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

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine under 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A)(ii) and possession of a firearm in furtherance of the conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1)(A)(i). Defendant argued that the government's conduct was outrageous, insofar as the government collaborated with an informant with a criminal history. The court concluded that the fact that the informant had engaged in past crimes did not raise due process concerns about the government's use of him as a confidential informant in its investigation. Nor did the nature of the informant's past crimes render the government's conduct outrageous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Hullaby" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court denied two of petitioner's claims as procedurally defaulted. At issue was whether Martinez v. Ryan applied to the failure to raise not only a claim of trial-counsel ineffective assistance of counsel, but also a claim of appellate-counsel ineffective assistance of counsel. Concluding that it did, the court remanded to allow the district court to determine in the first instance whether petitioner's state-court procedural default should be excused under Martinez. View "Nguyen v. Curry" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Bulgarian citizen, sought review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's adverse credibility finding and denial of petitioner's applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court concluded that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying petitioner's motion to remand where he did not provide any evidence supporting his motion nor did he even explain why he believed that 8 U.S.C. 208.6 had been violated; the IJ acted within his discretion when he admitted a letter summarizing a State Department investigation into evidence and relied on it to find that the subpoenas petitioner submitted were fraudulent; the adverse credibility finding based on the fraudulent subpoenas was supported by substantial evidence; because petitioner's claim was based on his mistreatment by the Bulgarian police, the fact that the subpoenas were fraudulent goes to the heart of his claim of persecution; petitioner's testimony was not credible and he did not present other evidence that met his burden to show that it was more likely than not that he would be tortured if sent back to Bulgaria; and, therefore, the court denied the petition for review. View "Angov v. Holder" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the City of Eugene, the Police Department (EPD), and others, alleging that they violated his First Amendment rights when they removed him from his position on the EPD K-9 team in retaliation for repeatedly airing concerns about work-related safety issues to his supervisors. The court concluded that the evidence presented to the jury did not reasonably permit the conclusion that plaintiff established a retaliation claim where, as here, a public employee reports departmental-safety concerns to his or her supervisors pursuant to a duty to do so, that employee did not speak as a private citizen and was not entitled to First Amendment protection. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's denial of defendants' motion for judgment as a matter of law and held that defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. View "Hagen v. City of Eugene, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the BIA's final order of removal. The court concluded that neither the IJ nor the BIA abused their discretion in holding that petitioner had waived her application for relief and protection where she did not file her application for relief by the extended due date for her applications set by the IJ. Further, petitioner abandoned her application for a waiver of inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(1)(H) and she was ineligible for such a waiver where she was being deported because she was convicted of falsifying documents, not because she was inadmissible at entry. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Taggar v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

Appellant filed a chapter 7 bankruptcy petition and subsequent to the entry of the discharge order of appellant's debts, the trustee learned that appellant had misrepresented the value or existence of a number of assets in the schedules he had filed and in the testimony he gave during the creditors meeting. Finding that the misrepresentations amounted to a violation of 11 U.S.C. 727(a)(4)(A), the bankruptcy court granted the trustee's motion to revoke appellant's discharge under section 727(d)(1). Appellant appealed. The court adopted the reasoning of the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel and its sister circuits in holding that a material fraud, which would have resulted in the denial of a Chapter 7 discharge had it been known at the time of such discharge, could justify revocation of that discharge under section 727(d)(1). Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court affirming the bankruptcy court's decision. View "Jones v. US Trustee" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs challenged Washington statutes that require a certificate of "public convenience and necessity" (PCN) in order to operate a ferry on Lake Chelan in central Washington sate. The court held that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not encompass a right to operate a public ferry on intrastate navigable waterways and affirmed the district court's dismissal of this claim. The court also held that the district court properly abstained from deciding on plaintiffs' challenges to the PCN requirement as applied to the provision of boat transportation services on the lake. The district court properly abstained under the Pullman doctrine, but the district court should have retained jurisdiction instead of dismissing the claim. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded this claim with instructions to the district court to retain jurisdiction over the constitutional challenge. View "Courtney, et al. v. Goltz, et al." on Justia Law

Marshak appealed the district court's preliminary injunction for HRE enjoining Marshak from using the "The Platters" mark in connection with any vocal group with narrow exceptions. At issue was whether the likelihood of irreparable harm must be established - rather than presumed, as under prior Ninth Circuit precedent - by a plaintiff seeking injunctive relief in the trademark context. Following eBay v. MarcExchange and Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., a plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction in a trademark infringement case must establish irreparable harm. The court concluded that HRE was not foreclosed from bringing the underlying suit where prior New York actions (Marshak I and Marshak II) did not have res judicata effect; HRE's trademark infringement claim and request for preliminary injunction was not precluded by the doctrine of laches; the record supported the district court's determination that HRE did not abandon "The Platters" mark; but the fact that the district curt made no factual findings that would support a likelihood of establishing irreparable harm, led the court to reverse the preliminary injunction and to remand to the district court. View "HRE v. Florida Entertainment Mgmt." on Justia Law

Capital One appealed the district court's order remanding a putative class action lawsuit to California state court under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), Pub. L. No. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4. The court concluded that there must ordinarily be facts in evidence to support a finding that two-thirds of putative class members were local state citizens, which was one of the local controversy exception's requirements, if that question was disputed before the district court. A pure inference regarding the citizenship of prospective class members may be sufficient if the class is defined as limited to citizens of the state in question, but otherwise such a finding should not be based on guesswork. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Mondragon v. Capital One Auto Finance, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Russian citizen, petitioned for review of the BIA's dismissal of his appeal from the denial of his applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court granted the petition, concluding that petitioner met his burden of presenting evidence that the Russian government was unable or unwilling to control the nongovernmental actors who persecuted him because he was a homosexual; in order to obtain relief petitioner requested, he was not required to demonstrate that the Russian government sponsored or condoned the persecution of homosexuals or was unwilling for that reason to control persecution; and the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Doe v. Holder" on Justia Law