Justia U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Appellants, Boston police officers, made a warrantless entry into a dwelling in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Plaintiff, the only person inside, was eventually arrested. Plaintiff was eventually acquitted on criminal charges resulting from his arrest. Thereafter, Plaintiff sued Appellants, alleging that the search of his residence was unreasonable and that the officers violated his civil rights through the use of excessive force. The jury found for Plaintiff on both of his claims and awarded him $50,000 in damages. The district court subsequently awarded Plaintiff attorneys’ fees and costs. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Appellants' actions did not fall within the community caretaking exception, and therefore, qualified immunity was inapplicable; and (2) the attorneys’ fee award fell within the universe of reasonable awards. View "Matalon v. Hynnes" on Justia Law

After a second trial, Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and possession with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine. Defendant was sentenced to 196 months of incarceration. The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s conviction and sentence, holding (1) it was not plain error for the district court to admit an unexecuted draft contract into evidence; (2) the district judge did not err by commenting on the draft contract; (3) there was no violation of the Jones Act, and Defendant suffered no prejudice in the admission of English testimony peppered with Spanish colloquialisms; (4) the prosecutor’s closing and rebuttal arguments did not constitute prosecutorial misconduct; and (5) Defendant’s sentence was neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable. View "United States v. Carela" on Justia Law

Massachusetts state police confiscated firearms owned by Russell Jarvis and James Jarvis, Massachusetts gun owners, and transferred custody of the confiscated firearms to Village Gun Shop, Inc. (the Gun Shop), which operates a bonded warehouse for the storage of firearms and ammunition. Massachusetts local police confiscated firearms owned by Robert Crampton, a Massachusetts gun owner, and transferred the guns to the Gun Shop for storage. When Crampton and the Jarvises failed to pay storage charges, the Gun Shop sold their firearms at public auction. The Jarvises, Crampton, and Commonwealth Second Amendment, Inc. brought suit in federal district court against the Gun Shop alleging that their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process had been violated. Plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment against the Gun Shop, arguing that the Gun Shop was a state actor that could be held liable for damages under section 1983. The district court granted summary judgment on the state action issue to the Gun Shop. The court subsequently entered final judgment in favor of the Gun Shop. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the Gun Shop may not be liable as a state actor under section 1983. View "Jarvis v. Village Gun Shop, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant’s vehicle was stopped and searched by officers with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, the Maine Police, and the Portland Police Department. The search involved the use of a drug-sniffing dog and resulted in the discovery of cocaine and a firearm. Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Defendant appealed, challenging the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress and the court’s denial of his motion for discovery of records. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in finding that the warrantless search and seizure of Defendant’s vehicle were justified by the automobile exception. View "United States v. White" on Justia Law

Petitioner, who was serving a 235-month sentence as an armed career criminal under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), sought certification to file in the district court a second or successive motion to vacate his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 225. In his application, Petitioner relied upon the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, which struck down the “residual clause” of the ACCA as unconstitutionally vague. The First Circuit granted the application, allowing Petitioner to file his petition with the district court, and certified that Petitioner had made the requisite prima facie showing that the new constitutional rule announced in Johnson qualified as a basis for habeas relief on a second or successive petition. View "Pakala v. United States" on Justia Law

In 2006, Appellants - Paul A. DeCologero, Paul J. DeCologero, and John P. DeCologero, Jr. - were convicted of violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and related crimes. In 2011, all three appellants filed motions under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate their convictions, arguing that the government violated their Fifth Amendment due process rights under Brady v. Maryland by failing to disclose exculpatory evidence before trial. The district court denied the motions, concluding that the prosecution team was not aware of the reports before trial and that, even if the prosecution team had been aware of the reports, the reports were not material for Brady purposes. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court correctly found that the reports were not material. View "DeCologero v. United States" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Russell Rose and Kelvin Frye were convicted of conspiring to distribute arising from their respective roles in a Cape Cod-based drug-distribution conspiracy. The First Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentences, holding (1) no error occurred in the authorization of the government’s applications for phone wiretaps that produced tapes of intercepted phone calls between the co-conspirators; (2) the government properly utilized its central witness, and the witness’s testimony was not improper overview testimony; (3) a jury would have convicted Defendants even if evidence recovered from the search of the curtilage of Rose’s home was improperly admitted; and (4) even the district court violated Alleyne v. United States in sentencing Defendants, neither party could establish the necessary prejudice to sustain their claim of Alleyne error. View "United States v. Rose" on Justia Law

In 1998, Jason Davis received a punitive damages award in a federal civil rights action that he brought against six state employees, who were held responsible for restraining and beating him in a state mental hospital. In 2009, Joshua Messier was killed while being restrained by multiple corrections officers. The personal representative of Messier’s estate brought suit against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and others. The Messier case settled, resulting in the payment of $2 million from Massachusetts. In 2014, Appellant, in his capacity as the personal representative of Davis’s estate, filed a complaint in the district court alleging that former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and former Attorney General Martha Coakley violated the Davis estate’s due process and equal protection rights by agreeing to settle the Messier case while, at the same time, refusing to pay for the outstanding punitive damages award owed to the Davis estate. The district court granted Patrick and Coakley’s motion to dismiss. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that Appellant’s due process and equal protection arguments were without merit. View "Davis v. Coakley" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was whether an ordinance in the City of Portland, Maine that prohibited standing, sitting, staying, driving, or parking on median strips violated the First Amendment. The district court ruled in favor of Plaintiffs, concluding that the ordinance violated their freedom of speech. The court permanently enjoined the City from enforcing the ordinance in any respect. The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s permanent injunction barring the ordinance’s enforcement, holding that the ordinance violates the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech because it indiscriminately bans virtually all expressive activity in all of the City’s median strips and is not narrowly tailored to serve the City’s interest in protecting people in the streets and in protecting people on medians. View "Cutting v. City of Portland, Maine" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendants Jose Laureano-Salgado, Pedro Ramirez-Rivera, and Ismael Cruz-Ramos were convicted of multiple drug and gun offenses. Defendants were all sentenced to life in prison. The First Circuit (1) vacated Cruz-Ramos’s conviction and sentence and remanded his case for a new trial, holding that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the fruits of a police search of his home and car and that including the erroneously admitted evidence at trial was not harmless; and (2) affirmed Laureano-Salgado’s and Ramirez-Rivera’s convictions and sentences, holding that the evidence was sufficient to support their convictions, that there was no merit to Defendants’ claims regarding jury selection, that the district court’s evidentiary rulings made during the trial did not amount to reversible error, that the jury was properly instructed, and that there was no sentencing error. View "United States v. Ramirez-Rivera" on Justia Law