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The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed and remanded a Title IX case involving a murder in a college dorm in Pennsylvania. The decision sets an important new precedent: A university may be held liable under Title IX for actions by non-students. Read the court’s full opinion and thousands more with a free trial of Westlaw Edge. Night Out Ends in Murder On February 7, 2015, Millersville University freshman Karlie Hall went to a party at a fraternity house with her boyfriend, Gregorio Orrostieta....

In a Title VII action claiming that Defendant failed to promote Plaintiff on the basis of her race and sex, summary judgment for Defendant is affirmed in part, where Plaintiff failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Defendant’s claim of mistake was a pretext for race discrimination; but reversed in part, where the combination of close temporal proximity between an employer’s heightened scrutiny and plaintiff’s filing of an EEOC charge is sufficient to establish the causal nexus needed to establish a prima facie case of retaliation....

Defendant’s child pornography sentence is affirmed where, applying a “limited context” test that permits consideration of the context in which the pornographic photographs were taken but limits the consideration of contextual evidence to the circumstances directly related to the taking of the images, the court determines that certain photos at issue were “lascivious” under the Sentencing Guidelines. Read US v. Brown, No. 07-4197 Appellate Information Submitted: April 22, 2009 Decided and Filed: August 26, 2009...

Defendant’s drug manufacturing sentence is affirmed where: 1) the district court’s conclusion that the transaction at issue did not end until the crack was delivered was well supported by the evidence; 2) defendant’s extensive dealing with controlled substances and previous crimes were adequate grounds for not granting a downward departure based on the powder/crack disparity; and 3) the district court’s failure to find sentencing entrapment was not clearly erroneous. Read US v....

Defendant’s firearm possession conviction and sentence are affirmed where 1) arresting officers had probable cause to believe that defendant had obtained his vehicle through fraud; and 2) the record contained sufficient evidence to support the district court’s finding that defendant had intended to use the incendiary devices at issue for terrorism. Read US v. Noster, No. 07-50391 Appellate Information Argued October 23, 2008 Submitted July 15, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Callahan...

Defendant’s drug manufacturing conviction is affirmed where: 1) defendant could not show that the police invaded an area in which he possessed a reasonable expectation of privacy when they walked up his driveway and attached a tracking device to his vehicle; and 2) the police did not conduct an impermissible search of defendant’s car by monitoring its location with mobile tracking devices. Read US v. Pineda-Moreno, No. 08-30385 Appellate Information...

Lundstrom v. Romero, No. 08-2254, concerned a civil rights action claiming a prolonged detention of plaintiffs. The court reversed summary judgment for defendant-officers, holding that plaintiffs alleged facts sufficient to demonstrate the officers violated their clearly established constitutional rights because, while the circumstances the officers confronted initially supported a brief investigatory detention, objectively reasonable officers would not have prolonged the detention and searched the home on the facts before them....

Racial discrimination in the workforce is a common claim in employment lawsuits, but last week the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals looked at a case involving reverse race bias. The appeals court reinstated a jury verdict on the race-bias issue, ruling in favor of a Caucasian school district administrator who alleged that he was the victim of racial discrimination by a majority-black school board in Arkansas. In 2007, the Lee County school board in Arkansas changed from having a majority of Caucasian board members to having a majority of African-American board members....

The operator of a home hospice care company had his Medicare fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering convictions upheld by the Third Circuit recently. Matthew Kolodesh had claimed that his conviction was obtained through prosecutorial misconduct. He alleged that the prosecutors improperly relied upon a recording of him planning to defraud Medicare and improperly introduced stereotypes that Russians sought to “game the system.” The Third Circuit, however, disagreed, finding that the prosecutor’s actions were appropriate given the context....

After losing in front of a Ninth Circuit panel, the States of Idaho and Nevada petitioned the full court for an en banc rehearing in Latta v. Otter. A majority of non-recused active judges didn’t vote for en banc hearing. But that doesn’t mean some of them aren’t upset! Judges Diarmuid O’Scannlain, Carlos Bea, and Johnnie Rawlinson filed a 24-page dissental arguing that “the same-sex marriage debate is not over” because the Sixth Circuit – alone among the other circuits to decide the issue – upheld laws prohibiting same-sex marriage....

