Court Opinion

ID: 9943058
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-22 18:02:21.673659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:00.750544
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-11731   Document: 27-1    Date Filed: 02/21/2024   Page: 1 of 7

                                                [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                 In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                              No. 23-11731
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       LOUIS MATTHEW CLEMENTS,
                                                   Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       GOVERNOR, STATE OF FLORIDA,
       ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA,
       SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
       COMMISSIONER OF THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF LAW
       ENFORCEMENT,

                                                Defendants-Appellees.

                         ____________________
USCA11 Case: 23-11731         Document: 27-1         Date Filed: 02/21/2024          Page: 2 of 7

       2                          Opinion of the Court                        23-11731

                    Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Northern District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 4:23-cv-00024-AW-MAF
                             ____________________

       Before JORDAN, NEWSOM, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Louis Clements appeals from the district court’s sua sponte
       dismissal of (1) his claims challenging Fla. Stat. Ann. § 741.0405
       without prejudice for lack of standing and (2) his claims challenging
       Florida’s sex-offender-registration scheme, Fla. Stat. Ann.
       §§ 943.0435 and 775.21, with prejudice for failure to state a claim
       under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1). Clements argues on appeal that the
       district court erred in dismissing his case for lack of standing be-
       cause he suffered a cognizable injury in fact that the district court
       could have remedied. He also argues that the district court erred
       in dismissing his complaint for failure to state a claim because it
       alleged sufficient facts to show that the relevant Florida statutes vi-
       olated various constitutional provisions. We’ll address each argu-
       ment in turn.
              The facts are known to the parties, and we repeat them here
       only as necessary to resolve the case.1

       1 We review a district court’s dismissal for lack of standing de novo.    Scott v.
       Taylor, 470 F.3d 1014, 1017 (11th Cir. 2006). We also review a district court’s
       sua sponte dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim under 28 U.S.C.
       § 1915A(b)(1) de novo. Christmas v. Nabors, 76 F.4th 1320, 1328 (11th Cir. 2023).
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       23-11731                  Opinion of the Court                                3

                                              I
               “Article III [of the U.S. Constitution] grants federal courts
       the ‘judicial Power’ to resolve only ‘Cases’ or ‘Controversies.’”
       Trichell v. Midland Credit Mgmt., Inc., 964 F.3d 990, 996 (11th Cir.
       2020) (quoting U.S. Const. art. III, §§ 1–2). “As a result, federal
       courts may exercise their power only for ‘the determination of real,
       earnest, and vital controversy between individuals.’” Id. (quoting
       Chicago & Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U.S. 339, 345 (1892)).
       To demonstrate standing, a plaintiﬀ must show three elements:
       “[T]he plaintiﬀ must have suﬀered an injury in fact, the defendant
       must have caused that injury, and a favorable decision must be
       likely to redress it.” Id. (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S.
       555, 560–61 (1992)). “An injury in fact consists of ‘an invasion of a
       legally protected interest’ that is both ‘concrete and particularized’
       and ‘actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.’” Id.
       (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560). “A ‘concrete’ injury must be ‘de
       facto’—that is, it must be ‘real, and not abstract.’ . . . A ‘particular-
       ized’ injury ‘must aﬀect the plaintiﬀ in a personal and individual
       way.’” Id. (citation omitted) (quoting Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S.
       330, 339–40 (2016)).
             A Florida statute that was repealed in 2018 addressed when
       a “marriage license may be issued to persons under 18 years” as
       follows:

       Pro se pleadings are held to a less stringent standard than pleadings drafted by
       attorneys and will, therefore, be liberally construed. Id.
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                  23-11731

              If either of the parties shall be under the age of 18
              years but at least 16 years of age, the county court
              judge or clerk of the circuit court shall issue a license
              for the marriage of such party only if there is ﬁrst pre-
              sented and ﬁled with him or her the written consent
              of the parents or guardian of such minor to such mar-
              riage.

       Fla. Stat. Ann. § 741.0405(1) (repealed 2018). It also stated,
              When the fact of pregnancy is veriﬁed by the written
              statement of a licensed physician, the county court
              judge of any county in the state may, in his or her dis-
              cretion, issue a license to marry: . . . To any female
              under the age of 18 years and male over the age of 18
              years upon the female’s application sworn under oath
              that she is an expectant parent.

