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

Ohlson was a forensic scientist with the Arizona Department of Public Safety and analyzed blood samples for alcohol content, reported the findings, and testified about those findings in court proceedings. Ohlson advocated for changes in how the lab disclosed batched test results and, contrary to his superiors’ orders, communicated his opinions within the Department, with defense attorneys, and in court hearings. He was disciplined and eventually forced to retire.The district court rejected Ohlson’s allegations of First Amendment retaliation. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. Ohlson’s advocacy in the course of his employment duties could conceivably have adversely affected confidence in the accuracy of the Department’s test results, as well as in the Department. The defendants did not violate any clearly established law; where, as in this case, an employee, in the course of doing the job, has expressed views the employer regards as contrary to its interests, controlling legal principles remain particularly uncertain, so the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. View "Ohlson v. Brady" on Justia Law

Maner worked as a biomedical engineer in the laboratory of Dr. Garfield for several decades. Maner learned that Garfield and another employee, Shi, were engaged in a long-term romantic relationship. Garfield brought Shi with him to research conferences to which other employees were not invited and conferred upon Shi a greater share of workplace opportunities related to publications and intellectual property than Maner felt she should have received. In 2008, Maner was arrested at work for alleged aggravated sexual assault; he pleaded guilty to a lesser state law offense. Maner subsequently received positive performance reviews and merit pay increases. Garfield approved a remote work arrangement to enable Maner to serve his probation. Garfield’s lab began to suffer a decline in grant funding. In 2011, Garfield submitted a highly negative review of Maner’s performance under the remote work arrangement. Maner’s position was eliminated based on the poor performance review and lack of funding.Maner brought a Title VII sex discrimination claim, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a)(1), and a Title VII retaliation claim alleging that his termination was for protesting Garfield’s favoritism toward Shi. The Ninth Circuit affirmed judgment for the employer. Maner’s “paramour preference” reading of Title VII fails the Supreme Court’s test for assessing whether an adverse employment action violated Title VII—whether changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer. Maner failed to establish any causal connection between the claimed protected activity and the termination decision. View "Maner v. Dignity Health" on Justia Law

Bartley was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4), based on his 2011 commitment to an Idaho state hospital after he was found incompetent to stand trial. Section 922(g)(4) prohibits the possession of a firearm by any person “who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution.” The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of Bartley’s motion to dismiss.The court rejected Bartley’s contentions that the 2011 state proceedings to determine his competency to face criminal charges lacked due process and that because the state court did not find that he was both mentally ill and dangerous, the 2011 proceedings did not constitute an adjudication or commitment within the meaning of section 922(g)(4). Neither section 922(g)(4) nor 27 C.F.R. 478.11 requires a finding that the committed person was both mentally ill and dangerous nor a separate finding under Idaho law that Bartley was a person to whom section 922(g)(4) applies. Assuming without deciding that the application of section 922(g)(4) to Bartley burdened Second Amendment rights, the court applied intermediate scrutiny and found the government’s statutory objective to be “significant, substantial, or important,” and a “reasonable fit” between the challenged law and that objective. View "United States v. Bartley" on Justia Law

In 2016, California voters passed Proposition 57, which amended the California Constitution by granting eligibility for early parole consideration to state prison inmates convicted of nonviolent felonies who had completed the full term for their primary offense. Section 32 authorized the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to adopt implementing regulations. CDCR adopted regulations, which excluded from early parole consideration nonviolent felony offenders sentenced to indeterminate sentences under California’s Three Strikes Law. In 2018, the California Court of Appeal found that the Regulations’ exclusion of these offenders was inconsistent with Section 32. CDCR amended the Regulations to include, for early parole consideration, state prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for nonviolent third-strike offenses and set a deadline of December 31, 2021, by which to schedule parole consideration hearings for previously-excluded offenders.The previously-excluded offenders filed a putative class action under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit, The CDCR defendants acted within the legislative sphere when they participated in the adoption of the Regulations. That the Regulations were later found to violate the California Constitution did not diminish their authority to adopt the Regulations in the first place. They were performing a legislative function when they adopted the Regulations and are entitled to legislative immunity. View "Jones v. Allison" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies of plaintiffs' action under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Plaintiffs claim that the district court is failing its responsibilities to students under the IDEA by not timely identifying and evaluating students with disabilities, and, after identifying them, by providing them with insufficiently individualized, "cookie-cutter" accommodations and services. Although plaintiffs argue that exhaustion was not required because they are challenging district-wide policies that only a court can remedy, plaintiffs are unable to identify such policies. The panel agreed with the district court that plaintiffs have not satisfied any of the limited exceptions recognized by caselaw to the exhaustion requirement contained in 20 U.S.C. 1415(l). In this case, plaintiffs challenged what amounted to failures in practice by the school district, rather than policies or practices of general applicability. View "Student A v. San Francisco Unified School District" on Justia Law