In Hassan v. Holder, No. 09-3243, the Sixth Circuit dealt with a petition for review BIA’s final orders in removal proceedings of a Palestinian Muslim couple, born and raised in Jerusalem, Israel. In granting the petition, the court affirmed in part the decision of the BIA rejecting petitioners’ claim that the IJ should have recused herself. However, the judgment of the Board with respect to its ruling that the government met its burden of proving petitioners were married prior to their entry into the U....

Just so we’re clear, hitting someone over the head with a martini glass is not a very masculine way to get arrested. But, according to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, it’s not necessarily a “violent or dangerous” crime that serves as grounds for removal. On January 1, 2005, Waldron and his wife, Tamara, attended a New Year’s party at a St. Louis restaurant. As they were attempting to leave, Waldron and another patron got into an argument that escalated into a physical altercation....

There’s some interesting summer action happening in the Seventh Circuit – summer time is no time for fun and games, apparently. As things heat up outside, they are heating up headlines and court rooms as we wait on some key decisions. Read on to find out more on John Doe Probes, Rod Blagojovich and the latest trend in contraception mandate litigation. John Doe Documents Released John Doe probes are a procedure in Wisconsin that are overseen by judges and “allow prosecutors to compel people to produce documents and give testimony,” according to the Journal Sentinel....

In what appears to be a novel issue before federal courts, a former employee of Disney Streaming Service had his lawsuit alleging pregnancy discrimination under Title VII dismissed. The complaint alleged that Disney discriminated against and harassed him because he would soon be a father. The actions he said were discriminatory included his belief that employees hacked into his private computer, said that he “shouldn’t have a kid,” and questioned if he had a good reason to have a child....

US v. Quiles, 09-1667, concerned a challenge to the district court’s denial of defendants’ motions for a new trial, in a conviction of defendants’ for money laundering and related crimes in connection with their check cashing business. In affirming the judgment, the court held that the interest of justice does not require a new trial as the new evidence of defendants’ principal adverse witness’s indictment for child rape and other crimes is merely impeaching....

It’s been an unusually busy day on First Street, with the court granting certiorari in two cases after yesterday’s conference, and with a minor surprise in the ongoing nationwide litigation over Aereo, a service that streams local broadcast channels over the internet to subscribers. The two new cases, Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoefer and Loughrin v. United States both involve banks, but that’s where the similarities end. The former case asks whether a bank has a fiduciary duty to divest stock in itself from employees’ stock plans when it knows or should know that it is engaging in risky (subprime lending) business practices....

The eight-justice Supreme Court has deadlocked several times since Justice Scalia’s passing last February. Four-four ties have left important cases undecided (last term’s Friedrichs and U.S. v. Texas opinions), seen urgent issues returned to lower courts (the remand of Zubik), and prompted litigants to settle, rather than pursue their cases. Now, the Court’s deadlock has its first actual, human victim. Yesterday, the Court split four-four over a last-minute request for a stay of execution by Ronald Smith, a convicted murderer in Alabama whose jury rejected the death penalty – only to be overridden by the judge....

Word on the street is, this August, Judge R. Guy Cole, Jr. will succeed current-Chief Judge Alice Batchelder. Why? The Sixth Circuit Appellate Blog doesn’t provide a reason, but we suspect that it has something to do with the ageist rules of succession for chief judges of circuit courts, set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 45. How is the chief chosen? Here are the prerequisites: At least one year of active service on the circuit court; Sixty-four years of age or younger; Never served as chief judge....

In a petition for review of the BIA’s denial of petitioner’s motion to reconsider its rejection of his appeal of an Immigration Judge’s decision as being untimely filed, the petition is dismissed where the BIA’s denial of petitioner’s motion was an exercise of routine discretion. Read Turcios v. Holder, No. 05-72258 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted April 15, 2009 Filed September 29, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Siler Dissent by Judge Kleinfeld...

Defendant’s conviction for malicious interference with a military radio system is affirmed, where Defendant waived his right to counsel knowingly and intelligently, because the prosecutor did not err in including the potential sentencing enhancements in his calculation of the maximum possible penalty provided by law. Read US v. Gerritsen, No. 06-50552 Appellate Information Argued and Submitted January 13, 2009 Filed July 10, 2009 Judges Opinion by Judge Ikuta Counsel For Appellant:...