Karen Nelson Moore

In United States v. Tarek Fakhuri (part of a consolidated appeal with co-defendants Hamaed, Abdelrazzaq, and Ghussin), four pharmacists were charged with conspiring to commit healthcare and wire fraud after operating five Michigan and Ohio pharmacies that billed Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers for millions of dollars in prescriptions that were never dispensed to patients. They retained labels for unfilled prescriptions, avoided claim reversals, waived copays to boost volume, and sometimes forged signatures or substituted generics during PBM audits, leading to an estimated $13 million loss. After a jury trial, each defendant was convicted on the conspiracy count, with Fakhuri also convicted on one substantive healthcare fraud count; the district court imposed prison sentences ranging from 24 to 120 months and ordered restitution. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed all convictions and sentences, holding that the defendants had not demonstrated reversible error on constitutional, evidentiary, or sentencing grounds. The court specifically rejected Confrontation Clause challenges to expert testimony about invoice reviews, finding that the witness testified based on her own analysis of stipulated data rather than relaying testimonial hearsay from nontestifying analysts.

criminal lawhealthcarebusiness & regulatory

Denis McCormick and his company Farm2Day sued Merlo S.p.A. and its U.S. subsidiary, alleging that after Merlo ended its relationship with prior distributor AMR and began direct U.S. operations, a Merlo representative assured McCormick he could continue selling telehandlers under the same terms, but Merlo instead excluded him from the supply chain. The district court dismissed both the tortious-interference claim and the claim under Michigan’s farm-equipment dealer statute, and denied leave to amend. The Sixth Circuit reversed the dismissal of the tortious-interference claim, holding that McCormick plausibly alleged a valid business expectancy arising from the representative’s statements that Merlo would honor the prior agreement, but affirmed dismissal of the statutory claim because McCormick did not qualify as a “dealer” under the Michigan law’s definition requiring inventory ownership and service obligations. The court also upheld the denial of amendment, finding McCormick had multiple prior opportunities to supplement his pleadings but failed to do so before dismissal.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

David Lynn Vannelli was charged with four federal offenses after he responded to a 13-year-old girl's online post, exchanged explicit messages and images with her, and traveled from South Carolina to Tennessee intending to meet her for sex. He entered a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement calling for a 180-month sentence, but the district court rejected it after reviewing the presentence report, which calculated a guidelines range of 324–405 months and recommended a five-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5(b) for engaging in a pattern of prohibited sexual conduct on multiple occasions. Vannelli declined to withdraw his plea and was sentenced to 252 months. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed both the rejection of the plea agreement and the sentence, holding that the district court acted within its discretion in finding the agreed sentence inadequate and that the multiple-occasions enhancement was properly applied because the solicitation of child pornography and the interstate travel for in-person abuse occurred at different times, in different places, and were different in nature.

criminal law

In United States v. Guy Collins, the defendant appealed the district court’s denial of his second and third motions for early termination of an eight-year term of supervised release following his 2011 conviction for conspiracy to distribute cocaine base. The district court had denied the motions in part by applying its customary practice of requiring defendants to complete at least half their supervised-release term, while offering varying explanations tied to deterrence and public protection under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(1) and the § 3553(a) factors. The Sixth Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion in both orders. It reasoned that the court improperly treated the fifty-percent threshold as a standalone requirement rather than connecting it explicitly to statutory factors, contradicted its own prior finding that further supervision was unnecessary, and failed to justify any change in its assessment. The appeals court therefore vacated the denials and remanded for further proceedings.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved Diego Andres Arateco Munoz, a Colombian citizen facing removal proceedings, who sought review of a Board of Immigration Appeals decision that affirmed an immigration judge’s denial of his application for post-conclusion voluntary departure under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Sixth Circuit denied the petition for review. The court held that the BIA properly considered Arateco Munoz’s two post-application convictions for driving while intoxicated when assessing his good moral character and whether to grant voluntary departure as a matter of discretion. It further reasoned that the multi-year delay in the proceedings did not render the denial fundamentally unfair, as Arateco Munoz could have avoided the convictions through lawful conduct, failed to request that his appeal remain active on the BIA docket, and suffered no independent prejudice from the timing of the decision.

immigrationprocedure

Wydell Dixon was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm after officers found him with a loaded handgun during a 2020 patrol in Cleveland and sentenced to 100 months in prison based on a Guidelines range that included two extra criminal-history points for committing the offense while under state supervision. Amendment 821 to the Sentencing Guidelines later eliminated those points retroactively, making Dixon eligible for a reduced range of 78–97 months, and he moved for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). The district court found him eligible but denied any reduction, determining that his criminal history, characteristics, and the need for deterrence and public protection still supported the original 100-month term. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in weighing the § 3553(a) factors, including Dixon’s prior offenses and post-sentencing rehabilitation, even though the sentence exceeded the amended range.

criminal lawgunsprocedure

Dustin Newsome, a mail carrier, induced nine minors aged 12 to 16 to produce and send him sexually explicit videos and images, often in exchange for alcohol or vape cartridges, and a search of his devices uncovered hundreds of additional child pornography files. He pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor to produce child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. The district court applied two pattern-of-activity enhancements under the Sentencing Guidelines, calculated an advisory range of 360 to 600 months, and imposed a within-Guidelines sentence of 420 months. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not engage in impermissible double counting by applying both enhancements, did not treat the Guidelines as mandatory or fail to explain the sentence, and imposed a substantively reasonable sentence after properly weighing the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. The court rejected Newsome’s additional arguments, including a proposed “reverse corollary” to Tapia v. United States, as unsupported by precedent.

criminal law

The case involved Randi Marie Bruce’s lawsuit against her former employer, Adams & Reese, LLP, alleging sexual harassment by a colleague who transferred with her from a prior firm, along with related disability-discrimination and retaliation claims under the ADA. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the firm’s motion to compel arbitration, holding that Bruce’s complaint alleged sufficient facts to state a plausible sexual-harassment claim under federal pleading standards and that the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (EFAA) rendered the parties’ predispute arbitration agreement unenforceable as to the entire case. The court reasoned that the EFAA’s text, which voids arbitration agreements for any “case which … relates to” a sexual-harassment dispute at the plaintiff’s election, extends beyond the harassment claim itself to encompass the factually intertwined ADA claims. The court further held that the EFAA’s applicability is a threshold question for judicial determination rather than an issue for an arbitrator.

labor & employmentcivil rightsprocedure

In United States v. Maund, three defendants were convicted by a jury in the Middle District of Tennessee of murder-for-hire conspiracy and related kidnapping offenses stemming from the 2020 killings of Holly Williams and William Lanway. Months after the verdict, the district court discovered it had inadvertently provided the jury with ten unadmitted exhibits while withholding three admitted ones, and it granted the defendants a new trial after a hearing, ruling the error structural. The Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that the mistake was not structural and thus subject to harmless-error review. It concluded the error was harmless because the government had presented extensive, untainted evidence of guilt—including recorded conversations, surveillance, and witness testimony—that overwhelmingly supported the convictions, making it clear the jury’s verdict would have been the same absent the mix-up. The case was remanded for further proceedings.

criminal lawprocedure

In this case, Louis Alford sued Cannon County sheriff’s deputies Brandon Deffendoll and Zachary Smith, along with the county, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after a traffic stop for minor violations led to a vehicle search, his arrest on state drug charges, pretrial detention, and parole revocation; the charges were later dismissed. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to all defendants on Alford’s false-arrest, malicious-prosecution, and Monell claims. The court held that the search was lawful because a filled syringe was observed in plain view, the additional items recovered (empty syringes, powder, residue-coated paper, scales, and unprescribed pills) supplied probable cause, and the absence of any underlying Fourth Amendment violation defeated both the individual and municipal-liability claims.

civil rightscriminal law

In summer 2020, Sir Maejor Page raised over $490,000 through a Facebook page for his organization Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta by representing that donations would support protests, equipment, legal fees, and related activism, when he instead spent the funds on personal items including a prostitute, guns, alcohol, suits, and a house. A jury convicted him of wire fraud and money laundering, and the district court sentenced him based on the full amount of donations as loss and more than 10 victims. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the conviction and sentence, holding that the evidence established Page’s knowing misrepresentations induced the donations and that the district court did not clearly err in attributing the entire loss amount and counting all donors as victims for sentencing purposes. The court rejected Page’s challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and the application of sentencing enhancements, finding the record supported that donors reasonably believed their contributions would advance the stated cause rather than Page’s personal expenses.

