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

In this case, in which a jury found defendant guilty on one count of money laundering conspiracy, and nine counts of Clean Air Act violations, 42 U.S.C. 7413(c)(1), the parties cross-appealed from an amended judgment of conviction entered on December 8, 2010, which vacated the money laundering count pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 in light of the Supreme Court's definition of "proceeds" in United States v. Santos, and resentenced defendant to 132 months' imprisonment on the remaining Clean Air Act counts. The court held that defendant's sufficiency challenge to the proof of "proceeds" was procedurally barred from collateral attack and thus, his conviction for money laundering conspiracy should not have been vacated. This rendered the parties' remaining arguments moot. Accordingly, the court vacated the amended judgment of December 8, 2010, and ordered that the amended judgment of October 4, 2006, be reinstated.

Plaintiff brought this action against the Village Defendants alleging a violation of his constitutional rights as a result of the Zoning Board of Appeals' denial of his application for a certificate of occupancy (CO) for his newly-built home. Specifically, plaintiff asserted that the Village Zoning law, Chapter IX, Section E was void for vagueness and that the Village Defendants violated his substantive due process rights by denying him a CO. The court held that Section E was unconstitutionally vague as applied to plaintiff's property because it provided inadequate notice of the elevation point on River Road from which plaintiff should measure the height of his house to determine compliance, and because it authorized arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. The court also held that the ordinance's constitutionality was not otherwise saved by its core meaning because a reasonable enforcement officer could find that the height of plaintiff's house was in compliance with Section E's restrictions. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Village Defendants on plaintiff's void-for-vagueness claim and directed that court to enter summary judgment in favor of plaintiff on this claim. The court also vacated the grant of summary judgment in favor of the Village Defendants on plaintiff's substantive due process claim and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff, an inmate in Great Meadow Correctional Facility, originally filed suit pro se against three Great Meadow employees, alleging pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983, that he was improperly denied access to medically-prescribed therapeutic diets, resulting in violations of his Eighth Amendment right to due process. After plaintiff's in forma pauperis status was revoked, plaintiff paid the filing fee so that he could proceed with his case. Subsequently, the district court, relying on a Report & Recommendation prepared by a magistrate, granted defendant's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit. Plaintiff, now represented by counsel, appealed the revocation of his in forma pauperis status, as well as the decision of the district court to grant summary judgment to one of the defendants. The court held that, based on the court's recent opinion in Mills v. Fischer, that any action against a prosecutor for initiating a prosecution or for presenting the prosecution's case that was dismissed sua sponte on the ground of absolute prosecutorial immunity was deemed "frivolous" for purposes of 28 U.S.C. 1915(g). The court held that the remainder of plaintiff's arguments on appeal were without merit. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Appellants sued New York City and the State, along with a number of city and state officials, challenging a tax scheme that exempted New York City residents from a tax levied on parking services rendered in Manhattan. Appellees subsequently filed a motion to dismiss, arguing, among other things, that comity barred the federal courts from hearing appellants' challenge to the state law. The district court granted the motion and the court affirmed, holding that because New York state courts have the ability to implement a remedy that the federal courts could not, Levin v. Commerce Energy, Inc. counseled in favor of dismissing the complaint pursuant to comity.

Plaintiff appealed from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants on her claims of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq, and the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law 290-301. The district court granted summary judgment after determining that plaintiff had offered "sham evidence" in opposition to defendants' motions for summary judgment. The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that, in light of plaintiff's inconsistent and contradictory testimony, there was no genuine issue of fact to be decided by a jury. Accordingly, the court affirmed summary judgment in favor of defendants.

Defendant was convicted of narcotics violations and unlawful possession of a firearm. At issue was whether the district court abused its discretion when it declined to sever the firearm count. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion to sever where there was a sufficient logical connection between the narcotics counts and the firearm count; where separate trials of the narcotics counts and the firearm count would have required much of the same evidence; where the district court took adequate precautions to limit the danger of unfair prejudice; and where defendant had not met his heavy burden of showing substantial prejudice from the joinder of the narcotics counts with the firearm count. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction.

Defendant was convicted of various sex offenses. On defendant's appeal from his conviction and sentence imposed by the district court, counsel filed a motion with this court pursuant to Anders v. California and the government filed a motion for summary affirmance. The court granted the motions because there were no non-frivolous issues for appeal and remand could not benefit defendant in this case where the district court imposed a below-Guidelines sentence without providing a written statement that explained with "specificity" the reasons for the sentence imposed. The court held that, although it had previously held that, solely in the context of an Anders motion, failure to provide a written statement of reasons that complied with 18 U.S.C. 3553(c)(2) always necessitated a remand to the district court, the court saw no reason why the Anders context required this unique treatment. Therefore, the court held that, although compliance with the strictures of section 3553(c)(2) was always required, remand was not always required to remedy noncompliance. In so ruling, the court abrogated the court's prior holding in United States v. Hall only to the limited extent that it uniformly required remand in these circumstances.

Defendant appealed his conviction for visa fraud and conspiracy to commit visa fraud, as well as his sentence. Defendant had requested specific jury instructions with respect to the government's burden of proof regarding his knowledge of the fraud for which he was indicted. The district court denied these requests and instead gave a general instruction on acting "knowingly." Defendant challenged those denials as well as the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial. The court found these challenges meritless. In calculating defendant's Guidelines sentencing range, the district court relied on four enhancements, three of which defendant challenged on appeal. Though the basis of the district court's application of the leader/organizer enhancement could have been more fully elaborated, the court found that the record supported its application here. Regarding the obstruction-of-justice and number-of-document enhancements, however, the court agreed with defendant that the evidence was insufficient to sustain their use in this case. Therefore, the court vacated defendant's sentence. Defendant also challenged the order of restitution imposed by the district court under the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A. Because the court found the record evidence insufficiently specific to demonstrate that each client to whom the court ordered restitution was a "victim" of the fraud, the court vacated the restitution order. Accordingly, the court remanded the case for resentencing, including reconsideration of the restitution award.

Appellants appealed the dismissal of their class action complaint against Nextel, the law firm of Leeds, Morelli & Brown, P.C. (LMB), and seven of LMB's lawyers (also LMB). Appellants were former clients of LMB who retained the firm to bring discrimination claims against Nextel. The complaint asserted that, inter alia, LMB breached its fiduciary duty of loyalty to appellants and the class by entering into an agreement with Nextel in which Nextel agreed to pay: (i) $2 million to LMB to persuade en masse its approximately 587 clients to, inter alia, abandon ongoing legal and administrative proceedings against Nextel, waive their rights to a jury trial and punitive damages, and accept an expedited mediation/arbitration procedure; (ii) another $3.5 million to LMB on a sliding scale as the clients' claims were resolved through that procedure; and (iii) another $2 million to LMB to work directly for Nextel as a consultant for two years beginning when the clients' claims had been resolved. The court held that appellants have alleged facts sufficient to state a claim against LMB for, inter alia, breach of fiduciary duty and against Nextel for aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

Petitioner was convicted in New York for promoting prostitution in the third degree and subsequently sought review of the BIA's order declining to reconsider whether she had been convicted of an aggravated felony and dismissing her appeal from an order of removal. Petitioner argued that her offense did not constitute an aggravated felony because New York law defined "prostitution" more broadly than federal law did for the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(K)(i). The court held that because N.Y. Penal Law 230.25(1) punished conduct that did not involve a "prostitution business" as the term prostitution was used in the INA, petitioner's conviction did not constitute an aggravated felony. Thus, the BIA erred in finding petitioner removable. The court also held that because petitioner was not removable, the court need not address her challenge to the agency's denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief.