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

The Tribe and CTGW brought suit against the County for imposing property taxes on the Great Wolf Lodge located on the Grand Mound Property, which was tribal land held in trust by the government. At issue was whether state and local governments have the power to tax permanent improvements built on non-reservation land owned by the United States and held in trust for an Indian tribe. The court concluded that Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones made it clear that where the United States owns land covered by 21 U.S.C. 465, and holds it in trust for the use of a tribe, section 465 exempts permanent improvements on that land from state and local taxation. Accordingly, under Mescalero, the County was barred from taxing the Great Wolf Lodge during the time in which the Grand Mound Property was owned by the United States and held in trust under section 465. Therefore, the district court erred in granting summary judgment to the County. View "Chehalis Tribes v. Thurston Cnty." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that deputies used excessive force against her late husband and that a deputy unreasonably seized her when he kept her from the crime scene. At issue was whether a reasonable jury could determine that the deputies violated the Constitution when they fatally shot the husband - an armed homeowner on his patio. In this instance, the court concluded that a reasonable fact-finder could conclude that the deputies' use of excessive force was constitutionally excessive where, among other things, the husband was not in the vicinity when the deputies arrived and plaintiff appeared unscathed and not in jeopardy. Accordingly, the court concluded that the deputies were not entitled to qualified immunity. The court dismissed plaintiff's cross-appeal for lack of jurisdiction. View "George v. Morris, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant, convicted of federal drug-trafficking felonies, appealed his sentence. The district court sentenced defendant as a "career offender" under U.S.S.G. 4B1.1 because he had two prior convictions for "crimes of violence." The court concluded that defendant's prior conviction for criminal property damage in the first degree under section 708.820(1)(a) of the Hawaii Revised Statutes was categorically a crime of violence under the residual clause of section 4B1.2(a)(2). Further, defendant's claim that section 4B1.2(a)(2)'s residual clause was unconstitutionally vague was foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Spencer" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of first-degree murder, petitioned for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court concluded that the prosecution's failure to disclose that the police dog had a history of mistaken identifications violated Brady v. Maryland, and the California Court of Appeal's decision to the contrary was an unreasonable application of Brady. Accordingly, the court granted the petition and reversed the district court's judgment on the Brady claim. View "Aguilar v. Woodford" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of money laundering, bank fraud, loan fraud, and conspiracy to commit loan and bank fraud. On appeal, defendant challenged his convictions, which stemmed from a Los Angeles-based scheme to defraud mortgage lenders. The court affirmed, concluding that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's convictions and, therefore, the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion for acquittal. View "United States v. Grasso" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to illegal reentry after a prior deportation and subsequently appealed the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the prior deportation order was fundamentally unfair. The court concluded that defendant had shown that he exhausted his administrative remedies by appealing the IJ's adverse ruling to the BIA. Defendant failed, however, to show that an error or obstacle related to his deportation proceedings improperly deprived him of the opportunity for judicial review. Because 8 U.S.C. 1326(d)(1), (d)(2), and (d)(3) must all be satisfied either directly or constructively, the court affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss and his conviction without addressing the merits of his argument. View "United States v. Gonzalez-Villalobos" on Justia Law

These five appeals concerned seepage over several decades of a toxic dry cleaning chemical into the ground under a Las Vegas shopping center. The court concluded that the application of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. 9601 et seq., to soil and groundwater contamination in Nevada did not offend the Commerce Clause; Maryland Square had not shown that it qualified for an exception to CERCLA liability, and it was clearly responsible for reimbursement under Nevada state law; NDEP was entitled to summary judgment against the operator, SBIC, on the CERCLA and state law claims; the district court did not decide the issue raised by Maryland Square's motion for reconsideration, so remand was required to determine whether Maryland Square had Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq., liability for exposing the contamination to the elements; SBIC was liable to the previous owners under the indemnification provisions of the 1968 and 1982 leases; and the district court erred in holding Melvin Shapiro liable on his personal guaranty because the guaranty operated only prospectively and there was no evidence of spills occurring after he signed the guaranty. View "Voggenthaler v. Maryland Square" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from a dispute between the parties over license agreements which allowed Myriad access to Oracle's Java programming language. On appeal, Myriad challenged the district court's partial denial of its motion to compel arbitration. The court concluded that the incorporation of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) arbitration rules into the parties' commercial contract constituted clear and unmistakable evidence that the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Oracle America, Inc. v. Myriad Group A.G." on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, appealed the denial of his federal habeas petition. Because the existence or absence of mitigating circumstances directly affected whether petitioner was death eligible under Arizona law, petitioner had a right to have a jury decide those facts under Ring v. Arizona. Applying the harmless error test, the court concluded that, in this instance, the absence of a jury at the sentencing stage had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on petitioner's sentence of death. Therefore, the court granted the habeas petition. Because the court reversed the denial of relief on the Ring claim, the court need not reach the claims concerning petitioner's competence to waive the presentation of mitigating evidence. The court otherwise affirmed and remanded with instructions to grant the petition unless the state court conducts a new sentencing hearing within a reasonable period of time. View "Murdaugh v. Ryan" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the denial of benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. 901-950, for injuries he sustained after falling off a dock while attempting to urinate while intoxicated. The court concluded that an injury "occasioned solely by" intoxication means that the legal cause of the injury was intoxication, regardless of the surface material of the landing on which the intoxicated person fell; the court rejected petitioner's broad definition of the term "injury;" the Board did not err in concluding that substantial evidence supported the ALJ's conclusions; there was no error in the Board's conclusion that petitioner's employer did not have to "rule out" all other possible causes of injury in order to rebut the presumption under section 920(c); and the Board correctly concluded that the ALJ's decision to deny disability benefits, based on the record as a whole, was proper. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Schwirse v. Director, OWCP" on Justia Law