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Argued January 17, 2024 — Decided January 29, 2024
Case Type: Civil
Central District of Illinois. No. 22-cv-1269-JES-JEH — James E. Shadid, Judge.
Before FLAUM, EASTERBROOK, and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Governor of Illinois issued an executive order requiring personnel in primary and secondary schools to be tested regularly for the disease unless they had been vaccinated against it. Several persons affected by this order filed suit in state court contending that this requirement offended state law. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief but not damages. While the state case was pending, the same plaintiffs—who had been suspended or fired because they refused to be either tested or vaccinated—filed a federal suit adding damages to the relief they sought. They asserted that the Governor and other public officials had violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments, applied through 42 U.S.C. §1983; Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires the accommodation of religious beliefs, 42 U.S.C. §2000e(j); the federal statute allowing emergency-use authorization of vaccines, 21 U.S.C. §360bbb–3; the Illinois Public Health Act, 20 ILCS 2305/2; the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 775 ILCS 35/15; and the Equal Protection Clause of the Illinois Constitution. These theories encounter procedural problems. For example, a claim under Title VII depends on filing a charge with the EEOC and receiving authority to sue. 42 U.S.C. §2000e–5(b), (f)(1). Yet plaintiffs never furnished the district court with a copy of a right-to-sue letter... The district court did not address these procedural difficulties or consider the merits. Instead it dismissed the federal suit as barred by the rule against claim splitting, an aspect of the doctrine of claim preclusion (res judicata). See Restatement (Second) of Judgments §§ 24–26 (1982). By the time the federal court addressed plaintiffs’ complaint, the state proceeding had ended with a judgment dismissing plaintiffs’ claims as moot—for by then the Governor had rescinded his executive order... AFFIRMED
Submitted January 16, 2024 — Decided January 29, 2024
Case Type: Civil
Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. No. 1:22-cv-02006-MPB-MJD — Matthew P. Brookman, Judge.
Before DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge; MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge; DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
In his lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Mark VandenBoom alleged that an Indiana medical review panel violated his civil rights when it concluded that he was not the victim of medical malpractice. The district judge dismissed his complaint because it was untimely and because the alleged violations of state law could not amount to a deprivation of due process under the federal Constitution. We affirm.
Argued November 28, 2022 — Decided January 30, 2024
Case Type: Civil
Southern District of Indiana, Terre Haute Division. No. 2:17-cv-00483-JPH-MJD — James Patrick Hanlon, Judge.
Before ROVNER, ST. EVE, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.
ST. EVE, Circuit Judge, joined by KIRSCH, Circuit Judge, concurring.
ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Benjamin Adams has sued the current and former commissioners of the Indiana Department of Corrections and various other officials at Indiana’s Plainfield Judge Rovner’s opinion represents the opinion of the court except as to Section II.B. That section constitutes Judge Rovner’s dissent as to the due process claim. Judge St. Eve’s separate concurrence, joined by Judge Kirsch, represents the majority opinion as to Adams’ due process claim. Correctional Facility pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, charging them with violating his First and Eighth Amendment rights, as well as his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court resolved all of these claims in favor of the defendants. Adams v. Peltier, 2021 WL 1061223 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 19, 2021). For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
Submitted January 22, 2024 — Decided January 30, 2024
Case Type: Criminal
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 18 CR 105 — John J. Tharp, Jr., Judge.
Before FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge;
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Adam Sprenger pleaded guilty to producing and possessing child pornography. He was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment. On his initial appeal we vacated the production conviction as inconsistent with United States v. Howard, 968 F.3d 717 (7th Cir. 2020), but held that the possession conviction remains valid. We remanded for resentencing. United States v. Sprenger, 14 F.4th 785 (7th Cir. 2021).
Submitted January 31, 2024 — Decided January 31, 2024
Case Type: Criminal
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:16-CR-00462(8) — Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, Chief Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge; DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Oscar Ortiz appeals the 18-year sentence imposed on him for crimes he committed while serving as the chief enforcer of the Latin Kings street gang for a village just west of Chicago. His appointed lawyer, however, asserts that the appeal is frivolous and moves to withdraw. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). Counsel’s brief explains the nature of the case and addresses issues that an appeal of this kind might be expected to involve, and Ortiz has responded. CIR . R. 51(b). Because counsel’s brief appears thorough, we limit our review to subjects that counsel and Ortiz discuss... In his response to counsel’s Anders motion, Ortiz argues that his trial counsel was ineffective in advising him to plead guilty to the § 924(c) charge, rendering that conviction invalid. To the extent Ortiz wishes to pursue this claim, it is best saved for collateral review, where an evidentiary foundation can be fully developed. See Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500, 503–05 (2003). Accordingly, we GRANT counsel’s motion to withdraw and DISMISS the appeal.
