Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant, a commercial snowmobile operator, appealed his conviction on two counts of conducting a "work activity or service" on United States Forest Service land without a special use authorization and one count of interfering with a Forest Service officer engaged in the performance of his official duties, both in violation of 36 C.F.R. part 261. The court concluded that defendant's activities both took place in the National Forest System and affected, threatened, or endangered National Forest land. Therefore, the court held that the Forest Service had jurisdiction over defendant's activities on the highway under both section 261.1(a)(1) and (a)(2). The court concluded that defendant's vagueness challenge to section 261 was without merit; the magistrate judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting the officer's testimony regarding the absence of defendant's special use authorization; and there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant of Count 5. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Parker" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's motion to suppress after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court concluded that defendant's detention did not amount to an arrest where defendant was in the vicinity of an area where there was reported gunfire and the officer's legitimate safety concerns justified their on-the-spot decision to use intrusive measures to stabilize the situation before investigating further; the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant where an anonymous 911 call from an eyewitness reporting an ongoing and dangerous situation and a detailed description of the suspect provided sufficient indicia of reliability to give the officers reasonable suspicion; and, therefore, the officers properly conducted an investigatory stop and had reasonable suspicion to do so. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Edwards" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of distributing a controlled substance. Defendant argued that the Sentencing Commission exceeded its authority under 28 U.S.C. 994(h) by including state convictions as predicate offenses for purposes of defining a career offender, and that his sentence was substantively unreasonable because of the very low purity of the controlled substance he sold and the career offender guidelines' over-representation of his criminal history. The court concluded that the Sentencing Commission's career offender guidelines are a permissible interpretation of the relevant statutes; the district court was mistaken about the impact of the purity of the controlled substance, but defendant's sentence was nonetheless reasonable under the totality of the circumstances; and, therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Stewart" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her post-revocation sentence imposed consecutively to her criminal sentence for illegal reentry. The court held that a district court can continue post-revocation sentencing for a reasonable time to consider a supervised releasee's sentence in the underlying criminal proceeding as part of evaluating the supervised releasee's breach of trust; in this case, the district court's approximately three-week continuance was not unreasonable under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1; and defendant's twelve-month post-revocation sentence was within the Guidelines range and was not substantively unreasonable in light of the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) sentencing factors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Reyes-Solosa" on Justia Law

After the Diocese settled four lawsuits for alleged sexual abuse by its priests, the Diocese filed a declaratory judgment action seeking entitlement to indemnification under IFC's excess liability indemnity policies. The policy provided by IFC to the Diocese excludes "liability of any Assured for assault and battery committed by or at the direction of such Assured..." The court concluded that, based on the ordinary meaning of this exclusion and consistent with Arizona law, "the language 'any insured'... express[es] a contractual intent to prohibit recovery by innocent co-insureds." In this case, the assault and battery exclusions applied to innocent co-insureds. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment in favor of the Diocese, and vacated and remanded its grant of attorneys' fees and taxable costs. View "IFC v. Roman Catholic Church" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, a group of investors, filed suit alleging that Electronic Game Card's former CEO and CFO violated section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. 78j, 17 C.F.R. 240.10b-5, and that others violated section 20(a) of the Act. The court concluded that the district court did not properly strike allegations and exhibits from the Third Amended Complaint because the Auditor discovery materials at issue were not obtained in violation of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA), 15 U.S.C. 78u-4(b)(3)(B). The court also concluded that the Third Amended Complaint adequately pleaded false statements and scienter. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Petrie v. Electronic Game Card, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to intentionally and knowingly importing 11.64 kilograms of cocaine into the United States from Mexico. The court held that the district court applied the correct legal standard, did not abuse its discretion in its application of the guideline to the facts of the case, and did not clearly err when it found that defendant was a typical commercial drug smuggler and not entitled to a minor role reduction under U.S.S.G. 3B1.2; the district court properly considered the facts of the crime and the totality of the circumstances; defendant's below-guidelines sentence was substantively reasonable; and the fine of $450 was reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Hurtado" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Chase and WaMu, alleging claims arising out of allegedly fraudulent acts by WaMu concerning the refinancing of their mortgage. WaMu was later placed into receivership of the FDIC and the FDIC transferred plaintiffs' mortgage to Chase. The court concluded that plaintiffs' claims in their complaint are "claims" for purposes of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), 12 U.S.C. 1821(d)(3)(D), and related to WaMu's acts or omissions for purposes of section 1821(d)(13)(D). Because plaintiffs have not exhausted their administrative remedies under section 1821(d), the plain language of section 1821(d)(13)(D)(ii) stripped the district court of jurisdiction to consider plaintiffs' complaint. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' claims. View "Rundgren v. Washington Mutual" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction under 38 C.F.R. 1.218(a)(5), which prohibits causing "disturbances" at VA facilities. The court concluded that the conduct for which defendant was convicted did not constitute protected speech because it involved a "true threat" of violence; even if defendant's conduct did constitute protected speech, section 1.218(a)(5) would not be unconstitutional as applied to his conduct where it is a viewpoint neutral regulation and the regulation was reasonably applied to defendant; the regulation was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to defendant's conduct where defendant's actions unambiguously fell within section 1.218(a)(5)'s prohibition on "loud" and "abusive" language and on "conduct...which creates loud or unusual noise"; and, therefore, defendant's as-applied challenges to the regulation failed. In regard to defendant's facial challenges, the court rejected defendant's overbreadth challenge where 38 U.S.C. 502 deprives the court of jurisdiction and section 502's jurisdictional bar does not violate defendant's right to due process. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court with regard to defendant's as-applied challenges and dismissed this appeal for lack of jurisdiction with regard to his facial challenge. View "United States v. Szabo" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for charges that he unlawfully exported defense services and technical data related to the design of the B-2 stealth bomber and other classified government projects to the People's Republic of China, and that he disclosed related classified information to persons in Switzerland, Israel, and Germany. The court rejected defendant's claim that the right to prompt presentment before a magistrate judge was triggered before he was actually arrested, and that his inculpatory statements he made to federal agents investigating his activities should have been suppressed; the court rejected defendant's contention that the words "arrest or other detention" in 18 U.S.C. 3501(c) expand the right to prompt presentment beyond the contours of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a); and defendant could not invoke the McNabb-Mallory rule because he was not, during the period in question, either formally arrested or in "other detention" within the meaning of section 3501. The court also concluded that there was no error in the "public domain" or "basic marketing information" jury instructions under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA). Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "United States v. Gowadia" on Justia Law