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

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of habeas relief on a certified claim of ineffective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death by a California jury on two counts of first-degree murder for killings he committed during a carjacking.The panel held that the California Supreme Court unreasonably applied clearly established federal law in denying petitioner's claim for ineffective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase. Reviewing de novo counsel's performance under Strickland v. Washington, the panel held that counsel rendered deficient performance by failing adequately to investigate petitioner's good character and social history, and he had no reasoned or tactical excuse for not doing so. The panel also held that counsel rendered deficient performance by not investigating petitioner's claim of self-defense in the jail homicide to counter the State's use of it as aggravation evidence. Furthermore, the state court's conclusion that petitioner failed to show prejudice was objectively unreasonable. Accordingly, the panel remanded with instructions. View "Avena v. Chappell" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order refusing to compel the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs to place the Aqua Caliente Tribe of Cupeño Indians on a list of federally recognized tribes published in the Federal Register.The panel held that the Tribe failed to exhaust the regulatory process under 25 C.F.R. 83 to obtain federal recognition. Instead, the Tribe argued that the Part 83 process did not apply because they sought "correction" of the list, not recognition. However, the panel held that framing the issue as one of "correction" was unsupported by the applicable regulations and case law. In regard to the Tribe's equal protection and Administrative Procedure Act claims, the panel held that Interior had a rational basis for not making an exception to the Part 83 process for the Tribe. The panel concluded that it was rational for the Interior to ask the Tribe to demonstrate through the Part 83 process how they are a "distinct Community" from the Pala Band of Mission Indians and "politically autonomous" so that Interior may make the federal-recognition determination, and Interior's explanation for treating the Tribe differently from other tribes passed muster. View "Agua Caliente Tribe of Cupeño Indians of the Pala Reservation v. Sweeney" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of a Guam resident who challenged a provision of Guam's 2000 Plebiscite Law that restricted voting to "Native Inhabitants of Guam." Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000), and Davis v. Commonwealth Election Comm'n, 844 F.3d 1087 (9th Cir. 2016), respectively invalidated laws in Hawaii and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands limiting voting in certain elections to descendants of particular indigenous groups because those provisions employed ancestry as a proxy for race in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.The panel held that Guam's 2000 Plebiscite Law is subject to the requirements of the Fifteenth Amendment, and that the classification "Native Inhabitants of Guam" serves as a proxy for race. Therefore, Guam's limitations on the right to vote in its political status plebiscite to "Native Inhabitants of Guam" violates the Fifteenth Amendment. View "Davis v. Guam" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a petition for habeas corpus relief challenging petitioner's Arizona state murder conviction and death penalty. Applying deferential review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), the panel held that the district court properly held that petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel was not violated when his trial counsel elected not to challenge petitioner's competency to waive counsel, despite counsel's knowledge that he had a history of mental health issues; the district court properly concluded that petitioner's due process rights were not violated by the state trial court's failure to hold a competency hearing sua sponte; and the district court properly held that the Arizona Supreme Court's opinion concluding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying petitioner's final continuance motion was neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law.The panel expanded the certificate of appealability (COA) to include the question of whether petitioner's constitutional rights were violated at trial through use of restraints, but affirmed the denial of the writ on that issue. The panel declined to expand the COA further. View "Dixon v. Ryan" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of qualified immunity to police officers in an action brought by plaintiff, seeking damages incurred during a SWAT team search of her house and alleging claims for unreasonable search, unreasonable seizure, and conversion.The panel assumed, without deciding, that defendants violated plaintiffs' rights and held that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because those rights were not clearly established at the time. Given the factors that suggested voluntary consent, the panel held that a lack of consent was not clearly established and that a lack of consent was not so obvious that the requirement of similar precedent can be overcome. Furthermore, given that defendants thought they had permission to enter plaintiff's house to apprehend a dangerous, potentially armed, and suicidal felon barricaded inside, it was not obvious, in the absence of a controlling precedent, that defendants exceeded the scope of plaintiff's consent by causing the tear gas canisters to enter the house in an attempt to flush the felon out into the open. View "West v. City of Caldwell" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for PAR in an action brought by plaintiff, a profoundly deaf individual who is a licensed real