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

Defendants Rodriquez, Murillo, and Mujica appealed their convictions for conspiracy to commit murder and first degree murder stemming from the stabbing of a prison inmate, Peter Scopazzi. Because defendants failed to demonstrate that any medical negligence or removal of a breathing tube was so extraordinary that it would be unfair to hold defendants responsible for the resulting death, and because the jury instructions included the concepts of foreseeability and proximate cause, the district court acted within its discretion when it cabined the medical evidence; the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence pertaining to the connection between the Surenos and the Mexican Mafia as relevant to defendants' motive in attacking Scopazzi; and defendants failed to demonstrate that a new trial was warranted based on the government's failure to disclose immaterial information regarding a government witness's sentence reduction and his cooperation in a DEA investigation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Rodriguez" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for violating the registration requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16911 et seq. The court held that SORNA's delegation of authority to the Attorney General to determine the applicability of SORNA's registration requirements to pre-SORNA sex offenders is consistent with the requirements of the non-delegation doctrine; the court joined its sister circuits and held that SORNA does not violate the Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering principle; and defendant's claims that SORNA's registration requirements violate the Commerce Clause and Ex Post Facto Clause were foreclosed by circuit precedent. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Richardson" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and other offenses. The court held that a notary seal can be an "authentication feature" under 18 U.S.C. 1028, and that the district court correctly applied an enhancement for use of an authentication feature under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(11)(A)(ii) when it calculated the advisory guidelines range for defendant's sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Sardariani" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, challenging the constitutionality of Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 85.02, which prohibits use of a vehicle "as living quarters either overnight, day-by-day, or otherwise." The court concluded that section 85.02 provides inadequate notice of the unlawful conduct it proscribes, and opens the door to discriminatory enforcement against the homeless and poor. Accordingly, section 85.02 violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an unconstitutionally vague statute. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. View "Desertrain v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for misdemeanor manufacturing, selling, or possessing any badge, identification card, or other insignia, of the design prescribed by the head of any department or agency of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 701. Defendant, a maintenance worker at a Marine Corps base, was issued a yellow card, a card given to employees of the Maintenance Center for the purposes of "quick identification." After defendant misplaced his last yellow card, it appears that he may have created a new yellow card, although defendant insists that it was created by another person. The court reversed the conviction because the evidence introduced at trial did not support the conclusion that the yellow card defendant was convicted of manufacturing or possessing was "of the design prescribed by the head of any department or agency of the United States." View "United States v. Jackson" on Justia Law

Defendant, a citizen of Mexico, was convicted of a California firearms offense, removed from the United States on the basis of that conviction, and, when he returned to the country, tried and convicted of illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. 1326. Declining to find that defendant waived his argument, the court concluded that defendant showed good cause to excuse his failure to raise his argument under Moncrieffe v. Holder in the district court. The court rejected the government's position that the court could not consider Moncrieffe in evaluating whether defendant was removable as charged; the court agreed with defendant that any conviction under a state firearms statute lacking an exception for antique firearms is not a categorical match for the federal firearms ground of removal; California Penal Code 12021(c)(1) does not have an antique firearms exception; and a conviction under the statute is not a categorical match for the federal aggravated felony "firearms offense." The government conceded that defendant's conviction was not for a "crime of moral turpitude" - the other potential ground for removal. Accordingly, there was no legal basis for his 2005 removal order. The court reversed defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Aguilera-Rios" on Justia Law

This case arose from a political battle concerning labor unions. Chula Vista Citizens and the Associations sought to place an initiative on the Chula Vista municipal ballot. The City of Chula Vista requires that initiative proponents be electors (the elector requirement). Because Cal. Elec. Code 9202(a) requires proponents to sign a notice of intent, the effect of Cal. Elec. Code 9207 is that the identities of official proponents are disclosed to would-be signatories of the petition (the petition-proponent disclosure requirement). Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the elector and petition-proponent disclosure requirements, both facially and as applied, violated the First Amendment. Determining that the elector requirement was properly before the court because it implicated the chilling of expression and because the parties had not indicated that there were many pending actions in the California courts, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants as to the elector requirement where the Associations did not have a First Amendment right to serve as official proponents of local ballot initiatives. The court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants as to the petition-proponent disclosure requirement where the requirement was unconstitutional because they require official initiative proponents to identify themselves on the face of initiative petitions. View "Chula Vista Citizens v. Norris" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of second-degree murder, appealed the district court's denial of his habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court held that a prosecutor may not suggest that jurors should vote to convict a defendant lest that defendant endanger their neighborhood. Therefore, the court concluded that the final statement made by the prosecutor was improper, but petitioner was not deprived of a fair trial because there was no reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different verdict without the prosecutorial misstatements. The court also concluded that trial counsel was not constitutionally ineffective for failing to object to prosecutorial misstatements and for objecting to the prosecutor's statements about gang connections where petitioner suffered no prejudice. Finally, the trial court's decision to exclude testimony regarding a statement made by a witness to the victim did not violate the Constitution where there was no evidentiary corroboration at all for the witness statement. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Trillo v. Biter" on Justia Law

Drivers, California residents who worked for Affinity, filed suit alleging that Affinity wrongfully classified them as independent contractors, failed to pay them sick leave, vacation, holiday, and severance wages; and improperly charged them workers' compensation insurance fees. The court concluded that the undisputed facts indicated that Affinity had the right to control the details of the drivers' work, and the application of the secondary factors weigh in favor of a finding that the drivers were employees. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's decision that the drivers were independent contractors and held that they were Affinity's employees under California law. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Ruiz v. Affinity Logistics Corp." on Justia Law

The Commissioner disallowed petitioner's claimed deduction on his 1999 tax return for a capital loss purportedly generated by several Cayman Islands entities. Petitioner invested in an Offshore Portfolio Investment Strategy (OPIS) in order to reduce the tax liability associated with petitioner's strategy of either taking his company, DiTech, public or selling it. The Tax Court affirmed. Applying the economic substance doctrine, the court concluded that the record amply supported the Tax Court's factual conclusion that petitioner pursued the OPIS product solely for its tax benefits and that the Tax Court had ample record support for its factual conclusion that the OPIS transaction had no practical economic effects other than the creation of income tax losses. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Reddam v. CIR" on Justia Law