criminal law

In 2022, Justice Hunter pleaded guilty to federal drug-trafficking conspiracy and possession charges tied to a Canton, Ohio gang operation and was sentenced to 24 months in prison plus three years of supervised release with standard conditions. Just two months after his release began in 2023, he tested positive for multiple controlled substances, was arrested with firearms, and pleaded guilty in state court to new fentanyl-related offenses, prompting the district court to revoke his supervised release. At the revocation hearing, the court imposed the statutory maximum of 24 months in prison, citing Hunter’s immediate return to criminal conduct as a serious breach of the court’s trust. Hunter appealed, arguing that reliance on breach of trust rendered the sentence procedurally unreasonable. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that Hunter’s vague objection failed to preserve the claim and that, in any event, the Guidelines expressly direct courts to consider breach of trust when sanctioning supervised-release violations.

criminal lawprocedure

In this immigration case, petitioners from El Salvador sought review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ rejection of their brief and summary dismissal of their appeal from an immigration judge’s denial of asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT protection. The BIA had rejected their timely April 2024 brief solely because the attorney’s physical address listed on it differed from the P.O. box on her notice of appearance form, then denied a motion to accept a corrected but later filing and dismissed the appeal for lack of a supporting brief. The Sixth Circuit granted the petition for review, holding that the BIA abused its discretion. The court reasoned that both addresses were valid for receiving mail, no regulation, form, or BIA Practice Manual explicitly required an exact address match or warned that a mismatch could lead to rejection, and the agency had accepted similar filings in the past without articulating a reasoned basis for departing from that practice here.

immigrationprocedure

The case involved a collective bargaining agreement between Holtec Decommissioning International (HDI) and the Michigan State Utility Workers Council that required arbitration of employee grievances. After HDI terminated a union member, the Union filed an arbitration demand that mistakenly named HDI’s parent company, Holtec International, as the respondent; HDI’s counsel nonetheless participated fully in the proceedings, which resulted in an award favoring the Union. HDI refused to comply and sued in federal court to vacate the award solely because of the erroneous caption. The district court declined to vacate, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed. The court held that where the arbitration demand and award caption misname the intended party but the record shows no ambiguity about the real party’s identity and that party participated without timely objection, a federal court may enforce the award against the correct entity.

labor & employmentprocedure

In United States v. Chase Allen Barnett, the defendant pled guilty to federal drug trafficking charges involving methamphetamine and fentanyl after committing the offenses while on parole or probation from prior state convictions in Kentucky and Indiana. The district court imposed a below-guidelines federal sentence of 200 months but ordered it to run consecutively to Barnett’s undischarged state sentences, after considering his criminal history, the dangers of fentanyl, his need for treatment, and mitigating factors like his traumatic upbringing. Barnett appealed, claiming the court failed to adequately explain its choice of a consecutive rather than concurrent sentence. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court sufficiently intertwined its discussion of the relevant § 3553(a) factors with the consecutive-sentence decision and that no separate or explicit statement of reasons was required. The guidelines also advised a consecutive term, supporting the outcome under plain-error review.

criminal lawprocedure

Theresa DeMario applied for social-security disability benefits, claiming she was unable to work due to obesity, knee osteoarthritis, neuropathy in her legs and feet, carpal tunnel syndrome, and chronic headaches and migraines. An administrative law judge denied the claim after finding that these impairments, while severe in some cases, did not prevent her from performing a range of light work jobs such as cashier or office helper, and the district court affirmed. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that substantial evidence in the record—including medical records showing conservative treatments, effective symptom management, normal gait and strength, and DeMario’s own reports of daily activities—supported the ALJ’s assessment of her residual functional capacity. The court explained that it could not reweigh the evidence or substitute its judgment where the ALJ’s findings were reasonable and within the zone of choice.

healthcareprocedurelabor & employment

In Getsy v. Strickland, a death-sentenced Ohio prisoner brought a § 1983 action challenging the state's lethal injection protocol as violating the Eighth Amendment, but a panel had previously held the claim time-barred under the statute of limitations rule from Cooey v. Strickland. The Sixth Circuit issued an order denying rehearing en banc after fewer than a majority of active judges voted in favor, leaving the panel decision in place, denying a stay of Getsy's execution, and directing issuance of the mandate. The core reasoning was that the procedural requirements for en banc review were not met and that the existing Cooey II precedent controlled the timeliness issue, even though the underlying protocol changes occurred years after the limitations period was deemed to have run. Dissenting judges argued that the Cooey II rule created an illogical bar preventing any merits review of the constitutional claim.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights