Justia U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty to illegal reentry in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(a) and (b)(2). On appeal, defendant contended that the district court miscalculated his applicable sentencing range under the Guidelines range by including a two-point criminal history enhancement for his commission of his offense while on a term of supervised release. The court held that a term of supervised release did not terminate upon a defendant-alien's deportation for purposes of calculating a defendant's applicable sentencing range under U.S.S.G. 4A1.1(d). The court further held that the district court did not erroneously take into account unproven relevant conduct in fashioning its sentence, nor was the district court's sentence substantively unreasonable in light of defendant's personal circumstances. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Roccisano" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an African-American and former Syracuse police officer, was suspended with pay pending investigation of an incident involving a fifteen-year-old girl whom he took to a hotel knowing she was a runaway. He was eventually suspended without pay and terminated. Plaintiff claimed that defendants, the City and certain police officers, discriminated against him by treating him more severely than white officers who committed acts of an equal or more serious nature. Because plaintiff's subsequent guilty plea to the charge of Endangering the Welfare of a Child resulted in his automatic termination under New York Public Officers Law 30(1)(e), he could not prove an "adverse employee action" for any of the measures taken by his employer after his guilty plea. Further, as a matter of law, plaintiff's suspension without pay pending the investigation did not, in these circumstances, amount to an adverse employment action, and plaintiff had no constitutionally recognized cause of action for deprivation of "professional courtesy" that police sometimes extended to their fellow officers. View "Brown v. City of Syracuse, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a prison inmate, appealed from the judgment of the district court dismissing his complaint against defendants after granting defendants' motion for summary judgment on plaintiff's individual claims for damages arising from defendants' refusal to give plaintiff antiviral treatment for his Hepatitis C. Because the district court did not adequately explain why it granted defendants' motion for summary judgment on plaintiff's claims for damages, the court vacated the judgment and remanded to the district court to address more fully defendants' motion. Because the district court misinterpreted the parties' settlement agreement with respect to the recovery of reasonable costs, the court vacated that part of the its order denying plaintiff's application for reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses and remanded the issue to the district court to determine in its discretion whether to grant plaintiff's application for such costs.

National Grid challenged the constitutional and statutory authority of the District, a New York public benefit corporation, to assess it for benefits that its property along the Hudson River received from a dam and reservoir that the District operated. National Grid argued that the District's assessment and apportionment scheme was federally preempted by the Federal Power Act (FPA), 16 U.S.C. 803(f), 821, and that even if the assessment authority existed, all assessments made prior to 2010 violated National Grid's protection rights under the U.S. Constitution and constituted impermissible takings under the U.S. and New York State constitutions. Because the FPA did not preempt the District's authority under New York state law to assess National Grid as it did here, the court affirmed the district court's judgment as to federal preemption. The court further found that National Grid had abandoned its appeal of the district court's dismissal of the DEC from this action, and in any event, that the district court's dismissal of the DEC was proper. However, because the court concluded that abstention was not warranted as to National Grid's remaining constitutional claims, the court remanded those claims to the district court for resolution, expressing no view on their merits.

This appeal concerned a First Amendment challenge to a New York rule requiring attorneys to identify themselves as certified specialists to make a prescribed disclosure statement. At issue was whether Rule 7.4 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 22 section 1200.53(c)(1), which required a prescribed disclaimer statement to be made by attorneys who stated that they were certified as a specialist in a particular area of law either violated plaintiff's freedom of speech or was unconstitutionally vague. Because enforcement of two components of the required disclaimer statement would violate the First Amendment and because the absence of standards guiding administrators of Rule 7.4 rendered it unconstitutionally vague as applied to plaintiff, the court reversed with directions to enter judgment for plaintiff.

Plaintiffs appealed a decision and order of the district court granting the motions to dismiss filed by defendants, LCB and AmEx. Plaintiffs, all Israeli residents, were allegedly injured or their family members killed or injured, by rockets fired by Hizballah, a Lebanese terrorist organization, into northern Israel in July and August 2006. Plaintiffs asserted that Israeli law governed their negligence claim while AmEx maintained that New York law governed. The district court dismissed plaintiffs' negligence claim against AmEx, evaluating the claim under New York state law. Because the court concluded that New York law would apply even if a conflict between the laws of the relevant jurisdiction existed because New York had the greatest interest in the litigation, and that plaintiffs did not have a viable claim against AmEx under New York law, the judgment of the district court insofar as it was in favor of AmEx was affirmed.

Defendant appealed from a judgment entered in the district court on a plea of possession of a firearm by a felon. After defendant's arrest, defendant inculpated himself when he was questioned by police before he received Miranda warnings and again later, after he was warned. Defendant contended that the subsequent confession must be suppressed because it was obtained through a two-part interrogation technique outlawed as a violation of the Fifth Amendment in Missouri v. Seibert. The court concluded that the subsequent confession was given voluntarily and without coercion, and was not elicited by the proscribed two-step technique. The court also concluded that the confession did not offend the Sixth Amendment because defendant's right to counsel had not yet attached, particularly with regard to the federal offense for which he was prosecuted. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant appealed from a judgment following his guilty plea to conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute heroin. On appeal, defendant contended that his above-Guidelines sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the district court impermissibly based the sentence on his rehabilitative needs. The court held that the district court did not impose the prison term to promote defendant's rehabilitative needs and that the court's discussion of rehabilitation during the sentencing proceeding was permissible. The court also concluded that defendant's sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant pled guilty to several counts of mail and wire fraud, was convicted by a jury of violations of federal campaign finance law, and was sentenced to 292 months in prison. Defendant appealed the resulting judgment of conviction on various grounds, including that the loss calculated for purposes of the Sentencing Guidelines improperly included promised returns on defendant's victims' investments. The court affirmed the district court in all respects, and held that (1) defendant waived any statute of limitations challenge to the indictment by pleading guilty; (2) the district court's admission of the Ponzi scheme evidence was not plain error; (3) the district court did not err by calculating the intended loss amount under the Guidelines to include the loss of putative profits that victims reinvested in defendant's Ponzi scheme; (4) the district court did not abuse its discretion when weighing the factors relevant to defendant's sentence; and (5) under the circumstances of the case, the appointment of a new attorney for sentencing was not required.

Petitioner was convicted, inter alia, of murder and appealed the denial of his petition for a wit of habeas corpus brought under 28 U.S.C. 2254. Petitioner alleged that his rights were violated by the trial court's admission of (1) evidence of uncharged crimes and a tattoo featuring the word "Enforcer" and (2) the testimony of a medical examiner about an autopsy she had not performed. The district court rejected both claims. The court affirmed the judgment, holding that petitioner's first claim was without merit where, in admitting the contested evidence, the trial court reasonably applied New York law in a manner that was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of United States law or the Constitution. The evidence at issue was at least arguably relevant, and even assuming there was error, the evidence was not "so extremely unfair that its admission violate[d] 'fundamental conceptions of justice[.]'" The court also held that petitioner's second claim also failed because the state court's rulings were not contrary to clearly established federal law at the time.