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

Defendants, two priests, an eighty-year-old nun, and two grandmothers, were longtime peace and disarmament activists who cut their way through two fences into a secure area of a naval base. Defendants were subsequently convicted of charges related to their acts of symbolic protest, on the naval base, against nuclear weapons. On appeal, defendants challenged the district court's refusal to dismiss the indictment. The court affirmed the convictions and held that the Hague Convention neither conflicted with nor superseded 18 U.S.C. 1361, 1363, and 1382 and the district court properly refused to dismiss the indictment. The court also held that the jury instructions accurately presented the law to the jury and that a jury could easily have found beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants cut the fences intending to destroy or injure them under 18 U.S.C. 1363. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Defendant appealed her sentence of 37 months in custody, three years of supervised release, and restitution, imposed following her guilty plea to assault resulting in substantial bodily injury. The victim was defendant's daughter. The court held that the district court properly applied the four-level enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2A2.2(b)(2)(B) because the belt used by the victim's father to beat her with was employed as a "dangerous weapon." The court held that there was no abuse of discretion in adding the two-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 3B1.4 because it was reasonably foreseeable to defendant that her husband would use K.H., a minor, to avoid being held responsible for the victim's murder. Because both enhancements were reasonable, the court rejected defendant's claim that her sentence was unreasonable under 18 U.S.C. 3553(a). However, defendant's sentence for the misprision of felony offense exceeded the statutory minimum in 18 U.S.C. 4 and therefore, the court vacated the sentence in part. Nor did either party alert the court to another error that could have occurred in calculating the combined offense level under U.S.S.G. 3D1.4.

This case arose when the FCC found that Minority had "willfully and repeatedly" violated 47 U.S.C. 399b when it broadcasted paid promotional messages on its radio station from for-profit corporations. The statute was a a content-based ban on speech: public broadcasters could transmit many types of speech, but, unlike most other stations, they could not transmit three classes of advertising messages. Minority contended that section 399b was an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech because it banned all paid public issue and political speech while permitting promotional messages by non-profits. The court applied intermediate scrutiny and upheld the ban on the transmission of advertisements for goods and services by for-profit entities, but the court struck down as unconstitutional the ban on public issue and political advertisements.

Petitioner sought dismissal of the charges against him based on the claim that the state had violated his rights under the Speedy Trial Clause of the United States Constitution. The state courts summarily rejected the petitions and petitioner subsequently raised his claim in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court under 28 U.S.C. 2241, requesting a permanent stay of the state criminal charges against him. The federal district court declined to reach the merits of petitioner's claim, holding that principles of federalism precluded review of the petition before petitioner had been tried and convicted in state court. The district court accordingly dismissed the petition without prejudice, leaving him free to raise his claim in a post-conviction habeas petition. Petitioner then appealed the district court's order, arguing that the district court erred in dismissing his habeas petition based on abstention principles. The court clarified its rule that, absent specifically defined extraordinary circumstances, principles of federalism and comity prohibited a federal district court from entertaining a pre-conviction habeas petition that raised a Speedy Trial claim as an affirmative defense to state prosecution. Further, McNeely v. Blanas did not alter that rule.

This case arose when plaintiff, a neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse, sought an accommodation from her employer that would have allowed her an unspecified number of unplanned absences from her job. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the employer on her reasonable accommodation claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12112(a), (b)(5)(A). The court held that plaintiff's performance was predicated on her attendance; reliable, dependable performance required reliable and dependable attendance. An employer need not provide accommodations that compromise performance quality. Because regular attendance was an essential function of a neo-natal nursing position, the court affirmed.

L.A. Printex appealed the district court's summary judgment order in favor of defendants in L.A. Printex's copyright infringement action. The parties' dispute stemmed from a floral design created by an L.A. Printex designer that later appeared on shirts bearing defendants' trademark. The court held that L.A. Printex raised a genuine dispute of material fact on access and substantial similarity. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment, vacated the award of attorneys' fees, and remanded for further proceedings.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, plaintiffs, anti-Bush protestors, organized a demonstration at a campaign stop in Jacksonville, Oregon. Plaintiffs contended that Secret Service agents engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment by requiring that they demonstrate at a distance from the President because they were protesting - rather than supporting - his policies. In addition, plaintiffs maintained that the police officers who carried out the Secret Service agents' directions used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court held that plaintiffs have stated a claim against the Secret Service agents for violation of the First Amendment. Plaintiffs have not, however, pleaded sufficient facts to sustain their Fourth Amendment claim against the police supervisors. Accordingly, the court held that the excessive force claim should be dismissed.

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal of their complaint and judgment in favor of defendants. Plaintiffs' action sought declaratory and injunctive relief barring the Government from enforcing the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), 21 C.F.R. 1307.3, against them and for return or compensation for marijuana taken by the Government. Plaintiffs alleged that they consumed marijuana as a "sacrament/eucharist" in their religious ceremonies, and that their use was protected by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA),42 U.S.C. 2000bb-2000bb-4. The court held that plaintiffs' claims for prospective relief arising from the Government's seizure of marijuana met the constitutional requirements and prudential factors for ripeness, and plaintiffs have associational standing to assert their claims. Strictly construing the "appropriate relief" provision in favor of the Government, the court concluded that RFRA did not authorize suits for money damages. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' claims for compensation for the seized marijuana.

Defendants were indicted, inter alia, for an eight-year conspiracy to violate the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act (CCTA), 18 U.S.C. 2341, by trafficking in "contraband cigarettes." Defendants moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the state of Washington retroceded its cigarette taxation to the Swinomish Tribe during the period of a cigarette tax contract it entered into with the Swinomish Tribe. The court agreed with defendants that during the period from 2003 to 2005, when they were licensed to sell tobacco by the Swinomish Tribe, there were no "applicable State or local cigarette taxes" under the CCTA. The court also agreed with defendants that the five-year statute of limitations for CCTA violations barred any charges based on activity from 1999-2003. The court concluded, however, that after their tribal tobacco license expired in 2005, defendants' activities ceased to be covered by the Swinomish cigarette tax contract (CTC) and that the state's retrocession therefore ceased to apply. The unstamped cigarettes that defendants transported and sold during this period were thus "contraband" under the CCTA. The court rejected defendants' due process and treaty arguments.

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate the sentences he received after his jury conviction of conspiracy to possess with intent to manufacture a controlled substance; his guilty plea to distribution of a controlled substance; and his guilty plea to a supervised release violation. The court reversed the district court's denial of defendant's section 2255 motion and remanded the matter to the district court with instructions to consider, for the purposes of the ineffective assistance of counsel claim, whether defendant was prejudiced by his counsel's performance. If so, defendant's distribution conviction and sentence should be vacated, and if he wanted to take the attendant risks, he could go to trial on the distribution offense, and could appeal the manufacturing offense trial conviction, an appeal that was foreclosed by the plea agreement. If not, the court remanded for resentencing before a different district judge and ordered the government's specific performance of the terms of the plea agreement.