7th Circuit Cases for May and June
The last two months brought a number of interesting cases including a challenge to a Dropbox search, some 4A cases, a coroner keeping mementos from the bodies of crime victims and a would-be pornographer claiming he lacked knowledge his victim was 16.
United States of America v. Adam Blocker, No. 25-1536: The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently addressed similar issues in Gasper and Rauch-Sharak. Here, Blocker alleges that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when Dropbox alerted NCMEC that he was storing CSAM on their servers. He argues that because NCMEC has been construed as a government entity in previous decisions of the Seventh, that Dropbox’s cooperation with that entity makes this a non-private search. The Court is skeptical of this reasoning, analogizing the situation to Federal Express alerting the government that illegal drugs are present in a parcel. In any case, it doesn’t have to resolve the case on those grounds, instead standing by the contract-based holding of the district court, which found that Blocker effectively consented to Dropbox’s conduct by accepting their TOS.
Calvin D. Lee v. Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, No. 24-1945: Although the Seventh finds some of Lee’s allegations about the lack of mental health treatment at the Milwaukee County Jail “troubling” in this civil rights case, it ultimately affirms given the “sparse” record before it.
United States of America v. Dennis McKay, No. 24-2015: The Seventh hews to prior precedent and vacates a condition of supervision as impermissibly vague. The vacated condition “allows the probation officer, if he believes the defendant ‘pose[s] a risk to another person (including an organization or members of the community),’ to require the defendant himself to disclose that risk to the affected person. The probation officer may then contact that person to verify whether the defendant has disclosed the risk.”
United States of America v. William Fillyaw, No. 25-1836: Law enforcement had a warrant to arrest Fillyaw. He was arrested in a parking lot after stepping out of his car with a backpack. Officers arrested Fillyaw, took the backpack, and searched its contents. The Seventh holds that officers acted reasonably in taking custody of Fillyaw’s private property in these circumstances and that the “inventory search” exception permitted them to peek inside it.
United States of America v. Clifton Coleman, No. 23-2760: Here’s an interesting application of the Brady rule, as Clifton argues that nondisclosure of recordings by alleged co-conspirators would have disproven the applicability of an enhancer at sentencing. The Court assumes without deciding that the materials were “suppressed” but ultimately finds that Coleman’s claim fails on the materiality prong, especially given that this appellate claim is advanced as a claim of “plain error.”
Frederick D. Jackson v. City of Madison, No. 24-2104: Jackson’s legal saga might be familiar to Madison-area readers. Under disputed circumstances, law enforcement besieged Jackson’s home, broke through the front door with a battering ram, and ultimately stormed the home to arrest him. He was charged and then acquitted of possessing a firearm as a felon. Here, Jackson alleges that police violated several of his rights, including the Fourth Amendment, in this § 1983 appeal. Even though this case presents a close call, the Court ultimately holds that qualified immunity prevents Jackson’s attempt to hold the officers legally responsible. Judge Jackson-Akiwumi writes separately to highlight “the tension between qualified immunity–specifically its ‘clearly established’ prong–and the Constitution.
David W. Watts v. Kevin Jones and Mark Smit, No. 25-1046: Another Wisconsin-originating § 1983 claim, this one from the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility. Watts apparently wrote a letter to the authorities seeking to provide information about a murder. A detective appeared at Watts’s cell, at which time Watts refused to talk. However, he claims that the detective’s visitation still caused him to be “threatened and harassed.” Watts claims that police violated his civil rights by endangering his safety. However, the Court fails to see a clearly established right which has been violated and affirms the lower court order dismissing his lawsuit.
United States of America v. Jesse Mickles, No. 25-2657: During a traffic stop, Mickles admitted there was firearm in his car and that he was a felon. He submitted an affidavit in connection with his plea that he was returning the gun to its rightful owner at the time of the traffic stop. He argues that this affidavit failed to establish a factual basis for the crime. However, the gun’s possession in his car is sufficient to establish constructive possession and his claim that he was returning it is indicia of his control over the object.
Aleksey Ruderman, Arturo Saldivar, and Chris Pocknell v. Kenosha County, Wisconsin, No. 24-2939: Holding that the Kenosha County Jail may have violated a federal statute by forcing civil immigration detainees “to work on pain of solitary confinement or loss of phone contact with the outside world.”
