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

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of conspiring to distribute cocaine base. Appellant was sentenced to seventy months in jail. On appeal, Appellant challenged his conviction and his sentence. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the district court properly admitted testimony from a government agent because the testimony was not improper overview; (2) the trial court did not err in permitting law enforcement officers to interpret for the jury what was taking place on recordings; (3) the government’s failure to lay a foundation for certain identification testimony did not affect Appellant’s substantial rights; and (4) Appellant’s sentence was not violative of Alleyne v. United States. View "United States v. Etienne" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was the regulation by the state of Massachusetts of the display of billboards and other outdoor signage. Plaintiffs, related companies engaged in the business of erecting and displaying billboards and outdoor signage, brought suit against Massachusetts state agencies and officials charged with administering the regulations, alleging, among other things, that the regulations violated Plaintiff’s free speech rights under the First Amendment. The district court dismissed the First Amendment claim for want of standing. The First Circuit reversed the order dismissing the First Amendment claim, holding that Plaintiffs had standing to proceed with their challenge because the complaint plausibly alleged that Plaintiffs were subject to a regulatory permitting scheme that chilled protected expression by granting a state official unbridled discretion over the licensing of their expressive conduct and that posed a real threat of censorship. View "Van Wagner Boston, LLC v. Davey" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, the parents of a minor child with Asperger’s Syndrome, filed suit against the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rico Department of Education under a number of federal and state statutes for alleged retaliation and discrimination against their child. The Commonwealth moved to dismiss the claims against it pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, which the district court granted. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Plaintiffs did not sufficiently plead either discrimination or retaliation, and therefore, dismissal of their federal claims was proper; and (2) Plaintiffs’ argument that the Commonwealth waived its sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment was waived for lack of development. View "Lebron v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico" on Justia Law

Defendant was driving a rental car he had retrieved from his son’s girlfriend when he was stopped by a police officer. The officer subsequently discovered a bag on the passenger seat containing a gun and two boxes of ammunition. Defendant was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the stop was illegal. The district court denied the motion to suppress, concluding that because Defendant was an unlicensed, unauthorized driver of the rental car, he did not have standing to challenge the stop. A jury returned a guilty verdict, and Defendant was sentenced to 210 months in prison. The First Circuit vacated the conviction and remanded for an evidentiary hearing, holding that the district court erred as a matter of law in concluding that Defendant lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the stop. View "United States v. Starks" on Justia Law

The Town of Mendon, Massachusetts set forth zoning restrictions regulating the size and height allowances for buildings operating adult-entertainment businesses, limiting the operating hours of such businesses, and banning the sale or consumption of alcohol on their premises. The stated purposes for these bylaws were to control the secondary effects uniquely related to adult entertainment. Showtime Entertainment, LLC filed suit, claiming (1) the restrictions on its operating hours and size and height of its building were unconstitutional restrictions of expressive activity protected by the First Amendment; and (2) the alcohol restrictions violated the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of Mendon, concluding that the restrictions were sufficiently tailored towards controlling the secondary effects of speech. The First Circuit (1) reversed the summary judgment in favor of Mendon as it related to the bylaws regarding the size, height, and operating hours of Showtime’s business, holding that the bylaws unconstitutionally infringed on Showtime’s right to engage in a protected expressive activity; and (2) certified to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court questions related to Mendon’s restriction on adult entertainment occurring within establishments licensed to serve alcohol. View "Showtime Ent., LLC v. Town of Mendon" on Justia Law

After Plaintiff retired from his employment with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) he filed an administrative claim for employment discrimination, alleging that he was constructively discharged on the basis of his age or national origin. Plaintiff’s claim was denied. Thereafter, Plaintiff filed this action claiming liability under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 1983, the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), and Puerto Rico law. The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants, finding the action time-barred. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) to the extent Plaintiff’s complaint asserted an FTCA claim, it must be dismissed on the grounds that Plaintiff did not present an FTCA claim in his administrative complaint; and (2) Plaintiff’s remaining claims were time-barred. View "Acevedo-Perez v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of failing to register as a sex offender. The plea agreement contained a waiver of appeal provision, which provided that if the court accepted the agreement and sentenced Defendant according to its terms, Defendant would be waiving and permanently surrendering his right to appeal the judgment and sentence. The court accepted Defendant’s guilty plea, and the district court judge sentenced Defendant to twelve months in prison and ten years supervised release. The judge imposed a number of special sex offender conditions as terms of Defendant’s supervised release. Defendant appealed, seeking to vacate the special sex offender conditions. The First Circuit dismissed in part, vacated in part, and remanded, holding that Defendant waived his right to appeal all of the special sex offender conditions of supervised release save the condition providing that Defendant could not use or possess sexually explicit material or frequent any establishments providing pornography or sexual services, as the condition was not announced at sentencing.View "United States v. Santiago" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs were inmates in the Massachusetts state prison system who suffer from HIV. Plaintiffs sued the Massachusetts Department of Corrections after the Department decided, rather than to provide the inmates with monthly or bimonthly supplies of their HIV medications, to dispense the medication only in single doses at the dispensing window. Plaintiffs alleged violations of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act. The district court granted summary judgment for the Department on each of Plaintiffs’ claims. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that Plaintiffs failed to produce adequate evidence of any statutory or constitutional violation. View "Nunes v. Umass Corr. Health" on Justia Law

Officers from the Puerto Rico Police Department stopped a vehicle in which Defendant was a passenger for a traffic infraction. Suspecting that the car may have been stolen, the officers asked the driver to exit the vehicle and open the hood for purposes of inspecting the vehicle identification number on the car’s engine. The driver’s resulting movement revealed a gun tucked into his waistband. Thereafter, the officers ordered Defendant to exit the vehicle and submit to a pat-frisk, which revealed a firearm hidden in Defendant’s waistband. Defendant was subsequently indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Defendant filed a motion to suppress the firearm evidence as the fruit of an illegal search. The district court denied the motion to suppress. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the officers had an objectively reasonable basis to frisk Defendant.View "United States v. Tiru-Plaza" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who suffered from Crohn’s disease, brought suit against the University of Puerto Rico, her former employer, and Marisol Gomez-Mouakad (Gomez), her former supervisor, alleging that the defendants did not renew her employment contract in retaliation for her complaining about disability-discrimination. Plaintiff filed a retaliation against both defendants under the Americans with Disabilities Act and asserted a First Amendment free-speech retaliation claim against Gomez under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Plaintiff failed to show that the defendants’ legitimate, nonretaliatory reasons for not renewing her contract were pretextual; and (2) Plaintiff failed to show that her speech was both protected and a substantial or motivating factor in the defendants’ adverse-employment decision.View "Collazo-Rosado v. Univ. of P.R." on Justia Law