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

Defendant appealed his sentence following his conviction of three counts of assaulting a federal correctional officer. The sentence was imposed by a judge other than the trial judge, whose unavailability for sentencing was unexplained. A judge visiting the District of Arizona imposed the sentence with insufficient familiarity with the case. Because of that unfamiliarity and the unjustified replacement of the trial judge, the sentencing violating Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 25(b) with prejudice. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for sentencing by the trial judge.

Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of his pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C. 1983, against certain prison medical providers, alleging that the providers' delay in treating his hernia amounted to deliberate indifference to his medical needs, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The court held that plaintiff voluntarily consented to the jurisdiction of any magistrate judge, including the one who decided his case; the allegations against Dr. Schuster could not support a deliberate indifference claim because they amount to a claim of negligence; and the allegations against Dr. Rotman were sufficient to warrant ordering him to file an answer. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded in part.

Plaintiff, a 69-year-old inmate, appealed the grant of summary judgment denying his claims for violations of his rights under the Eighth Amendment. Plaintiff claimed that the doctors and wardens in the Nevada Department of Corrections were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs. The court held that the district court improperly concluded that there was a mere disagreement of medical opinion in this case and did not identify the triable issues of fact. Because plaintiff had not yet had his hip surgery, and may or may not be eligible for surgery, his claim for injunctive relief was not moot and should be addressed on remand. Accordingly, the court reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded in part.

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus, brought under 28 U.S.C. 2254. Petitioner's grounds for appeal pertained to the prosecution's primary witness, a minor named R.H. Petitioner argued that the trial court violated his rights when it denied him pretrial access to R.H. and then limited cross-examination of R.H. during the trial. The court held that petitioner had no absolute right to pretrial access to R.H.; no prosecutorial inference arose when an unrelated government agency acted in R.H.'s best interests; and the trial court's limitations on the length and content of cross-examination were permissible. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

In this appeal from the denial of habeas relief, the court addressed whether petitioner's Apprendi claim was procedurally defaulted under Oregon's preservation rule. Petitioner failed to raise at the state trial court level the Apprendi claim that formed the basis of his challenge to his enhanced sentence under Oregon's "dangerous offender" law. Although petitioner raised the issue in his appeal to the Oregon Court of Appeals, that court declined to consider the merits of the claim because the issue had not been raised in the trial court and did not meet the plain error exception to the preservation rule. Petitioner ultimately sought habeas relief in federal court, but the district court concluded that the Apprendi claim was procedurally defaulted under federal law and dismissed his habeas petition. Because the court concluded that the Oregon Court of Appeals' ruling was not interwoven with federal law, the court affirmed the district court's judgment.

Defendant, a citizen and national of Mexico, was charged with drug-related crimes. At issue was whether the Confrontation Clause or the Federal Rules of Evidence prohibited the government from introducing at trial a defendant's admissions to a police officer because the translator who facilitated them, while conversationally fluent, would not qualify as a court reporter. The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that the translator, Officer Hernandez, served merely as a language conduit for defendant. Even if Officer Hernandez's translations were not properly construed as defendant's own statements, the requirements of the Confrontation Clause were satisfied by the officer's appearance at trial. The court also held that the district court did not err in refusing to instruct the jury to infer from the government's destruction of certain personal property that it would have yielded evidence harmful to the government where defendant conceded that there was no bad faith shown in this case. Finally, because the district court did not commit cumulative errors, defendant was denied relief and the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of five counts relating to child pornography and subsequently appealed his convictions. The court held that the district court did not err in denying defendant's untimely motion to proceed pro se and, moreover, defendant failed to make an unequivocal request to proceed pro se. The court also held that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to dismiss as barred by the statute of limitations the first two counts against him where the district court applied 18 U.S.C. 3283's extended statute of limitations. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiff appealed from the district court's orders granting full satisfactions of judgment as to defendants. Defendants were found to have violated plaintiff's civil rights and held liable for damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for alleged violations of his constitutional rights while he was held in pretrial detention in a Los Angeles jail in 1998. The court held that defendants' failure in the first appeal to challenge the district court's order that defendants were each jointly and severally liable for the fee award waived their ability to challenge that order subsequently. Therefore, the court vacated the satisfactions of judgment.

Plaintiffs, severely disabled California residents, alleged that conventional medical services, drugs, and medications have not alleviated the pain caused by their impairments. Therefore, each plaintiff has obtained a recommendation from a medical doctor to use marijuana to treat her pain. Plaintiffs obtained medical marijuana through collectives located in Costa Mesa and Lake Forest, California. These cities, however, have taken steps to close marijuana dispensing facilities operating within their boundaries. Plaintiffs brought an action in federal district court, alleging that the cities' actions violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. The court held that Congress has made clear that the ADA defined "illegal drug use" by reference to federal, rather than state law, and federal law did not authorize plaintiffs medical marijuana use. Therefore, the court concluded that plaintiffs' medical marijuana use was not protected by the ADA.

Plaintiffs, employees at a defense plant in Arizona, collectively bargained for the right to receive employer-provided healthcare coverage after they retired. At issue was whether those employees, now retirees, were contractually entitled to receive premium-free healthcare coverage until age 65, or whether the contracts on which the retirees relied as providing that entitlement allowed their prior employer to start charging them for their insurance. The court held that Raytheon expressly agreed to provide 100% company-paid healthcare coverage for eligible retirees; that Raytheon's obligation survived the expectation of the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs); and that Raytheon's agreed-upon obligation could not be unilaterally abrogated by Raytheon, regardless of the rights Raytheon reserved for itself in Plan documents, because the CBAs did not incorporate the Plans' reservation-of-rights provisions with respect to employer contribution issues, as opposed to issues relating to the provision of monetary or in kind benefits for particular medical services. The court further held that the district court did not err in rejecting plaintiffs' claim for punitive and extra-contractual damages.