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

Petitioner, convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to death, appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition. The court concluded that petitioner's leg restraint was not imposed based on a clearly unreasonable determination of the facts, nor was its imposition contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established law; the use of dual juries at trial was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established law; the trial court complied with clearly established federal law when it determined no juror bias was present; there was no clearly established law governing implied bias, and petitioner had not shown that implied bias should apply here; the state post-conviction relief court did not unreasonably apply Strickland v. Washington during the plea process and during the penalty phase; and the Arizona Supreme court properly applied Lockett v. Ohio, Eddings v. Oklahoma, and their progeny in regards to mitigation evidence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Hedlund v. Ryan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against BNSF, alleging claims under MCA 39-2-703, which governs the liability of a railway for negligent mismanagement. BNSF removed to federal court. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's order granting summary judgment in favor of BNSF. The district court found that plaintiff's claims were preempted by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. 151-88. Applying the Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. v. Norris framework, the court concluded that plaintiff's state claim concerning a collision was not preempted. The right of railway employees to sue on the basis of negligence or mismanagement resulting in termination may be unusual in other jurisdictions, but such a right is undoubtedly recognized in Montana. The court concluded that plaintiff's claim concerning the conduct leading to the collision was independent of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and did not require interpretation by the CBA. Therefore, plaintiff's claim was not preempted by the RLA. The court also concluded that BNSF's disciplinary proceedings were not the legal cause of plaintiff's suspension and termination. Consequently, plaintiff's punitive damages claim was reinstated. The court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Wolfe v. BNSF Railway Co." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice under U.S.S.G. 3C1.1 based on defendant's false and misleading testimony at a bond revocation hearing. The court affirmed the sentence, holding that a defendant who willfully provides materially false testimony to a judge during a bond revocation hearing may be subject to a sentence enhancement under section 3C1.1; because defendant's testimony, if believed, could have affected his custodial status pending trial, his statements were material under section 3C1.1; and the district court made sufficient findings to support an obstruction enhancement. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Taylor" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for refusing to submit to a test of blood alcohol content. The court concluded that it was fundamentally unfair to convict defendant on the refusal charge when he was told time and again that his refusal to submit to a blood alcohol test was not in itself a crime, even though it was. Accordingly, the court reversed the conviction. View "United States v. Harrington" on Justia Law

The Secretary filed suit against DSHS, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act's (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., overtime and record-keeping provisions. The Secretary provided proof of the alleged violations by 400 employees' signatures - 350 of which he obtained after he had filed suit. The district court held that these 350 employees were not informants whose identities were protected from discovery by the government's informants privilege and ordered the Secretary to answer three interrogatories that would disclose their identities. The Secretary petitioned for a writ of mandamus. The court concluded that the district court erroneously limited the scope of the informants privilege by focusing on the timing of the informants' statements, and DSHS did not have a compelling need for the identities or identifying information of the 250 employees who would not be witnesses at trial. Therefore, the court granted the petition and vacated the district court's order to compel the Secretary's responses to the interrogatories. View "In re: Perez" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, and coercion of his former wife, appealed the district court's rejection of his petition for post-conviction relief as untimely. The court concluded that petitioner's unique mental illness made it impossible for him to timely file his federal habeas petition and in fact caused him to fail to meet the filing deadline. Therefore, the court concluded that petitioner was entitled to equitable tolling of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's, 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1)(A), one-year statute of limitation. The court reversed and remanded. View "Forbess v. Franke" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's order denying his motion for attorney's fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. 2412. The court concluded that the underlying agency action lacked a reasonable basis in law because the Social Security ALJ disregarded competent lay witness evidence on plaintiff's symptoms without comment. The court concluded that, because the ALJ disregarded competent lay witness evidence without comment, the position of the United States in the underlying action was not substantially justified. Because the government's underlying position was not substantially justified, the court awarded fees, even if the government's litigation position may have been justified. Therefore, plaintiff was entitled to an award of attorney's fees. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Tobeler v. Colvin" on Justia Law

Defendant, an immigrant, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. On appeal, defendant challenged his sentencing, claiming that a statement by the district judge at sentencing evidenced an anti-immigrant bias in violation of his constitutional rights. The court was not persuaded that the statement by the district court in this case reflected such a high degree of favoritism or antagonism as to make fair judgment impossible. It appears that the district court's statement was in response to arguments made by defendant and was offered to explain why the district court was not persuaded by them. The court concluded that defendant waived his remaining challenges where none of the exceptions in his plea agreement applied in this case. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and dismissed in part. View "United States v. Odachyan" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for two counts of transmitting through interstate commerce email communications containing threats to injure the person of another. The court held that the district court abused its discretion by excluding defendant's expert witness solely because he examined defendant for competency rather than for diminished capacity; instead of focusing exclusively on the different legal standards governing the conclusions the expert was asked to draw, the district court should have evaluated whether the substance of the expert's testimony would have helped the jury decide whether defendant could form the specific intent to threaten the recipients of his emails; and although the record did not allow the court to determine whether the expert’s testimony should have been admitted, the district court should not have excluded such testimony without conducting a voir dire or otherwise giving the expert an opportunity to explain how he could provide meaningful and relevant testimony on diminished capacity from the competency evaluation he had conducted. The court also held that the rule requiring a new trial when a district court erroneously admitted prejudicial expert testimony in a civil trial also applied to the erroneous exclusion of expert testimony from a criminal trial. Finally, the court held that the district court acted within its diminished discretion by denying defendant's request for a diminished capacity instruction on this record. The court vacated and remanded for a new trial. View "United States v. Christian" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion for early termination of supervised release. Defendant claimed that the district court applied the wrong legal standard by refusing to grant early termination unless defendant proved undue hardship caused by his supervised release. The court concluded that, under the broad legal standard for granting early termination, it was not an abuse of discretion to consider as one factor among others whether continued supervised release posed an undue hardship. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in applying an incorrect legal standard. However, the single explanation in the record for rejecting defendant's request for early termination for supervised release did not provide a reason for rejecting defendant's arguments or explain why his request should be denied under the applicable legal standard. The only explanation in the record was the district court's order stating that defendant did not demonstrate undue hardship caused by supervised release. This statement, standing alone, was not a sufficient explanation. Moreover, the absence of undue hardship did not explain why the relevant 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors did not weigh in defendant's favor. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Emmett" on Justia Law