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

Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea for conspiracy to carry a concealed dangerous weapon on an aircraft, in violation of 49 U.S.C. 46505(e), and for aiding and abetting the carrying of a concealed dangerous weapon on an aircraft, a violation of 18 U.S.C. 2 and 49 U.S.C. 46505(b)(1). At issue was whether 49 U.S.C. 46505 was unconstitutionally vague as applied to defendant, an airport employee, who sneaks a pocketknife past a security checkpoint and then gives it to a passenger who takes it aboard an airplane. The court concluded that 49 U.S.C. 46505 gave adequate notice to defendant that a pocketknife with a blade of slightly less than two-and-a-half inches was prohibited aboard an aircraft. Accordingly, the court held that the statute was not constitutionally vague as applied and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Harris" on Justia Law

Plaintiff claimed that defendants, officers of the Honolulu Police Department, used excessive force in arresting him. The officers moved for summary judgment, arguing that their conduct was reasonable and, in any event, that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The court held that the evidence gave rise to genuine issues of fact that were material to determining whether defendants used excessive force in breaking the car window and pulling plaintiff through it. Therefore, the district court erred in granting partial summary judgment to defendants. The court also held that the trial court's jury instruction enforced an erroneous partial grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants and, as such, constituted reversible error. View "Coles v. Eagle, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to knowing and unlawful possession of a firearm and the district court sentenced him to five years of supervised release subject to special conditions. At issue on appeal was whether the district court could require a sexual offender assessment as a condition of a supervised release when defendant had two decades-old prior sexual offense convictions involving weapons, when the current offense also involved a weapon, and when defendant's prior completion of sexual offender treatment could not be confirmed. The court concluded that it could require such an assessment and affirmed the condition imposed. View "United States v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Defendant was arrested and charged with violating 8 U.S.C. 1325, a misdemeanor illegal entry by an alien. The next day, defendant was brought before a magistrate judge in federal court in Arizona for a guilty plea proceeding that was part of Operation Streamline, which was "a procedure for taking of pleas en masse." On appeal, defendant contended that his plea violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(b)(2). The court has several times before held that certain aspects of group plea proceedings violated various provisions of Rule 11, and the court followed those precedents and again concluded that there was Rule 11 error. However, in United States v. Escamilla-Rojas, the court held that the error was harmless. The court reached the same conclusion here where defendant voluntarily chose to enter the plea and his substantial rights were not affected. View "United States v. Aguilar-Vera" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a citizen of Guatemala, filed an action in District Court alleging that the BIA's decision to deny his application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 701-706. The court held that 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(5) prohibited APA claims that indirectly challenged a removal order. All claims challenging the procedure and substance of agency determinations "inextricably linked" to the order of removal were prohibited by section 1252(a)(5), no matter how the claims were framed. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Martinez v. Napolitano, et al" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Russia, petitioned for review of the BIA's denial of withholding of removal and adjustment of status. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(2)(C) over petitioner's challenge to the discretionary determination finding him ineligible for withholding because the crime underlying his removeability was a particularly serious crime; the court upheld the revocation of petitioner's asylee status pursuant to 8 C.F.R. 208.24(a)(2), also due to his conviction; and the court denied petitioner's constitutional challenge to the provisions precluding adjustment of status after his asylee status was revoked. View "Pechenkov v. Holder Jr." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed an action in district court under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by an officer's warrantless entry into her front yard and sought damages for her injuries. Plaintiff sustained serious injuries as a result of the officer's act of kicking down the front gate of her yard while in pursuit of a suspect who had committed at most a misdemeanor offense. The district court found that the officer was entitled to qualified immunity and granted his motion for summary judgment. The court held, however, that the law at the time of the incident would have placed a reasonable officer on notice that his warrantless entry into the curtilage of a home constituted an unconstitutional search, which could not be excused under the exigency or emergency exception to the warrant requirement. Therefore, the officer was not entitled to qualified immunity and the court reversed the judgment of the district court. View "Sims v. Stanton" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence for illegal re-entry into the United States. The government contended that defendant waived his right to appeal in his written plea agreement. The court held that the district court's statement near the end of the sentencing hearing that defendant "may have a right to appeal" was equivocal or ambiguous and therefore did not vitiate defendant's explicit waiver of the right to appeal in his written plea agreement. View "United States v. Arias-Espinoza" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence gained through a frisk after a vehicle stop. The court concluded that the police officers had no particularized suspicions directed at the unthreatening defendant to justify the Terry frisk at its inception; the searching officer exceeded the lawful scope of the frisk by lifting defendant's shirt to retrieve an object; and therefore, the court reversed and remanded with instructions to grant defendant's motion to suppress. View "United States v. I.E.V., Juvenile Male" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiring to possess and of possessing pseudoephedrine, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that it would be used to manufacture methamphetamine. On appeal, defendant contended that the district court erred as a matter of law in refusing a requested jury instruction specifying that "reasonable cause to believe" must be evaluated from her perspective, based on her knowledge and sophistication. The court held that the district court erred in refusing defendant's requested instruction and that the error was not harmless. View "United States v. Munguia" on Justia Law