United States of America v. Fernando D. Bolden, No. 25-1734: Bolden challenges a search warrant authorizing the search of a residence, alleging that the affidavit failed to adequately connect Bolden, an alleged drug dealer, with that residence. The Seventh finds that while the affidavit “shows that Bolden was no casual guest” at this residence, it faults the police for failing to offer “greater and more precise support for the facts underlying this conclusion.” The probable cause question is therefore a “close call.” However, the good faith doctrine rescues law enforcement because, even though the affidavit may have been “imprecise” in some respects, there was nothing misleading such that the presumption of good faith would not apply.
Gary Betts and Earl Betts v. Boone County, Illinois and Rebecca Wigget, No. 25-1685: We can’t really find a good excuse for including this in the digest, other than it’s just too weird to ignore. It turns out that the Boone County Coroner had a habit of saving mementos, including the skull of a teenage murder victim. The Court concludes the family does not have redress for that conduct via this § 1983 suit.
Raymond Echevarria v. Darrin Jackson, No. 25-1271: This § 1983 case arises from Echeverria’s detention for alleged public indecency. He was cited for that offense and, under an Illinois law, also had his car towed. To be sure, there are problematic holes in the State’s case, which relies on an anonymous complainant. However, Echeverria matched the description of the suspect and was found where the complainant said the suspect would be. Moreover, even though the identity of the complainant is unknown, that person is not truly “anonymous” because the officer did briefly speak with them. And, even though that person then disappeared during the ensuing investigation, that doesn’t impact the reliability of their tip under these circumstances. Here, the officer corroborated the tip and believed that Echeverria was acting in a “nervous” fashion. Accordingly, there was probable cause for the somewhat-lengthy ensuing seizure.
United States of America v. Cornelius M. Jackson, Nos. 24-1776 & 24-2260: Police received information about suspected human trafficking in Milwaukee and, in the course of investigating that crime, sought a search warrant to seize Jackson’s electronic devices. He argues that the affidavit failed to connect his alleged criminal conduct to those devices. The Seventh disagrees, as the affidavit states that Jackson met one of alleged victims on dating app, that he created a profile for that person on an escort website and that she was instructed to text Jackson about her “dates.” And, while he challenges the expertise of the affiant, that challenge is “too hypertechnical” and rejected. Likewise, his Franks claim also goes nowhere because the omissions in question were not egregious and there was otherwise ample evidence supporting probable cause. Finally, he also challenges the district court’s ruling which permitted a “human trafficking expert” (and former prosecutor) to testify about trafficking lingo, trafficking “rules” and the factors which often lead victims not to to disclose their victimization. Notably, the district court was skeptical about some of the expert’s potential testimony and therefore did not give the prosecution a free hand. In light of the court’s appropriate consideration of the relevant legal standard, the Seventh affirms the use of this expert under a deferential standard of review.
United States of America v. Brian Johnson, Nos. 25-1021 & 24-2887: Here’s an interesting sufficiency appeal involving a child pornography conviction. Johnson operated a scheme whereby he conned well over a hundred women into producing pornography. One of his victims originally told Johnson she was 23. When she tired of his exploitative and harassing conduct, she told him that was really 16 and demanded he delete the material he produced featuring her. Johnson, however, did not believe this victim. Although she later sent him a picture of her driver’s license, he still refused to accept that she was underage when the material was produced and continued to post and distribute it on the internet. Johnson was convicted by the jury but the district court granted his motion for judgment of acquittal. The Seventh reverses, holding there was sufficient “contextual” evidence establishing that Johnson knew the victim was underage.
United States of America v. Deangelo Terrell Banks, No. 24-2227: We’ll end with a dog sniff appeal. Banks was stopped for an alleged traffic violation. At the suppression hearing, however, the officer’s testimony was revealed as “weak” as to whether he had reasonably observed Banks’s alleged failure to signal. However, that weakness actually favored the officer as the district court concluded that his “concessions of uncertainty” were actually indicia of truthfulness, reliability, and credibility. Under the deferential standard of review, this is not clearly erroneous. Although Banks tries to argue that police unlawfully prolonged the stop to conduct a dog sniff, that sniff occurred while Banks was on the phone attempting to verify his insurance information. And, even though the dog’s alert turned out to be a false positive, he does not succeed in undermining the probable cause flowing from that initial alert.