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

Unlike many states, Pennsylvania allows felons to vote immediately upon release from prison. To correct widespread misunderstanding, public-interest organizations planned an advertisement encouraging ex-prisoners to vote. The Port Authority denied a request to place the ad on buses, based on a written policy, prohibiting noncommercial ads. Evidence indicated that, despite the policy, the Authority had accepted many noncommercial ads in recent years. The district court found viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment. The Third Circuit affirmed, noting that the rejection was based on hostility to the ad's message and that the Authority is not now required to accept all noncommercial messages.

The school board has a policy of praying at its regular meetings, routinely attended by students. The district court upheld the policy, based on a Supreme Court holding that Nebraska's practice of opening legislative sessions with a prayer was not a violation of the Establishment Clause. The Third Circuit reversed, holding that a school board may not claim the exception established for legislative bodies and that traditional Establishment Clause principles governing prayer in public schools apply.

Doctors and a patient challenged the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requirement, effective in 2014, that all non-exempt applicable individuals either maintain a certain minimum level of health insurance or pay a monetary penalty (26 U.S.C. 5000A) and a provision that penalizes certain employers if they fail to offer full-time employees the opportunity to enroll in an employer-sponsored insurance plan that satisfies the individual mandate's minimum essential coverage requirement (26 U.S.C. 4980H(a)).The district court dismissed for lack of standing. The Third Circuit affirmed. There is no evidence that the patient-plaintiff or doctors are in any way currently impacted by the law or that harm is imminent.

A task force searching for an escaped fugitive entered the common areas of a multi-unit apartment building. The building had a locked exterior door. An inspector entered through a partially opened side window. Once inside, the task force apprehended defendant in a common-use stairwell, and, after a struggle, defendant informed the inspector he had a firearm. The inspector retrieved the firearm from defendant's pocket. The district court denied his motion to suppress the firearm and the statement made to the inspector. The Third Circuit affirmed, expanding its prior holding that a resident of an unlocked multi-unit apartment building lacks an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the building's common areas. The presence of a locked exterior door does not alter that expectation; the defendant had no control of the common areas.

An essential witness in a rape, robbery, murder prosecution refused to testify because of threats to her family and went as far as pulling a knife on a police officer. She evaded capture during two trials and, after a second conviction was overturned, was jailed as a material witness. A February 2 trial date was continued until May 25; the witness was incarcerated for 54 days before being released. The prosecution did not notify the judge who had ordered the incarceration of the continuance and, when the witness's father died, allowed her only a short visit to the funeral home, in handcuffs. Following a remand, the district court denied the prosecutor qualified immunity with respect to claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Third Circuit affirmed. The incarceration was a seizure, for Fourth Amendment purposes, and a reasonable jury could find the duration unreasonable. As the sole government official in possession of the relevant information, the prosecutor had a duty of disclosure that was neither discretionary nor advocative, but was a purely administrative act, not entitled to the shield of immunity,

Defendant was indicted on one count of attempted possession with intent to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine (21 U.S.C. 846). Following indictment, arrest, and detention, the government sought to collect a DNA sample, relying on 42 U.S.C. 14135a(a)(1)(A), which permits the collection of DNA samples from individuals who are arrested, facing charges, or convicted. The district court concluded that the statute was unconstitutional and prohibited the government from taking the sample prior to conviction. After determining that the matter concerned a collateral order, subject to interlocutory appeal, the Third Circuit reversed. Arrestees have a diminished expectation of privacy in their identities, and DNA collection from arrestees serves important law enforcement interests; such collection is reasonable and does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Petitioner, convicted of armed assault and murder in 1977, is detained in a federal facility in West Virginia. While in prison he was convicted of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. He is serving an aggregate sentence comprised of sentences that were imposed under the D.C. Code and the U.S. Code. The district court denied his habeas corpus petition, reasoning that the U.S. Parole Commission had a rational basis for denying parole (the unusual circumstances of his offenses) and that petitioner was not entitled to benefit from the release-date guarantee under the earlier version of the Sentencing Reform Act because the Commission applied D.C. Code regulations, not the current SRA, in declining to set a parole date. The District Court also denied a certificate of appealability explaining that petitioner, in custody by virtue of a District of Columbia judgment, is considered a state prisoner and had not made the threshold showing for issuance of such a certificate. The First Circuit agreed, stating that petitioner had not made the necessary showing of constitutional violations that would justify issuance of a COA.

Petitioner, serving two consecutive life sentences for murders, exhausted state appeals and filed a federal habeas corpus petition, pro se. The district court dismissed the petition as untimely. Petitioner concedes that his petition was not timely under the one-year statute of limitations of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28 U.S.C. 2254, but contends that equitable tolling should be granted because his inability to speak, read, or write English, coupled with the prison's lack of Spanish-language legal materials and repeated denials of translation assistance, are extraordinary circumstances. The Third Circuit reversed, holding that language inability coupled with lack of assistance can constitute extraordinary circumstances and that petitioner exercised reasonable diligence in pursuing his claims. His claim that the trial court committed a Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause violation under by admitting a non-testifying co-defendant's confession into evidence despite its potential to prejudice petitioner's defense is debatable and requires further development.

Defendant pled guilty to one count of simple possession of a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. 844(a) and his conviction subsequently triggered removal proceedings against him some years later. Defendant filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis to challenge the plea conviction, arguing that his attorney's failure to advise him of the immigration consequences of pleading guilty to a federal drug charge constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Having concluded that defendant's petition failed to allege Strickland v. Washington prejudice and hence was deficient as a matter of law, the district court dismissed the petition without conducting an evidentiary hearing. At issue was whether Padilla v. Kentucky, which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court during the pendency of defendant's appeal, had retroactive applicability. The court held that, because Padilla followed directly from Strickland and long-established professional norms, it was an "old rule" for Teague v. Lane purposes and was retroactively applicable on collateral review. Therefore, the court vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded to that court to decide the case within the framework of Padilla and on the basis of a developed factual record.

In 1985, defendant was found guilty of first-degree murder, terroristic threats, and kidnapping, and sentenced to death. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed. While a state post-conviction petition was pending, a video was released, showing the prosecutor instructing colleagues to exclude potential jurors on the basis of race. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed denial of relief. Defendant's second state petition was rejected as untimely. After an evidentiary hearing, the federal district court granted habeas corpus. The Third Circuit vacated and remanded. Although timely objection is a prerequisite to a "Batson" claim, even for cases decided before Batson, the defense did raise a timely objection. The response that it was impossible to determine the race of jurors and that counsel did not have to give reasons for peremptory challenges was refusal to conduct equal protection analysis, not a finding of fact entitled to deference. The state Post Conviction Relief Act time bar was not regularly followed or firmly established at the time of defendant’s procedural default in 1996; the district court properly allowed an evidentiary hearing despite that default. The defendant established a prima facie Batson violation that the state did not rebut, but the court held that remand for analysis of other evidence relevant to intentional discrimination is preferable to overturning a 25-year-old jury verdict which the state has upheld against numerous challenges and which was predicated on substantial evidence, merely because it would be possible to infer discrimination in jury selection.