Submitted January 31, 2024 — Decided January 31, 2024
Case Type: Criminal
Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. No. 1:21CR00193-012 — James Patrick Hanlon, Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge; DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Brian McGee pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute 400 grams or more of fentanyl and a substance containing methamphetamine, and the district court sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment and 5 years of supervised release. Despite a broad appeal waiver in his plea agreement, McGee now appeals his sentence. His appointed counsel asserts that the appeal is frivolous and moves to withdraw. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). In her brief, counsel explains the nature of the case and addresses issues that an appeal of this kind would typically involve. Because counsel’s analysis appears thorough, and McGee did not respond to the motion, see C IR . R. 51(b), we limit our review to the subjects that counsel discusses. See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014). We grant the motion and dismiss the appeal.
Argued September 26, 2023 — Decided January 31, 2024
Case Type: Civil
Western District of Wisconsin. No. 22-cv-00250-slc — Stephen L. Crocker, Magistrate Judge.
Before W OOD, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.
WOOD, Circuit Judge. This case tells the tale of four Iranian nationals who hoped to obtain visas to enter the United States. They wanted to reunite with their family members—three U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident—who reside in this country. But the story does not have a happy ending, both because of the applicants’ history and because of the limits on judicial review of consular action. Decades ago, these four people completed mandatory military service in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). After the IRGC was formally designated a terrorist organization many years later, in 2019, consular officers denied all four visa applications on terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds (TRIG). None of the applicants was granted a TRIG exemption. The four visa applicants and their family members (together, the Plaintiffs) then filed this action. They brought various claims against the President of the United States and several federal officials responsible for investigating, processing, and adjudicating immigrant visa applications. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants have a systemic practice of depriving visa applicants the opportunity to establish eligibility for TRIG exemptions, and that this practice violates their rights under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) and (D), and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The district court determined that the doctrine of consular nonreviewability precludes judicial review of this action and dismissed it under FED. R. C IV. P. 12(b)(6). Because the Supreme Court’s decisions in Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972), and Kerry v. Din, 576 U.S. 86 (2015), leave no room for a contrary conclusion, we affirm.
Submitted January 31, 2024 — Decided January 31, 2024
Case Type: Civil
Western District of Wisconsin. No. 23-cv-61-jdp — James D. Peterson, Chief Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge;
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Kristin Bausch sued a Wisconsin judge, a guardian ad litem, and county workers who are involved in her ongoing state case, alleging that the judge did not permit her to oppose an order to garnish from her wages unpaid child support payments. The district court dismissed the case on numerous grounds. We affirm the dismissal based on the requirement that we abstain from interfering in an ongoing family-court proceeding.
Submitted January 31, 2024 — Decided February 1, 2024
Case Type: Criminal
Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. No. 1:21CR00193-003 James Patrick Hanlon, Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge; DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Montez Wells pleaded guilty under Rule 11(c)(1)(C) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to conspiring to distribute controlled substances and was sentenced to 240 months in prison. Although his plea agreement contains a broad appeal waiver, Wells filed a notice of appeal. His appointed counsel contends that the appeal is frivolous and moves to withdraw. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967). Counsel’s brief explains the nature of the appeal and addresses issues that an appeal of this kind might be expected to involve. Because counsel’s analysis appears thorough, and Wells has not responded to the motion, see CIR . R. 51(b), we limit our review to the subjects that counsel discusses. See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014). We grant counsel’s motion and dismiss the appeal.
Submitted January 31, 2024 — Decided February 1, 2024
Case Type: Criminal
Northern District of Illinois, Western Division. No. 3:99-CR-50004(1) — Philip G. Reinhard, Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge; DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Michael Hill appeals the 30-day prison sentence imposed upon the revocation of
his supervised release. Because he has already served that sentence and is no longer in
custody, his lawyer moves to withdraw from the appeal, arguing that it is moot and it
would be frivolous to contend otherwise. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). A
defendant does not have an unqualified constitutional right to counsel in revocation
proceedings, see Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 790–91 (1973), but our practice is to
apply the Anders safeguards to them anyway, see United States v. Wheeler, 814 F.3d 856, 857 (7th Cir. 2016). Counsel’s brief explains the nature of the case and addresses the issue of mootness. The analysis appears thorough, and so we limit our review to the issue counsel discusses and those Hill raises in his Circuit Rule 51(b) response. See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014). Because Hill has completed his sentence and faces no collateral consequences from it, the appeal is moot; therefore, we grant the motion to withdraw and dismiss the appeal.
