Latest 2 Cases: M.D. v. Abbott (Civil Procedure), United States v. Barry (Criminal Law)

Is the So-Called Mandate Without Any Tax Consequences Unconstitutional? And If So, How Should a Court Remedy That? Part Three in a Series Examining Underexplored Issues in the California v. Texas Affordable Care Act Case

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR, EVAN CAMINKER, JASON MAZZONE

In this third of a series of columns examining underexplored issues in the California v. Texas case challenging the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Illinois law dean Vikram David Amar, Michigan Law dean emeritus Evan Caminker, and Illinois law professor Jason Mazzone consider whether the so-called individual mandate of the ACA, now without any tax consequences, is unconstitutional, as the challengers argue. The authors explain why, in their view, the challengers are incorrect, regardless of whether the word “shall” in the ACA is interpreted as obligatory or not.

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M.D. v. Abbott

Docket: 19-41015

Opinion Date: October 16, 2020

Judge: James C. Ho

Areas of Law: Civil Procedure, Government & Administrative Law

Plaintiffs, a certified class of minor children in the permanent managing conservatorship (PMC) of the Texas Department of Family Protective Services, filed 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims alleging that the Texas foster-care system violated their substantive due process right to be free from an unreasonable risk of harm. The district court issued a wide-ranging permanent injunction imposing sweeping changes on the Texas foster-care system. The Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded the injunction to the district court for modification; the district court made additional modifications to the injunction; and the state appealed again. The Fifth Circuit then instructed the district court to begin implementing, without further changes, the modified injunction with the alterations the court made. On remand, however, the district court expanded the injunction again by enjoining the state from moving any PMC child from their current placement as a result of enforcement of the court's requirement for 24-hour awake-night supervision unless application is made to the court prior to the proposed discharge. The Fifth Circuit reversed and held that it is black-letter law that a district court must comply with a mandate issued by an appellate court. The Fifth Circuit remanded to the district court to begin implementing, without further changes, the modified injunction with the alterations the court has made.

United States v. Barry

Docket: 19-11091

Opinion Date: October 16, 2020

Judge: Jerry Edwin Smith

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Defendant admitted to selling 122 grams, but his sentence was based on the sale of 1,023.5 grams as a result of the conversion of $14,658 to 852.2 grams in calculating the drug quantity. The court held that the district court did not clearly err by implicitly finding that the amount of drugs seized did not reflect the scale of the offense and by inferring that the $14,658 came from the sale of 852.2 grams of meth. The court rejected defendant's claim that the inclusion of the $14,658 in the drug-quantity calculation on the ground that any drug sales connected to the cash were not relevant conduct. Rather, the court held that there is ample evidence to satisfy the factors in United States v. Rhine, 583 F.3d 878, 886 (5th Cir. 2009). In this case, although there is no direct evidence of what drugs were involved in sales earning the money, the fact that the police seized meth when it took the money is sufficient circumstantial evidence for the district court to conclude the cash resulted from meth sales as well. Furthermore, the police seized the money only two months before the first controlled buy. The court explained that the temporal proximity is a particularly strong indicator of relevance that is enough to overcome weakness in another factor.