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FELICIA QUIZEL MORGAN, by her next friend, Sha’Vonne
Morgan,
Plaintiff-Appellant/Cross-Appellee,
v.
WAYNE COUNTY, MICHIGAN; SERGEANT ARELIA
PENDERGRASS; DEPUTY LEONARD DAVIS; DEPUTY KEISA
CLARK,
Defendants-Appellees/Cross-Appellants. |
Nos. 21-1411/1450 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Port Huron.
No. 3:17-cv-12094—Robert H. Cleland, District Judge.
Argued: March 9, 2022
Decided and Filed: May 3, 2022
Before: BATCHELDER, GIBBONS, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
Plaintiff Felicia Morgan has long suffered from mental illness and has spent a large
portion of her life incarcerated. While imprisoned, Morgan was temporarily moved to United
Community Hospital (UCH), a private contractor that housed severely mentally ill inmates for
Wayne County, Michigan. Three Wayne County deputies were scheduled to supervise the
inmates in the UCH ward at all times. But on the afternoon of November 15, 2005, one deputy
took his lunch break and a second left to use the restroom, leaving only one deputy in the unit.
During those moments, there was a sexual encounter between Morgan and another inmate. After
her release from prison, Morgan filed this lawsuit, alleging that the county and the on-duty
deputies were deliberately indifferent to a serious risk of harm to her. The district court entered
judgment in favor of defendants, and we affirm. |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
DOMINIQUE MCKENZIE,
Defendant-Appellant. |
No. 21-5295 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville.
No. 3:19-cr-00064-1—Katherine A. Crytzer, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: May 3, 2022
Before: ROGERS, KETHLEDGE, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Federal law makes it a crime for so-called “straw purchasers”
to tell licensed firearms dealers that they are buying a firearm for themselves when, in fact, they
are buying it for someone else. 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6); Abramski v. United States, 573 U.S. 169,
179–89 (2014). Straw purchasers sometimes engage in these stealth transactions because the
true buyers (for example, felons) cannot buy guns themselves. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). These
types of straw purchases raise heightened safety concerns, so the Sentencing Guidelines instruct
courts to increase a straw purchaser’s potential sentence in certain cases if the purchaser had
“knowledge” or “reason to believe” that the true buyer could not lawfully possess the firearm.
U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(4)(B).
What does it take for a straw purchaser to have “reason to believe” that the true buyer
cannot lawfully possess the gun? This case raises that question. Dominique McKenzie admits
that he was a straw purchaser for two individuals but disputes that he had “reason to believe” that
they could not possess firearms. We interpret that phrase—one commonly used in the probable-cause context—to require, at most, that a straw purchaser know of facts creating a fair
probability that the true buyer could not possess a firearm. And we agree with the district court
that McKenzie had knowledge of such facts in this case. We thus affirm its use of this guideline. |
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MARLON PORTIS, JR. (20-3776); DEMONTE THOMPSON
(20-3780),
Petitioners-Appellants,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent-Appellee. |
Nos. 20-3776/3780 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Cleveland.
Nos. 1:12-cr-00131, 1:20-cv-00760 (Portis), and 1:20-cv-00763 (Thompson);
Patricia A. Gaughan, Chief District Judge.
Decided and Filed: May 3, 2022
Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; McKEAGUE and WHITE, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
SUTTON, Chief Judge. Marlon Portis and Demonte Thompson pleaded guilty to
conspiring to rob electronics stores and to using firearms in the process. The plea agreements
prohibited the defendants from bringing direct or collateral challenges to their convictions.
Relying on a later U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited what offenses qualify as crimes of
violence, United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 2336 (2019), they filed these collateral
challenges to their firearms convictions under § 2255, claiming that this change in law permits
them to sidestep the plea agreements’ prohibitions on bringing collateral challenges to their
convictions. Because they knowingly and voluntarily waived these challenges in their plea
agreements and because later developments in the law do not permit the parties to the contract—
whether the government or a criminal defendant—to back out of their obligations, see United
States v. Bradley, 400 F.3d 459, 463 (6th Cir. 2005), we dismiss their appeals. |
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