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

The NLRB petitioned for enforcement of its order finding that Legacy Health violated sections 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(1) and (3) by not allowing its employees to simultaneously hold bargaining unit positions and non-bargaining unit positions. The court held that, under section 10(e) of the Act, the court did not have jurisdiction to hear Legacy Health's exceptions to the NLRB's remedial order. Accordingly, the court granted summary enforcement of the NLRB's order.

Defendant pled guilty to one count of witness intimidation and subsequently assisted the government in prosecuting several of his former criminal associates. At issue was whether the district court could consider factors other than a defendant's substantial assistance in determining the amount of a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(b) sentence reduction. The court held that once a district court determined that a defendant had provided substantial assistance to the government, the court could consider factors other than assistance, including those listed in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a), in order to ensure that the sentence ultimately imposed accorded with the purposes of sentencing that Congress had articulated. Because the district court applied the correct legal standard in this case, the court affirmed its consideration of non-assistance factors and dismissed defendant's challenge to the length of the sentence reduction.

Defendant appealed from an oral order denying his request for appointment of new counsel and permitting him to proceed pro se. Defendant was charged in a superseding indictment with one count of being a previously deported alien found in the United States and was currently incarcerated and waiting trial. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction because the collateral order doctrine barred the immediate appeal of an order denying a request to appoint replacement counsel. Because it was clear that the order denying appointment of replacement counsel could be reviewed effectively after trial, the court declined to treat the appeal as a petition for mandamus.

Plaintiff appealed from the judgment of the district court dismissing his action against the State of Arizona and individual officials employed by the Arizona Department of Corrections for alleged negligence and alleged violations of his civil rights where plaintiff spent just over three years in prison pursuant to an erroneous sentence. The district court held that plaintiff failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted and plaintiff appealed. The court held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's negligence claim where the court did not believe that the Arizona Supreme Court would hold that the Department - an agency within Arizona's executive department - had the authority, much less the duty, to ensure that judicial orders complied with the law. Because plaintiff did not allege a violation of his Eight or Fourteenth Amendment rights by defendants, they were immune from action. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Petitioner, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitioned for review of a decision by the BIA affirming a decision of the IJ to deny petitioner's application for withholding of removal and withholding and deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court held that a conviction for residential burglary under California Penal Code 459 constituted a crime of violence and was a "particularly serious crime." Therefore, petitioner was ineligible for withholding of removal. The court also held that, although gang members beat up petitioner and his cousin in 2005, there was no evidence that those gang members knew petitioner or his cousin, nor that the gang members had any reason to hurt them. Further, there was no evidence that the gang members were looking for petitioner today. Therefore, petitioner failed to prove its was more likely than not that he would be tortured upon his return under the CAT. Accordingly, the petition was denied.

Petitioner appealed from the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254, claiming that his due process rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated based on the admission of his confession. The court held that the district court did not err in upholding the California Court of Appeal's determination that the totality of the circumstances demonstrated that petitioner's will was not overcome and that his confessions to one detective and subsequently to two others were voluntary. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Petitioner filed a motion for a stay of execution pending the United States Supreme Court decision in Martinez v. Ryan. Petitioner sought a stay of his impending execution, leave to file successive petitions for habeas corpus relief in his capital cases under 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(3)(A), and appointment of new counsel to represent him in pursuing those petitions. The court granted petitioner's motion to proceed in forma pauperis. The court denied petitioner's motion for a stay of execution where he did not meet his burden of establishing that he was likely to succeed on the merits and he offered no legitimate reason for bringing this motion at the 11th hour. The court concluded that petitioner's reliance on what the Supreme Court's holding in Martinez might be was speculative. The court held that, to the extent petitioner's related requests for new counsel to be appointed and for leave to file a successive habeas corpus petition were properly before the court, those requests were denied.

Plaintiff filed a Federal Employee Compensation Act (FECA), 5 U.S.C. 8131, 8132, claim after he was injured in a helicopter crash and received benefits totaling $409,838.11. Plaintiff then filed a civil suit against the helicopter operator and eventually the lawsuit settled for $2.3 million. At issue was whether plaintiff could deduct his litigation costs from a refund to the United States under FECA. The court held that no reading of section 8132 allowed for a FECA beneficiary to obtain a civil award and then deduct the costs of obtaining that award from a refund of benefits owed to the United States. The only plausible reading of section 8132 was to the contrary: A beneficiary could deduct his litigation costs only from his gross recovery to determine the amount, if any, of the surplus he must credit to the United States for future benefits.

Petitioner appealed from the district court's denial of his emergency motion for preliminary injunction or stay of execution. The district court held that the Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) had provided appropriate safeguards to ensure that there was not a substantial risk of serious harm to petitioner in the form of severe pain during the administration of the drugs used in Idaho's three-drug lethal injection protocol; that the safeguards were substantially similar to those contained in execution protocols approved by the Supreme Court and by this court; that the IDOC was not required to implement a different, one-drug protocol in this execution; that petitioner would suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief; that the equities of the case did not require a different result; and that the public interest favored denial of the request for a stay of the execution. The court concluded that petitioner had not shown that he was entitled to injunctive relief on the merits of his claims and, because he had not shown that he was likely to succeed on the merits, the court need not and did not consider the district court's remaining conclusions. Accordingly, the emergency motion was denied.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Revett Silver Company in an action brought pursuant to Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. 1536(a)(2), which required federal agencies to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service before undertaking any action "authorized, funded, or carried out" by the agency that might "jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat" used by any endangered or threatened species. The court held that the Fish and Wildlife Service's determination that a copper and silver mine in northwest Montana would entail "no adverse modification" to bull trout critical habitat and would result in "no jeopardy" to grizzly bears was not arbitrary, capricious, or in violation of the Endangered Species Act. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment.