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

Applicants sought a four-month exemption from the per page Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system fee. At issue was whether the court had jurisdiction to review the district court's administrative order denying the exemption. The court held that 28 U.S.C. 1291 necessarily refers to final decisions of a judicial character, not to administrative actions outside the scope of the litigative function. Because the order denying applicants a PACER fee exemption came before the court strictly in an administrative context, the court could not review under section 1291. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. View "In re: Application for Exemption from Electronic Public Access Fees" on Justia Law

This case concerned Hawaii's "Act 163," Haw. Rev. Stat. 302A-1134(c), which barred students from attending public school after the last day of the school year in which they turned 20. At issue was whether state-funded high school diploma programs for adults who never graduated from high school were a form of "public education" under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(1)(B)(I). The Community Schools for Adults offers "free public education" to students who did not require IDEA services. The Department offers, at taxpayer expense, the opportunity for nondisabled 20- and 21-year-olds to complete their secondary educations and earn high school diplomas. Providing IDEA services to disabled children of those ages would therefore be consistent with "State law or practice... respecting the provision of public education," so the state must do so. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment for the State on the IDEA claim, holding that Act 163 violated federal law. The court affirmed the district court's judgment on plaintiffs' remaining claims. View "E.R.K. v. State of Hawaii Dep't of Educ." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to investment fraud. The district court ordered defendant to pay restitution pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in including a certain sum in defendant's restitution order where intervening events made defendant's connection to another investor's losses in the scheme at issue simply "too attenuated" to impose liability on defendant for the investor's victims' losses. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence with regard to this amount of restitution and remanded for the limited purpose of entering an amended restitution order. The court concluded, however, that the district court did not clearly err in finding that defendant failed to establish that he played a minor role in the offense and therefore was not eligible for a two-level reduction in the base offense level. Accordingly, the court affirmed as to this issue. View "United States v. Swor" on Justia Law

In two separate cases, the government charged defendant with being an alien in the United States after deportation, as well as misrepresenting his identity and citizenship to fraudulently obtain supplemental social security benefits, acquire food stamps, and make a claim of citizenship, and apply for a passport. Defendant was convicted of all charges and his primary defense to all the charges was that he was a citizen of the United States. The court concluded that the district court erred in invoking an inherent "gate-keeping" authority to exclude defendant's birth certificate pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 104(a) without relying on some substantive basis outside of Rule 104(a); the district court erred by concluding that no reasonable juror could determine that the birth certificate was "substantively genuine," and by excluding the birth certificate pursuant to Rule 403 without first assessing its probative value when taken as a true record of defendant's birth; and the district court's exclusion of the central piece of evidence for defendant's main defense to a critical element of all the charges in the two cases was violation of defendant's Fifth Amendment right to present a defense. Because the district court's error was not harmless, the court vacated all of the convictions and remanded for a retrial. View "United States v. Evans, Sr." on Justia Law

Defendant removed plaintiff's putative class action to federal court, contending that there was federal jurisdiction over the action under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), Pub. L. No. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4, and 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(2). Plaintiff alleged that the amount in controversy did not exceed $5 million and waived any claim by the class in excess of the amount. The district court granted plaintiff's motion to remand based on plaintiff's waiver. The court held that a lead plaintiff of a putative class could not reduce the amount in controversy on behalf of absent class members, so there was no justification for assigning to the allegation weight so significant that it affected a defendant's right to a federal forum under section 1332(d)(2). The court also held that the legal certainty standard in Lowdermilk v. U.S. Bank National Association had been effectively overruled and that the proper burden of proof imposed upon a defendant to establish the amount in controversy was the preponderance of the evidence standard pursuant to Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded to the district court to apply the preponderance standard to the amount-in-controversy evidence. View " Rodriguez v. AT&T Mobility Services LLC" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of sixteen counts of making a false claim for farm benefits in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1014 and subsequently appealed the district court's loss calculation. The court concluded that the record revealed sufficient evidence that defendant was not entitled to any portion of the indemnity payments as an "intended beneficiary" under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1 cmt. n.3(F)(ii), and the district court did not err in including in the loss calculation the full indemnity amount for all claims from the properties at issue; the district court did not err by including the total amount of the indemnities in the loss calculation; and the district court did not err by including in the loss calculation two other categories of expenses: A&O expenses - fees that the government pays to the insurance company for selling and servicing the policy - and premium subsidies. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Torlai, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant repeatedly violated his terms of supervised release after a child pornography conviction and the district court revoked his supervised release. Opper v. United States held that, in criminal proseuctions, where guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt, the Supreme Court required a conviction to rest on more than the uncorroborated confession of the defendant. The court concluded that the Opper rule did not apply to supervised release revocation proceedings and the district court did not abuse its discretion in revoking defendant's supervised release based on defendant's confession that he had violated restrictions on contact with minors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Hilger" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an atheist, filed suit seeking damages and injunctive relief after he was forced as a condition of parole to participate in a residential drug treatment program that required him to acknowledge a higher power. The court held that the district judge erred in denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial based on the jury's failure to award damages; in instructing the jury to determine whether liability should have been apportioned among the multiple defendants in this case; and in dismissing certain other of plaintiff's claims. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Hazle, Jr. v. Crofoot, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that Congress has no power to regulate the activities contemplated by the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, Mont. Code Ann. 30-20-104, and injunctive relief preventing the federal government from bringing civil or criminal actions under federal firearms law against Montana citizens acting in compliance with the Act. The court concluded that Plaintiff Gary Marbut alleged economic injury sufficient for standing. On the merits, Congress could have rationally concluded that the manufacture of unlicensed firearms, even if initially sold only within the State of Montana, would in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate market for firearms. Under Gonzales v. Raich and United States v. Stewart, that was enough to place the rifle Marbut wished to manufacture and sell within reach of the long arm of federal law. Because the Act purported to dictate to the contrary, it was necessarily preempted and invalid. Accordingly, the court dismissed the action for failure to state a claim. View "Mont. Shooting Sports Ass'n v. Holder" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from charges that defendant falsified a 2000 charitable organization tax return in order to conceal his support of an independence movement in Chechnya. The case involved significant amounts of classified materials and multiple in camera, ex parte reviews as well as classified proceedings. The court concluded, inter alia, that the government violated its obligations under Brady v. Maryland by withholding significant impeachment evidence relevant to a central government witness; the district court erred in approving an inadequate substitution for classified material that was relevant and helpful to the defense; and the search that the government conducted of defendant's computer hard drives went beyond the explicit limitations of the warrant and the court remanded to the district court to consider the appropriate scope of items seized and whether the exclusionary rule should apply. Considering the errors both individually as well as cumulatively in light of the evidence as a whole, the court concluded that the errors were prejudicial and reversed and remanded for a new trial. The court filed concurrently a classified opinion with respect to the substitution. View "United States v. Sedaghaty" on Justia Law