estate salesperson, under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Arizonans with Disabilities Act (AzADA). Plaintiff alleged that PAR failed to comply with federal and state laws when it denied plaintiff's requests for an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter at continuing education courses.The panel held that PAR was not entitled to summary judgment because engaging in dialogue with plaintiff did not satisfy its obligations under the ADA, and there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether PAR offered an auxiliary aid or service that would provide effective communication to plaintiff. The panel remanded for the district court to consider in the first instance whether providing an ASL interpreter would result in an undue burden. View "Tauscher v. Phoenix Board of Relators, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of an Arizona state prisoner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for habeas relief, challenging his conviction for four counts of first degree murder and his capital sentence. The panel held that the record failed to establish that plaintiff's pre-trial counsel were incompetent or provided constitutionally deficient representation. Therefore, petitioner's challenges to his waiver of counsel and guilty pleas, as both claims were premised on constitutionally inadequate representation, failed.The panel also held that there was no reasonable probability that state post-conviction proceedings would have turned out differently if petitioner had advanced a pre-trial ineffective assistance of counsel claim, and the panel could not excuse the procedural default of that claim. Furthermore, the state court reasonably concluded that sentencing counsel was not ineffective, and the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying petitioner's request for an evidentiary hearing on that claim. Finally, the panel held that any causal nexus during petitioner's sentencing was harmless. View "Djerf v. Ryan" on Justia Law

The Koala brought this action for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that the University student government's passage of the Media Act, which eliminated registered student organization (RSO) funding for all print media, violated its First Amendment rights.The Ninth Circuit held that the Eleventh Amendment did not bar The Koala's claims and the relief The Koala sought was consistent with the Ex parte Young doctrine. The panel saw no reason why the rule articulated in the Free Speech cases cited -- that the government may not withhold benefits for a censorious purpose -- should not apply when the state singles out and burdens the press by revoking a subsidy, particularly where, as here, the record includes unusually compelling allegations that the government acted with discriminatory intent. Therefore, the second amended complaint's (SAC) Free Press Clause claim was sufficient to survive defendants' motion to dismiss because it alleged that the Media Act was passed for the express purpose of silencing a newspaper, and that defendants singled out The Koala for a disparate financial burden.The panel also held that the allegations in the SAC, and in the documents incorporated by reference into the SAC, supported the conclusion that defendants created a limited public forum encompassing all student activity funding, not one constrained to only media funds. Furthermore, the complaint sufficiently alleged a claim for First Amendment retaliation where The Koala's article was clearly protected speech, the Media Act chilled The Koala's speech, and The Koala adequately alleged a nexus between its speech and the Associated Students' alleged retaliatory conduct. Accordingly, the panel reversed in part and vacated in part. View "The Koala v. Khosla" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants in an action brought by husband and wife, alleging civil rights violations. Plaintiffs' claims stemmed from the police seizure of firearms from their residence after detaining husband for a mental health evaluation in response to a 911 call.The panel held that that wife's Second Amendment claim was barred by issue preclusion under California law, because the California Court of Appeal had considered and rejected a Second Amendment argument identical to this one. The panel also held that the warrantless seizure of the guns did not violate the Fourth Amendment where the officers had probable cause to detain involuntarily an individual experiencing an acute mental health episode and to send the individual for evaluation, they expected the individual would have access to firearms and present a serious public safety threat if he returned to the home, and they did not know how quickly the individual might return. In this case, the urgency of a significant public safety interest was sufficient to outweigh the significant privacy interest in personal property kept in the home, and a warrant was not required. View "Rodriguez v. City of San Jose" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of an action brought by independent presidential candidate Roque De La Fuente challenging two California ballot access laws, Cal. Elec. Code 8400, 8403. These Ballot Access Laws require independent candidates to collect signatures from one percent of California's registered voters to appear on a statewide ballot.The panel held that De La Fuente had standing because he suffered a concrete injury that was not merely speculative. On the merits, the panel held that California's overall scheme did not significantly impair ballot access. Rather, the laws were generally applicable, even-handed, politically neutral, and aimed at protecting the reliability and integrity of the election process. The panel also held that the Ballot Access Laws reasonably relate to California's important regulatory interests in managing its democratic process and are proportionate to California's large voter population. View "De La Fuente v. Padilla" on Justia Law