In Lookingbill v. Johnson, a Texas death-row inmate convicted of capital murder filed a federal habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 after his state conviction and habeas proceedings were completed. The district court considered cross-motions for summary judgment and the petitioner's request for an evidentiary hearing, ultimately granting the state's motion and dismissing the petition. The court held that the petition was untimely under AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations, which began running after the conclusion of direct review and was not sufficiently tolled by the pendency of the state habeas rehearing, the federal motion for appointment of counsel, or equitable considerations. The opinion explains that the petitioner's filing occurred more than a year after the limitations period, even accounting for statutory tolling during properly filed state post-conviction proceedings.
In Casiano v. United States, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se filed a Bivens action against the United States Attorney and law enforcement officers, alleging malicious prosecution and Fifth Amendment due process violations based on the claimed use of illegally obtained evidence in his underlying 1988 drug conviction and sentencing. The plaintiff sought $50 million in damages and had previously filed multiple unsuccessful habeas petitions under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 challenging the same conviction and sentence. After screening under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, the magistrate judge recommended dismissal, which the district court adopted following de novo review. The court dismissed the claims with prejudice as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, finding they repeated allegations already rejected in prior proceedings as an abuse of the writ and lacked any arguable basis in law or fact.
In United States v. Dominguez, the defendant moved to introduce polygraph test results as substantive evidence of innocence in a criminal prosecution. Following a Daubert hearing, the court denied the motion, applying the flexible inquiry from United States v. Posado and Federal Rules of Evidence 702, 104(a), and 403. The court found the evidence insufficiently reliable, citing the expert's testimony on 70-90% accuracy rates, subjective examiner procedures, potential cultural biases, and drug effects. It further held that any probative value was substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice to the government, as the defendant had not permitted government observers and imposed one-sided conditions for further testing.
The case involved a motion by the Brownsville Herald to dissolve a court order that prohibited interviews with jurors in the criminal trial of Antonio Giraldi and Lourdes Reategui, who were convicted of laundering drug proceeds from the Juan Garcia Abrego syndicate. The court decided to maintain restrictions on direct juror interviews but established a specific procedure requiring court notification to jurors, their consent via response cards, and provision of consenting jurors' names to the press. The core reasoning centered on the need to protect jurors from potential harassment or intimidation by the violent drug organization, while acknowledging First Amendment press freedoms, with such protections extending beyond the trial's conclusion due to ongoing risks near the U.S.-Mexico border.
The case involved plaintiffs who sued in Texas state court in 1992 to recover royalties allegedly owed by defendants including Texaco, which defendants removed to federal court in 1993 on diversity grounds claiming fraudulent joinder of a party. After a magistrate judge denied plaintiffs' timely motion to remand, plaintiffs filed motions seeking to redesignate that order as a recommendation for de novo district court review and for reconsideration of the remand denial. The court first resolved the timeliness of plaintiffs' objections by applying Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6 to add mailing time and exclude weekends and holidays from the ten-day period. It then analyzed whether a remand motion is dispositive under Rule 72 and 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), concluding it is nondispositive and subject to review only for clear error or legal error, consistent with the statute's enumerated list of dispositive motions and the weight of authority.
The case concerns multiple appeals arising from Greyhound Lines' Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing during a 1990 strike by its union-represented employees and related NLRB unfair labor practice allegations. The bankruptcy court modified the automatic stay to permit adjudication of Ohio unemployment compensation claims by striking workers but barred adjustment of Greyhound's experience rating or tax liability; it also classified the NLRB's post-petition backpay claims as general unsecured claims rather than administrative expenses. The district court addressed further issues including estimation of the NLRB's contingent claims under Bankruptcy Code § 502(c) instead of accepting the agency's unilateral calculation, while reviewing the interplay between bankruptcy stays, claim priorities under § 507, and state unemployment proceedings. Core reasoning focused on statutory limits on lifting the stay for governmental units, the unsecured status of post-petition contingent labor claims, and the bankruptcy court's authority to estimate disputed amounts without full NLRB adjudication.
