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

Defendant was convicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm. At issue was whether the basis of the search that resulted in defendant's conviction was so attenuated as to require suppression of the firearms evidence found in the search. The district court held that there was a lack of probable cause to issue the warrant authorizing the search, but invoked the good faith reliance doctrine of United States v. Leon to permit use of the evidence. The court held that the warrant to search defendant's home did not issue upon probable cause. The underlying affidavit simply did not establish a "fair probability" that the gun and ammunition associated with the homicide would be found there, or even provide a "colorable argument for probable cause." Therefore, Leon's good faith exception to the officers' execution of the warrant did not apply either. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

A coalition of media corporations filed this action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 shortly after the issuance of the warrant for Richard Leavitt. Plaintiffs asserted that, as surrogates for the public, they had a right to witness all stages of the executions conducted by the State of Idaho, rather than just the final portion, and that the State's refusal to allow such access violated the First Amendment. The court concluded that the State has had ample opportunity to adopt an execution procedure that reflected settled law, whereby the public had a First Amendment right to view executions from the moment the condemned was escorted into the execution chamber, including those initial procedures that were inextricably intertwined with the process of putting the condemned inmate to death. The State had nonetheless failed to bring its procedure into compliance with the law. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction and remanded for the entry of an injunction forthwith, and in any event prior to the impending execution of Leavitt.

In Case No. 12-35450, petitioner sought relief under FRCP 60(b), claiming that Martinez v. Ryan rendered him eligible to pursue ineffective assistance of counsel claims on which he had ostensibly defaulted. In Case No. 12-35427, petitioner petitioned the district court to order the police department to send evidence related to his crime to a lab for forensic testing. The court held that petitioner failed to meet his burden under Strickland in proving that counsel's performance was both deficient and prejudicial. In regards to the forensic testing, the court held that petitioner had not shown good cause for such a discovery request where he had not explained how the testing that he sought would substantiate his underlying claim that his trial counsel was ineffective. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiffs, on behalf of thousands of retired county employees participating in county-sponsored health care plans, filed suit against the county challenging changes it made to the structure of two health benefits. Plaintiffs appealed the district court's order granting a motion for judgment on the pleadings filed by the county. The court reversed and remanded for further proceedings and with the answer provided by the California Supreme Court to the certified question in the Retired Employees Association of Orange County, Inc.(REAOC) litigation. The court took judicial notice of the documents; reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' subsidy claims and remanded so that the district court could reassess those claims in light of the California Supreme Court's opinion, and coordinate those claims with the REAOC litigation; the court reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' grant claims because the court found that plaintiffs should be given an opportunity to amend their complaint to set out specifically the terms of those memoranda of understanding (MOUs) on which their claim predicated; and the court reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), California Government Code 12940 et seq., claim because the court found that Mr. McConnell's timely filed administrative complaint was sufficient to establish exhaustion of the administrative remedies for all class members.

Defendant appealed from the denial of his motion to set aside his convictions and sentences for two counts of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base under 28 U.S.C. 2255. At issue was whether the verdict forms in connection with counts twenty-one and twenty-two constructively amended the indictment in violation of defendant's Fifth Amendment rights, including whether defendant procedurally defaulted this issue. Because of the court's previous panel's rejection of defendant's constructive amendment claim did not work a manifest injustice, the court respected that decision as the law of the case. Accordingly, defendant's motion was properly denied.

Plaintiff filed an action against defendants, a debt-collection law firm and Dean Prober, Esq. (collectively, Prober), after Prober sought to collect a debt plaintiff owed to Prober's client. Plaintiff alleged that Prober's debt collection letter did not comply with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. 1692 et seq., or its state equivalent, the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Cal. Civ. Code 1788 et seq., namely by impermissibly requiring her to dispute her debt in writing and, as a result, misrepresenting her rights to dispute her debt. Assuming without deciding that Prober's notice could be understood implicitly to require written disputes, the court held that a validation notice violated section 1692g(a)(3) of the FDCPA only where it expressly required a consumer to dispute her debt in writing.

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition because it was time-barred. The court found that petitioner's conviction initially became final on July 11, 2006, 90 days after the California Supreme Court denied his petition for review on direct appeal; petitioner then filed a motion in the California Court of Appeal to recall the remittitur and reinstate his appeal based on Cunningham v. California but the motion was denied on May 23, 2007; the California Supreme Court subsequently granted review of the petition and deferred further action; and by granting review, the California Supreme Court reopened direct review and made petitioner's conviction "again capable of modification through direct appeal." Petitioner's conviction became final on December 11, 2007 and the federal habeas petition was filed on June 30, 2008. Accordingly, the petition was timely filed and the court reversed and remanded.

This case began as a dispute over the results of CM's special education evaluation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq. At issue on appeal was: (1) the ALJ's dismissal of several of CM's claims against Lafayette prior to holding a due process hearing; and (2) the district court's dismissal of MM's, CM's parents, separate claims against the California Department of Education (CDE). The court held that the district court correctly dismissed MM's claims against Lafayette challenging the ALJ's statute of limitations ruling as being premature. The district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the fourth claim as duplicative and correctly held that the CDE had no authority to oversee the individual decisions of OAH's hearing officers. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiffs brought a First Amendment and other constitutional challenges to regulations and associated guidelines that required permits for "commercial weddings" on public beaches in Hawaii. The court held that Hawaii's regulation of commercial weddings on unencumbered state beaches did not violate the First Amendment, except for a provision giving an official absolute discretion to revoke a permit at anytime and to modify it as the official deemed necessary or appropriate.

Petitioner was convicted of second degree murder with aggravating enhancements. This case presented three certified issues which the court reviewed under the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254(d): (1) whether petitioner's federal due process rights were violated when the trial court construed California law to allow jurors to refuse to discuss their deliberations and alleged misconduct after trial; (2) whether jury misconduct involving unsolicited observations of some jurors deprived petitioner of his right to an impartial jury; and (3) whether petitioner received ineffective assistance of counsel due to counsel's elicitation of unfavorable expert testimony on cross-examination. The court held that the California Court of Appeal's decision was not an unreasonable application of petitioner's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under AEDPA's stringent standard and the court affirmed the decision of the district court denying the petition for habeas corpus relief.