Justia U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), states that provide special education funds are eligible for federal funds to implement state-wide special education programs that guarantee a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to eligible disabled children, 20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(1)(A). Pennsylvania enacted 24 P.S. 25-2509.5, its special education funding formula, under which each school district receives a base supplement, calculated by apportioning the total amount of base supplement money available among all districts based on the average daily membership of the district from the prior year under the assumption that 16% of students in each district are disabled. Plaintiffs, disabled students who attend schools in districts with a 17% or greater enrollment of special needs students and with a market value/personal income ratio of .65 or greater, claimed that Pennsylvania’s method violates IDEA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act The district court found that the formula did not deprive the class of a FAPE as required by the IDEA and did not discriminate in violation of either the ADA or RA. The Third Circuit affirmed, noting that there was no evidence that any class member was deprived of a service available to nonclass members. View "CG v. PA Dep't of Educ." on Justia Law

Since September 11, 2001, efforts to restructure the FBI as the “domestic equivalent” of the Central Intelligence Agency have included revising internal FBI guidelines. The Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG), released by the Attorney General in 2008, authorizes FBI agents to engage in limited racial and ethnic profiling when conducting proactive assessments of criminal and terrorist threats and allows the FBI to collect and map data related to “[f]ocused behavioral characteristics reasonably believed to be associated with a particular criminal or terrorist element of an ethnic community.” The ACLU launched an initiative entitled “Mapping the FBI,” including a series of coordinated FOIA requests (28 U.S.C. 552(a)(3)(A)) seeking records related to the FBI’s use of ethnic and racial data. One request targeted six FBI field offices in New Jersey and sought information concerning implementation of authority to collect information and map racial and ethnic demographics and behaviors in local communities. The FBI identified 782 pages of potentially responsive records, eventually released 312 pages (some of which were partially redacted), withheld 186 pages as duplicative, and withheld 284 pages as exempt from disclosure. The ACLU sought an injunction for release of the withheld records. The district court ruled in favor of the FBI. The Third Circuit affirmed, rejecting a challenge to the in camera procedure employed for determining whether reliance on FOIA exclusion provision was justified.View "Am. Civil Liberties Union v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation" on Justia Law

Doreen Proctor’s body was found beside a Pennsylvania country road in 1992, shot in the head and chest, badly beaten, and stabbed repeatedly. She had been scheduled to testify that day as a witness against Tyler, the defendant’s brother, in state court, as a confidential informant in making four controlled buys of cocaine from Tyler and from three other individuals: Evans, Hodge, and Brooks. She had testified against the four at their preliminary hearing and her testimony at Hodge’s trial resulted in a conviction. After Proctor’s death, the remaining trials were halted. Defendant was acquitted of murdering Proctor, but convicted of witness intimidation and served a term in state prison. After his release, federal prosecutors charged him with witness tampering by murder and by intimidation, 18 U.S.C. 1512. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The conviction was affirmed. In 2009 the defendant filed a pro se motion, arguing that two recent Supreme Court decisions limited the scope of the witness tampering statute and rendered the acts for which he was convicted non-criminal. The district court denied relief. The Third Circuit remanded for an evidentiary hearing to give defendant an opportunity to present evidence of actual evidence. View "United States v. Tyler" on Justia Law

In 2010 the Supreme Court held, in Miller v. Alabama, that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. Three individuals, each serving a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole for offenses committed as juveniles, sought authorization to file successive habeas corpus petitions under 28 U.S.C. 2254 and 2255 to raise Miller claims. The parties agreed that Miller states a new rule of constitutional law, but Pennsylvania (the state in which two petitioners were convicted) argued that Miller was not retroactive; the federal prosecutor claimed that Miller was retroactive but that the other petitioner’s sentence satisfied the new Miller rule. The Third Circuit found that the petitioners had made a prima facie showing that Miller is retroactive and authorized successive habeas petitions. View "In re: Grant" on Justia Law

Figueroa joined the Camden police force in 2003. In 2008, he was transferred to a new Special Operations Unit created to target guns, drugs and violence with his regular partner, Bayard. In 2011, Figueroa and Bayard were charged with a series of civil rights violations concerning falsification of evidence in drug cases. Convicted under 18 U.S.C. 241 and 242, Figueroa was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The Third Circuit affirmed, rejecting claims that the district court erred by admitting the out-of-court statement of co-defendant Bayard; by excluding, as cumulative, police reports that Figueroa offered into evidence; by allowing improper expert opinion testimony from a prosecution fact witness on issues of constitutional law; and by refusing to give the jury a requested instruction concerning specific intent. The court properly applied the drug distribution sentencing guideline to the civil rights violations after finding beyond a reasonable doubt that Figueroa was involved in distribution of narcotics. View "United States v. Figueroa" on Justia Law

In 1998 Keitel was convicted of first degree murder, third degree murder, aggravated assault, and five counts of recklessly endangering another person. His aggregate sentence was life imprisonment plus 35-70 years of imprisonment. Keitel’s appeals of the conviction and sentence were unsuccessful, as were his efforts to seek relief under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act. The federal district court denied his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. 2254. While an appeal was pending, Keitel died. His family wanted to pursue the appeal to clear his name. The Third Circuit dismissed the appeal as moot, View "Keitel v. Mazurkiewicz" on Justia Law

Small, a New Jersey state prisoner, is paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair. He filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, asserting 14 incidents involving use of excessive force, denial of medical treatment, and confiscation of his personal wheelchair and its replacement with one without leg rests. He claims that without his personal chair he was unable to brush his teeth, shower, and sometimes left to lie for days in his own excrement. The district court dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies by filing grievances, as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a). The Third Circuit affirmed in part, holding that a judge may resolve factual disputes relevant to the exhaustion issue without participation of a jury and that that Small knew of, and was able to access, the prison’s grievance procedures, but that Small did adequately exhaust remedies with respect to two incidents. View "Small v. Whittick" on Justia Law

A 2010 fire at an apartment in Erie, Pennsylvania took the lives of a tenant and her guest. The third-floor bedroom purportedly lacked a smoke detector and an alternate means of egress, both of which are required under the Section 8 housing choice voucher program (42 U.S.C. 1437f) in which Richardson participated. The district court rejected a defense of qualified immunity in a suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 by the estates of the deceased. The Third Circuit reversed. State officials’ approval and subsidization of the apartment for the Section 8 program, even though the apartment allegedly failed to comply with Section 8’s standards, did not constitute a state-created danger toward the apartment’s tenant and her guest in violation of their constitutional substantive due process rights. View "Henry v. City of Erie" on Justia Law

Verde, a native of Mexico, became a lawful permanent resident in 1991. After several DUI convictions, he was sentenced to more than two years in prison. In 1998, Verde was charged with removability as an “aggravated felon.” He appeared before an immigration judge with seven other Mexican nationals, was deported, returned, and was removed for a second time in 2000. In 2011 the removal order was reinstated and he was charged with illegal reentry, 8 U.S.C. 1326. The government dropped that charge and allowed him to plead guilty to use of a false Social Security number, 42 U.S.C. 408(a)(7)(B). He was sentenced to time served and supervised release. Verde filed a habeas corpus petition seeking to be reinstated as a permanent resident or to be granted cancellation of removal, arguing that his initial removal was a gross miscarriage of justice because of procedural shortcomings and that, because the Supreme Court has decided that a DUI conviction is not an aggravated felony, his conviction was not a valid basis for original removal. The district court dismissed Verde’s petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, reasoning that the REAL ID Act of 2005, 8 U.S.C. 1101, eliminated habeas relief in district courts for aliens challenging orders of removal. The Third Circuit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. View "Verde-Rodriguez v. Att'y Gen of the United States" on Justia Law

African-American and Hispanic borrowers under National City Bank mortgages, 2006-2007, sued, alleging violation of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3605, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S.C. 1691, by an established pattern or practice of racial discrimination in the financing of home purchases. They cited National’s “Discretionary Pricing Policy,” under which brokers and loan officers could add a subjective surcharge of points, fees, and credit costs to an otherwise objective, risk-based rate, so that minority applicants were “charged a disproportionately greater amount in non-risk-related charges than similarly-situated Caucasian persons.” During discovery, National provided data on more than two million loans issued from 2001 to 2008. After mediation, the parties reached a proposed settlement: National did not concede wrongdoing, but would pay $7,500 to each named plaintiff, $200 to each class payee, $75,000 to two organizations for counseling and other services for the class, and $2,100,000 in attorneys’ fees. After granting preliminary approval and certification of the proposed class, the district court considered the Supreme Court’s 2011 decision, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, and held that the class failed to meet Rule 23(a)’s commonality and typicality requirements and denied certification. The Third Circuit affirmed, noting that the proposed class is national, with 153,000 plaintiffs who obtained loans at more than 1,400 branches; significant disparity in one branch or region could skew the average, producing results indicating national disparity, when the problem may be more localized. View "Rodriguez v. Nat'l City Bank" on Justia Law