Yañez was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent while on the border fence, which is in the United States. After being shot, Yañez fell and landed across the international border. Yañez’s family filed civil claims against the government and individual federal agents.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the rejection of claims under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), and a “Bivens” claim. The court rejected an argument that the shooting and Border Patrol’s Rocking Policy, authorizing deadly force in response to rock-throwing, violated an international jus cogens norm against extrajudicial killing and was actionable under the ATS; the ATS does not waive sovereign immunity, even for jus cogens violations. Claims under the FTCA were time-barred. Plaintiff initially did not pursue an FTCA claim because she believed that, under Ninth Circuit precedent, judgment on an FTCA claim would have foreclosed her Bivens claims. Plaintiff amended the complaint to assert FTCA claims after the Supreme Court abrogated that precedent in 2016. The FTCA’s judgment bar did not foreclose a contemporaneously filed Bivens claim when the government had prevailed on the FTCA claim, so the Supreme Court’s decision was irrelevant to this situation. That mistake of law was not outside of plaintiff's control and did not qualify as an extraordinary circumstance supporting equitable tolling. Special factor counseled against extending a Bivens remedy; doing so would challenge a high-level executive policy and implicated national security. View "Quintero-Perez v. United States" on Justia Law

Matias, a native of El Salvador, unlawfully entered the U.S. in 2014. El Salvadoran authorities considered him a member of MS-13, a violent gang. In Maryland, Matias pleaded guilty to assault in the first degree after being involved in a shooting that authorities determined was retaliation for MS-13 gang activity, and identified Matias as an MS-13 “affiliate.” ICE detained Matias in 2018. Matias requested to be housed with a gang aligned with MS-13. An IJ denied him bond and later denied Matias relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and ordered him removed. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed his appeal. The Ninth Circuit denied his petition for review in 2021.Matias moved the BIA to reopen his case so that it could consider “new developments” regarding his request for CAT relief: claimed political changes in El Salvador and an alleged text from an MS-13 gang member labeling him a “snitch” and saying he will be killed if he returns to El Salvador. The BIA denied his request for an emergency stay. Matias filed a habeas petition, asking the court to enjoin the government from removing him until the BIA ruled on his motion to reopen. The district court denied his motion. The Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court, which denied Matias’s motion for a temporary restraining order, determining that 8 U.S.C. 1252(g)’s jurisdictional limits barred his claims. View "Rauda v. Jennings" on Justia Law

In 1995, Jones was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend’s mother. After the California Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence and denied his state habeas petition, Jones filed a federal habeas petition, raising multiple challenges to both the guilt and penalty phases of his trial. The district court granted relief on Jones’s claim that the state trial court violated his right to present a complete defense; Jones should have been permitted to testify during the guilt phase about events from his childhood and his mental health history, and the trial court erred by conditioning such testimony on the presentation of a psychiatric expert who would explain the testimony’s relevance to Jones’s mental state during the murder.The Ninth Circuit reversed. The condition the trial court imposed on Jones’s testimony was neither arbitrary nor disproportionate to the valid purposes served by its ruling. The court remanded for the district court to consider Jones’s remaining claims. View "Jones v. Davis" on Justia Law

In 1982, a court-martial convicted Hubbard of murder and sentenced him to life in prison. He previously filed unsuccessful federal habeas petitions and, in 2019, sought DNA testing under the Innocence Protection Act (IPA), 18 U.S.C. 3600(a), to prove his innocence.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court was not the court that entered the judgment of conviction; Hubbard’s conviction was entered by a general court-martial, which has since dissolved, not in federal court. The court rejected Hubbard’s contentions that the district court had the power to grant his petition for DNA testing under the IPA or that the IPA should nonetheless be construed to allow him to petition for DNA testing in the district court because he would otherwise have no forum in which to seek his relief. The IPA, unlike the federal habeas statutes, does not provide a procedural mechanism for prisoners convicted by courts-martial to seek collateral relief in federal court. View "Hubbard v. United States" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a 28 U.S.C. 2241 petition in which petitioner challenged two sentencing enhancements—one under 18 U.S.C. 2251(e), another under 18 U.S.C. 3559(e)(1)—applied after his conviction on multiple counts of federal sex offenses.The panel held that petitioner's claim is foreclosed because the legal basis for his claim arose before he had exhausted his section 2255 motion, so he cannot show that he did not have an unobstructed procedural shot at presenting his challenge to the section 3559(e)(1) sentencing enhancement. The panel rejected petitioner's request for an extension of Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), concluding that an extension of Martinez would make little sense. The panel explained that it would open the door for every unsuccessful pro se petitioner under section 2255 to argue that his lack of counsel in his original section 2255 petition meant that he did not have an unobstructed procedural shot at presenting his claim and is therefore entitled to bring an escape hatch petition under section 2241. The panel noted that other circuits have similarly held that prisoners may not utilize Martinez to bring a section 2241 petition. Because petitioner cannot show that he lacked an unobstructed procedural shot with respect to the section 3559(e)(1) mandatory life sentencing enhancement, the panel did not need to reach the actual innocence prong for that enhancement or either prong for the section 2251(e) enhancement. View "Pavulak v. von Blanckensee" on Justia Law