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

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement obtained a report from German federal police indicating that the user of a particular IP address had child pornography on their computer. American officials traced the IP address, obtained the name and address of the customer whose account was associated with the address, verified the address (but not the apartment number) with post office and drivers’ records, and obtained a warrant. Neither the warrant nor any accompanying information mentioned Voustianiouk’s name. About a week later, agents arrived at the building and rang both buzzers because neither was marked. They saw a light from the second floor; a man came to the front door and confirmed that he was Voustianiouk. Officials did not explain that the warrant did not mention Voustianiouk’s name or that it clearly referred to the downstairs apartment, not the second floor. Officials discovered thousands of files containing child pornography on Voustianiouk’s computers. He admitted to viewing child pornography for more than one year. The district court imposed a five-year sentence. The Second Circuit vacated the conviction, holding that the search violated the Fourth Amendment and that the government should have been prohibited from introducing evidence seized as a result of that search. View "United States v. Voustianiouk" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of their complaint challenging a number of agreements entered into by the City of New York with respect to labor conditions on certain City construction projects. Plaintiffs argued that the agreements regulated the labor market and were therefore preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 151-169. The court found the project labor agreements in this case materially indistinguishable from agreements the Supreme Court found permissible under the market participation exception to preemption in Building and Construction Trades Council of Metropolitan District v. Associated Builders and Contractors of Massachusetts/Rhode Island Inc. Because the City acted as a market participant and not a regulator in entering the agreements, its actions fell outside the scope of NLRA preemption. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "The Building Industry Electric Contractors Assoc., et al. v. City of New York et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought a pro se action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging excessive force and other Eighth Amendment and due process violations in connection with a prison yard altercation. At issue was whether a plaintiff in a lawsuit governed by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a), was entitled to a jury trial on disputed factual issues relating to his exhaustion of administrative remedies. The court held that the Seventh Amendment did not guarantee a jury trial on factual disputes regarding administrative exhaustion under the PLRA. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.