Submitted January 31, 2024 — Decided February 1, 2024
Case Type: Civil
Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division. No. 3:21-CV-705 DRL — Damon R. Leichty, Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge; DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Latanya Ivens, who had been diagnosed with lupus in 2020, was furloughed from her position as a preschool teacher at Growing Kids in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was scheduled to begin work again in May of that year, but she did not return on the scheduled date because she was concerned about her health. Growing Kids considered her to have voluntarily resigned. Ivens sued Growing Kids for violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 2601–2654, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101–12213, alleging that Growing Kids interfered with her right to take leave and failed to accommodate her disability. The district court granted summary judgment to Growing Kids. Because Ivens has not suffered any damages recoverable under the FMLA and is not a qualified individual under the ADA, we affirm.
Decided February 2, 2024
Case Type: Original proceeding
Petition for a Writ of Mandamus to the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. No. 3:12-cv-00269-bbc — Barbara B. Crabb, Judge.
Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and WOOD and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM. Corey Thomas has a lengthy history of frivolous collateral attacks on his 2009 conviction for bank robbery. His persistence has twice earned him sanctions and a filing bar under Alexander v. United States, 121 F.3d 312 (7th Cir. 1997), directing the clerks of this circuit to return unfiled any more papers he submits attacking his conviction. Thomas asks us to lift the bar so that he may move for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) based on an asserted change in the law. We deny his request but clarify that our Alexander order does not preclude him from moving for a sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(1)(A)... The bar will be lifted immediately on full payment of the fine. Thomas is authorized to submit another motion to modify or rescind the order no earlier than two years from the date of this decision.
Submitted January 31, 2024 — Decided February 2, 2024
Case Type: Prisoner
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 89-cv-3890 — Steven C. Seeger, Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge; DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Mario Lloyd was convicted in 1990 of crimes related to cocaine trafficking and is serving multiple concurrent life sentences. See United States v. Walker, 25 F.3d 540 (7th Cir. 1994). He now seeks relief from judgments entered in the related civil forfeiture proceedings, asserting that the government colluded with his former attorneys to commit a fraud on the court. The district court denied Lloyd’s motion for relief from the judgment. Because there is no evidence of the supposed fraud, we affirm.
Submitted January 31, 2024 — Decided February 2, 2024
Case Type: Civil
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 23-cv-3749 — Sharon Johnson Coleman, Judge.
By the Court
ORDER
Antoinette Sellers believes that a cancerous mass detected in her lung more than thirty years ago was caused by her prior work in a research laboratory at St. Louis University. In 2023, she sued the university and the doctor who ran the research laboratory, alleging that she only recently became aware of the causal connection when she overheard a conversation (details of which are obscure) between two women at a laundromat. At screening, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), the district court dismissed Sellers’s suit as untimely. The court noted that Sellers had filed her suit well beyond the two-year statute of limitations for personal injury suits in Illinois, and she could not avail herself of the discovery rule because she made no plausible allegations that in 2022 she discovered a connection between her injuries and the defendants... We conclude with the matter of sanctions. Sellers has several unrelated appeals pending before our court, and she appears to have filed briefs that are substantially similar to her brief here. We now warn Sellers that further frivolous appeals may result in sanctions against her, including fines that, if unpaid, may result in a bar on filing papers in any court within this circuit. See Support Systems International, Inc. v. Mack, 45 F.3d 185, 186 (7th Cir. 1995). DISMISSED
Submitted January 30, 2024 — Decided February 2, 2024
Case Type: Criminal
Central District of Illinois. No. 13-cr-10100 — Michael M. Mihm, Judge.
Before FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge; DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
During the COVID-19 pandemic Timothy Babbitt sought compassionate release, see 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A), principally on the ground that his medical conditions made him especially vulnerable to the disease. The district court denied that motion and we affirmed, for two reasons: first, Babbitt had not exhausted administrative remedies, as the statute requires; second, the district judge had not abused his discretion in concluding that Babbitt lacked an extraordinary and compelling reason for release. United States v. Babbitt, No. 20-2866 (7th Cir. June 23, 2021) (nonprecedential disposition). Babbitt then filed two more motions for compassionate release. The United States concedes that he has exhausted administrative remedies. Once again, however, the district judge found that Babbitt has not shown an extraordinary and compelling reason for release. Once again we hold that this decision does not reflect an abuse of discretion... His other arguments (such as his contention that his criminal history was calculated incorrectly at his sentencing in 2014) have been considered but do not require discussion. AFFIRMED
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