The Eleventh Circuit Board

After repeatedly trying to run a Black family off a public road in Florida, Jordan Patrick Leahy was convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)(B), which (among other things) prohibits using force to interfere with a person enjoying any facility administered by any State because of his race. In United States v. Leahy, the Eleventh Circuit batted away Leahy’s facial challenge to the statute under the Thirteenth Amendment and (complete with a trip through the amendment’s history) found that Congress had a rational basis to conclude that such interference is a “badge or incident of slavery.” [By Colin Garrett].

In United States v. Green, two alleged Gangster Disciples members, Lesley Green and Philmon Chambers, were prosecuted for violent crimes and RICO charges. The primary claims were as follows: (1) there was insufficient evidence that the crimes were committed in furtherance of a gang enterprise; (2) wiretaps captured a phone call coming from outside of Georgia and thus should have been suppressed; (3) the court’s admission of an alleged gang member’s jailhouse letters violated the Confrontation Clause and hearsay evidentiary rules. The panel rejected each claim. Because these defendants were working as directors of the gang, they could be “RICO-ed” for a broad range of gang activity. The wiretap evidence was admissible because although the interception point was outside of Georgia, the “listening location,” where officers first heard the calls, was inside Georgia. Finally, the co-conspirator’s jailhouse letters were lawfully admitted, even those found after Green’s and Chambers’s arrest, because there was no evidence they withdrew from the conspiracy. [By Joe Blum].

Police obtained a search warrant for a particular address, expecting to find Steven Schmitz in possession of contraband there. In executing the warrant, they learned Schmitz didn’t live in the main residence, but instead in one of three efficiency apartments carved out of it. These units used the same mailbox and address (the one cited in the warrant) as the main house, had no individualized markings, and couldn’t be identified as separate units unless someone was standing in the backyard looking at them. After police found what they came for, Schmitz was charged with federal drug and gun crimes. Schmitz moved to suppress the evidence, but the district court didn’t bite, and neither did the Eleventh Circuit. In United States v. Schmitz, the panel held that police had diligently surveilled the property and had no inkling there were separate efficiency apartments, as they only ever saw the building from the front and didn’t see how Schmitz entered the abode. Moreover, they checked local property records and found the address described only as a single-family home. This put the case on all fours with Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 84 (1987), a Supreme Court decision addressing a warrant that similarly described the premises too broadly. In Garrison, the Supreme Court excused the defect because police were reasonable in their mistaken belief. The panel came to the same result here. Our newest Eleventh Circuit jurist, Judge Embry Kidd, wrote a concurrence to point out that precedent also requires reviewing whether police acted reasonably in executing the warrant, once new information came to light. But in any case, he found that they did so here. [By Joe Austin].