Seventh Circuit Cases for September
September brought a couple of criminal and criminal-adjacent cases including
Benjamin Schoenthal et al. v. Kwame Raoul et al., Nos 24-2643 & 24-2644: We flagged this case for those interested in Second Amendment litigation, as it involves a 2A challenge to an Illinois statute which prohibits carrying firearms on public transportation and involves the so-called “sensitive places” exception to an otherwise broadened right to possess firearms. The Court ultimately concludes this restriction is well within a historical tradition of firearm regulation and rejects the statutory challenge.
United States of America v. LaPierre Scott, No. 24-1903: Scott was caught in the act of reaching into the ceiling of an out-of-order public restroom where a gun was later discovered. On appeal, the Court rejects his arguments that he had a privacy interest in that restroom, holds there was sufficient evidence to establish his constructive possession of the gun, and ducks his constitutional challenge to the firearm conviction as he did not adequately present that claim for review.
United States of America v. Christopher Hill, No. 23-1307: At Hill’s trial, two of the potential jurors had familial connections to law enforcement. The judge struck one juror, but not the other. That juror ultimately told the court, when asked if he she would be able to be impartial, “I think so, yes.” While some of the juror’s answers during voir dire are suggestive of partiality, the Court does not believe this was a sufficiently equivocal assertion. “Looking at the entire interaction, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in finding that Juror 55 made credible unequivocal assurances that she could set aside her biases and serve as an impartial juror.”
Tyree M. Neal, Jr. v. United States of America, No. 23-1722: This complicated § 2255 appeal is an interesting read regarding a lawyer’s alleged failure to anticipate a change in the law. As we’ve noted previously, the Seventh Circuit has a much more expansive conception of a lawyer’s duty, in context of an IAC claim, to anticipate favorable changes in the law and a lawyer cannot (as in Wisconsin) merely hide behind the law’s “unsettled” nature. Here, the Court concludes there were sufficient signposts in the law which would have signaled to appellate counsel that a challenge to a recidivism enhancement would have been meritorious. (In fact, the Seventh later ruled in favor of the defense on that very question in a later case.) Yet, the issue was not “clearly stronger” than the issues raised by counsel, so no deficient performance. Sentencing counsel was also not deficient, even though the same argument was “foreseeable” at that time. In this context, given counsel’s zealous advocacy and obvious strategy aimed at reducing the sentencing exposure via other avenues, counsel is not deficient for failing to press an “unsettled” legal question. Finally, rewinding the clock all the way back to the counsel who represented Neal in context of the plea, the Court finds the law was not as developed and the issue too novel at that point so as to render counsel’s conduct objectively unreasonable. Another case issued this month, Otis R. Elion v. United States of America, involves similar issues and a similar result.
United States of America v. John P. Seiwert, No. 23-2553: Again, a case probably of interest only to Second Amendment litigators. Here, the Court rejects a challenge to a federal statute prohibiting “users of unlawful drugs and those addicted to such drugs from possessing a firearm.”
Birt Ford v. Dennis Reagle, No. 21-3061: Another decision that’s probably of interest to habeas practitioners, as it goes deep on the procedural concept as to which state court decision is focused upon for determining the reasonableness of the underlying substantive decision under AEDPA. Having flagged the issue, however, we’ll skip to the merits of the appeal. Here, Ford presents two claims. First, the Court concludes that Ford has failed to develop his claim that his lawyer was ineffective during plea bargaining when he allegedly failed to follow Ford’s directive to attempt pretrial negotiations with the prosecutor. Second, Ford alleges a number of trial errors, including an inept cross-examination that elicited evidence of Ford’s temper in a case where he was alleged to have abused his ex-wife. Although some of these actions appear unwise in hindsight, Ford fails to overcome the double deference accorded to such decisions on habeas review.
Devin Seats v. Mindi Nurse, Warden, No. 23-1279: At sentencing, the state court judge considered the fact that Seats had been previously convicted under Illinois’s aggravated unlawful use of a weapon statute. That statute, however, was later found unconstitutional and, under Illinois law, could not be used as “a predicate felony for any purpose.” After Seats successfully moved to vacate his unlawful prior convictions, he succeeded in getting one of his charges–for being an “armed habitual criminal”–thrown out on appeal, as that conviction depended on those prior convictions as a predicate. However, the state appellate courts refused to grant a resentencing. Unfortunately, the federal court finds that his habeas petition alleging inaccurate information was untimely and, even if it was not, he cannot overcome the deferential standard of review.