealing with Blackwell’s testimony and her apparent inability to follow instructions about answering what she was asked and not raising certain subjects or in admitting the cell-site location evidence where Thomas did not move to suppress or even object to that evidence. The court’s Alleyne error was harmless, calling for no remedy under the plain-error rule. View "United States v. Thomas" on Justia Law

Singh entered the U.S. in 1993. An IJ denied his applications for asylum and withholding of removal (alleging religious persecution) and issued an exclusion order. Before the BIA ruled, he married a U.S. citizen. In 2000, Singh obtained permanent residency. Three years later Singh was arrested in Indiana. In 2004 he pleaded guilty to felony corrupt business influence. An IJ found him removable, citing his conviction for an aggravated felony related to racketeering, 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) and his conviction, within five years of admission, for a crime involving moral turpitude with a possible sentence of one year or longer. Singh was removed and later readmitted on a visitor visa to pursue post-conviction relief. The Indiana court vacated his felony conviction and accepted Singh’s guilty plea to the crime of deception, a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment “for a fixed term of not more than one (1) year.” The BIA reopened. The government later alleged that Singh had fraudulently procured readmission and overstayed his visa, withdrawing the previous charge of removability, erroneously conceding that the moral-turpitude provision no longer applied. Months later, the government issued a new charge based on the deception conviction. The BIA affirmed a removal order, reasoning that the misdemeanor qualifies as a crime for which a sentence of “one year or longer” may be imposed. Meanwhile, Singh returned to state court, which vacated the deception conviction in exchange for a guilty plea to a different misdemeanor.The Seventh Circuit upheld the BIA's refusal to reopen. To warrant reopening, Singh had to show a substantive or procedural defect in the underlying criminal proceedings; his vacatur was based on a plea agreement. The court rejected alternative arguments that deception does not carry a possible sentence of “one year or longer” and that the government’s concession was binding. View "Singh v. Sessions" on Justia Law