Free US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit case summaries from Justia.
If you are unable to see this message, click here to view it in a web browser. | | US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit January 16, 2021 |
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US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Opinions | A.H. v. French | Docket: 20-1772 Opinion Date: January 15, 2021 Judge: John M. Walker Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Education Law | The Second Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion by denying plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs will likely succeed in showing that, as applied, the Dual Enrollment Program's "publicly funded" requirement violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. In this case, A.H., her parents, and the Diocese filed suit against the Agency of Education after A.H.'s application for public funding to the program was denied solely because of her school's religious status. The court concluded that, in these circumstances, the State's reliance on the "publicly funded" requirement as a condition for program eligibility imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion, because it forced Rice Memorial High School, a ministry of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, to chose whether to participate in an otherwise available benefit program or remain a religious institution. At the same time, the requirement puts A.H.'s family to a choice between sending their child to a religious school or receiving benefits. In light of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012, 2021 (2017), the court explained that the denial of a generally available benefit solely on account of religious identity can be justified only by a state interest of the highest order. In this case, the Agency has not identified any compelling interest that could survive strict scrutiny. The court also concluded that the remaining preliminary injunction factors favor a preliminary injunction. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment and granted the motion for a preliminary injunction. | | United States v. Gatto | Docket: 19-0783 Opinion Date: January 15, 2021 Judge: Chin Areas of Law: Criminal Law, Entertainment & Sports Law | The Second Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1343, 1349. Defendants' conviction stemmed from their involvement in a scheme to defraud universities of athletic-based financial aid when they made secret cash payments to the families of college basketball recruits, thereby rendering the recruits ineligible to play for the universities. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the wire fraud convictions where defendants have not shown that the government failed to present evidence for any rational trier of fact to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was a scheme to defraud. Furthermore, the jury was also presented with enough evidence for a rational trier of fact to find that the Universities' athletic-based aid was "an object" of their scheme. In this case, the jury could have reasonably found that defendants deprived the Universities of property -- athletic-based aid that they could have awarded to students who were eligible to play -- by breaking NCAA rules and depriving the Universities of relevant information through fundamentally dishonest means. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in its evidentiary rulings and did not commit reversible error in its instructions to the jury. | |
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