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

Defendant appealed from an order of the district court insofar as that order denied defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiff's claims alleging discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12112 et seq. At issue was whether a New York court's judgment dismissing on timeliness grounds a plaintiff's Article 78 petition seeking review of an adverse administrative determination of her employment discrimination claims precluded the plaintiff from bringing federal discrimination claims in federal court. The court held that this issue warranted certification to the New York Court of Appeals.

Defendant appealed convictions for conspiracy to distribute more than 50 grams of crack cocaine, causing death by use of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime, murder in the course of drug conspiracy, and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon. Defendant contended that he was entitled to acquittal on some counts by reason of double jeopardy and the sufficiency of the evidence, to resentencing on other counts, and to a new trial. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant where a jury could reasonably conclude that defendant had inferentially instructed another individual to kill the victim; that Judge Jones' decision to exclude certain portions of the tapes of jailhouse telephone conversations was not an abuse of discretion and, if the Judge had committed an error, it was harmless; that any residual prejudice from a witness's statement was negligible because the information regarding defendant's arrest was already before the jury; that the record was insufficient to allow adjudication of defendant's ineffective assistance of counsel claim; and that the Double Jeopardy clause did not bar the government from getting "one complete opportunity" to achieve a conviction on the greater offense by retrial of that count where the jury in the first trial convicted defendant on the lesser offense and failed to reach a verdict on the greater offense. The court rejected defendant's remaining claims and affirmed the judgment.

Defendant, once a practicing psychiatrist, defrauded Medicare by receiving funds he was not entitled to receive and then fled the country to live as a fugitive in the Philippines. There, defendant created the website www.liver4you.org, fraudulently promising to provide critically ill patients liver or kidney transplants for certain sums of money. Defendant was subsequently convicted of one count of health care fraud and five counts of wire fraud. Defendant appealed, arguing that the district court committed four procedural errors in calculating defendant's offense level and imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence. The government argued that the court should not consider the four procedural errors because at sentencing the district court stated it would impose "the same sentence" even without some of the alleged errors. The court rejected this contention and emphasized that such predictions were only rarely appropriate. Defendant argued that his website was not mass-marketing pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(ii) because he did not initiate contact with his victims where they found his website, which was publicly available online, and emailed him at an address listed on the website. The court rejected defendant's distinction and held that he committed fraud by using the internet to solicit a large number of persons to buy his organ transplant services. Therefore, the court held that the enhancement applied even if defendant did not use the most active marketing method possible. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

This criminal appeal arose from a "finite reinsurance" transaction between American International Group, Inc. (AIG) and General Reinsurance Corporation (Gen Re). Defendants, four executives of Gen Re and one of AIG, appealed from judgments convicting them of conspiracy, mail fraud, securities fraud, and making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Defendants appealed on a variety of grounds, some in common and others specific to each defendant, ranging from evidentiary challenges to serious allegations of widespread prosecutorial misconduct. Most of the arguments were without merit, but defendants' convictions must be vacated because the district court abused its discretion by admitting the stock-price data and issued a jury instruction that directed the verdict on causation.

Defendant appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus where he was convicted of crimes stemming from his involvement in a violent street gang. At issue was whether defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel where defendant alleged that trial counsel failed to advise him as to whether he should accept or reject a particular plea offer by the government. The court held that an evidentiary hearing was necessary to flesh out the sparse record before the court. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant appealed from a judgment of the district court for dismissing as untimely his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court assumed that defendant satisfied the requirements for equitable tolling of a three-month period when he was hospitalized but, nevertheless, concluded that the petition was untimely because he failed to demonstrate reasonable diligence in pursuing his claim in the two-month period between his hospital discharge and filing. The court held that no such demonstration of diligence was required where the petition was filed within one year of the total untolled time after the challenged conviction became final. Accordingly, the district court's judgment of dismissal was vacated and the case was remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant plead guilty to narcotics violations in connection with a scheme to import cocaine and was sentenced principally to a term of 235 months imprisonment. On appeal, defendant contended that his sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable. The court held that the government's refusal to move for a third-point reduction under U.S.S.G. 3E1.1(b) in this case was based on an unlawful reason because the government could not refuse to move on the grounds that it had been required to prepare for a Fatico hearing. In light of the court's holding, it did not reach the issue of substantive reasonableness, but did reject defendant's arguments regarding the disparity between his sentence and those imposed on his co-defendants; his lack of prior criminal record; and his medical condition. Accordingly, the sentence was vacated and the case was remanded for resentencing.

Defendant appealed from two judgments entered in the district court: (1) convicting him of possessing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(B) and (b)(2) (Judgment II) and (2) revoking the supervised release to which he had been sentenced on a prior conviction for violation of section 2252A(a)(5)(B) and imposing a prison term, to be followed by a life term of supervised release, for violations of his prior supervised release conditions (supervised release judgment). On defendant's appeal challenging Judgment II, defendant contended principally that the district court should have dismissed the indictment on the ground that it was procured by his probation officer acting in excess of his statutory and constitutional authority and that, absent dismissal of the indictment, certain self-incriminating statements defendant made to his probation officer, as well as evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant obtained on the basis of those statements, should have been suppressed on the ground that his statements were protected by the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Defendant also argued that the severity of the penalties of the supervised release judgment should be reduced if Judgment II was vacated. The court found no merit in defendant's challenges to Judgment II and therefore, affirmed both judgments.

Plaintiff, a former probationary police officer, appealed from a judgment of the district court dismissing his complaint, brought under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging principally that defendants, Chief of the Middletown Police Department (MPD) and other members of the MPD, violated his First Amendment right to freedom of speech by causing the termination of his employment in retaliation for his refusals to make false statements in connection with an investigation into a civilian complaint alleging use of excessive force by a MPD officer. On appeal, plaintiff argued that Garcetti v. Ceballos and Weintraub v. Board of Education did not preclude First Amendment protection for his refusals to make false statements. The court considered all of defendants' arguments in support of affirmance and found them to be without merit. Therefore, the judgment of the district court was vacated to the extent that it dismissed plaintiff's claims for retaliation in violation of the First Amendment and the matter was remanded.

Plaintiff sued defendants for various violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., and parallel provisions of the New York City Human Rights Law, N.Y.C. Admin. Code 8-101 et seq., after defendants terminated plaintiff. A jury found that plaintiff's termination was in retaliation for complaints he made about his supervisor and it awarded compensatory and punitive damages. Both parties appealed numerous issues related to pre-trial, trial, and post-trial proceedings. The court held that it need not determine whether the district court was authorized to grant such relief since the court read the parties' joint submission as effectively stipulating to a new jury trial, the result of which was an award in the reduced amount of $190,000, rendering the district court's judgment final. The court affirmed the decision of the district court that plaintiff's original punitive damages award was unconstitutionally excessive. The court further held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to correct its clerical mistake without first obtaining leave from this court to do so, but now the court granted that leave nunc pro tunc. The court finally held that because the remaining issues raised in both parties' appeals were without merit, the court affirmed the district court's judgment in its entirety.