       Id. § 741.0405(3)(b) (repealed 2018).
              Clements’s arguments against § 741.0405 fail to establish
       standing because he cannot satisfy either the injury-in-fact prong
       or the redressability prong. First, as to injury in fact, nowhere in
       Clements’s operative complaint did he state how he met either of
       the statutory provisions that would have allowed him to marry a
       minor. He didn’t indicate that the crime for which he pleaded
       guilty involved a minor who was at least 16 years old and had pa-
       rental consent to marry. Nor did he allege that he had impregnated
       a minor under the age of 18 while he was over the age of 18. Be-
       cause Clements didn’t ﬁt the statutory provisions, he cannot show
       he was injured by this section of the Florida statute. Additionally,
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       23-11731                Opinion of the Court                          5

       even if he could have shown that he met the statutory factors, the
       contention that he could have married the victim is purely specula-
       tive, and so the alleged injury cannot meet the injury-in-fact stand-
       ard. See Trichell, 964 F.3d at 996.
              Regarding redressability, Florida repealed § 741.0405 in 2018.
       This means that the district court could provide no redress to rem-
       edy any injury that might have been caused by the provision. It
       also couldn’t provide redress for Clements’s conviction or sentence
       because he challenged neither of those.
              Because Clements can’t meet either the injury-in-fact or re-
       dressability requirements necessary to show Article III standing,
       the district court didn’t err in dismissing his claim challenging
       § 741.0405 for lack of standing. See Trichell, 964 F.3d at 996.
                                          II
              When a plaintiﬀ ﬁles a civil action under the Prison Litiga-
       tion Reform Act, the district court must review it and dismiss the
       ﬁled complaint if it “is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim
       upon which relief may be granted.” 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a), (b)(1).
       We apply the standards of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)
       in reviewing dismissals under § 1915A(b)(1) for failure to state a
       claim. Christmas, 76 F.4th at 1328. “A complaint is subject to dis-
       missal for failure to state a claim if the allegations, taken as true,
       show the plaintiﬀ is not entitled to relief.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S.
       199, 215 (2007). A complaint need not have “detailed factual alle-
       gations, but it” must have “more than an unadorned, the-defend-
       ant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 23-11731

       662, 678 (2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted). “A pleading
       that oﬀers labels and conclusions or a formulaic recitation of the
       elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id. (quotation marks
       and citation omitted). A complaint also fails “if it tenders naked
       assertion[s] devoid of further factual enhancement.” Id. (alteration
       in original) (quotation marks and citation omitted).
                Clements’s operative complaint asserted a variety of chal-
       lenges to Florida’s sex-oﬀender registration scheme, Fla. Stat. Ann.
       §§ 943.0435 and 775.21, including broad allegations that they vio-
       lated the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments as well
       as the Bill of Attainder and Ex Post Facto Clauses. U.S. Const. art.
       I, § 9, cl. 3.
              All of Clements’s constitutional contentions except his ex-
       post-facto argument provided no speciﬁc facts as to how
       §§ 943.0534 and 775.21 violated the Constitution. The challenges
       under these provisions fail because they amount to nothing more
       than “labels and conclusions” and “naked assertion[s] devoid of fur-
       ther factual enhancement.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (alteration in orig-
       inal).
               Clements’s ex-post-facto challenge had more substance to it.
       Unfortunately for Clements, we foreclosed that argument in Hou-
       ston v. Williams where we held that Florida’s sex-oﬀender registra-
       tion scheme was regulatory, not punitive, and, thus, did not violate
       the Ex Post Facto Clause. 547 F.3d 1357, 1364 (11th Cir. 2008) (cit-
       ing Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 105-06 (2003)).
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       23-11731              Opinion of the Court                        7

                                       III
              The district court did not err in sua sponte dismissing Clem-
       ents’s complaint because he lacked standing with respect to his
       claims challenging § 741.0405 and because his claims challenging
       §§ 943.0435 and 775.21 failed to state a claim.
             AFFIRMED.