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

Petitioner was a California state prisoner who was serving a forty-year “three strikes” sentence for first-degree burglary. Petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), arguing that her attorney provided ineffective assistance by failing to present evidence of mental illness in Petitioner's Romero motion asking the sentencing court to disregard two of her strikes. The district court denied the petition. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) even assuming that the applicability of Strickland v. Washington to noncapital sentencing is clearly established such that federal courts can afford relief from a state court’s flawed application of Strickland in that context, Petitioner could not prevail under the review standard imposed by the AEDPA; and (2) the state court’s findings that trial counsel’s performance did not fall below an objective standard of reasonableness and that submission of Petitioner’s medical evidence would not have resulted in a successful Romero motion and a concomitantly reduced sentence were not unreasonable applications of the Strickland standard. View "Daire v. Lattimore" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted of importing heroin and methamphetamine. Defendant moved to dismiss the indictment due to the government’s destruction of potentially useful evidence - video footage of a Port of Entry pedestrian line on the morning of Defendant’s arrest - that might have supported her claim of duress. The district court denied the motion. Defendant subsequently entered a conditional plea of guilty. Defendant appealed, arguing that the government’s failure to preserve the video footage violated her due process right to present a complete defense. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that Defendant’s due process rights were violated because (1) a Homeland Security agent, whose probable cause statement omitted any reference to Defendant’s claims of duress, knew of the apparent exculpatory value of the of the video and acted in bad faith by failing to preserve it; and (2) Defendant was unable to find comparable evidence to support her defense of duress. Remanded with directions to dismiss the indictment. View "United States v. Zaragoza-Moreira" on Justia Law

Appellants filed this putative class action challenging the California State Controller’s application of California’s Unclaimed Property Law (“UPL”), which provides for the conditional transfer of unclaimed property to the State of California. Appellants claimed that the procedures used both before unclaimed property is transferred to the Controller (“pre-escheat”) and after it is transferred (“post-escheat”) violate their due process rights. The district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Appellants’ argument that the pre-escheat notice provided by the Controller is constitutionally inadequate because the Controller does not attempt to locate property owners using the data sources required by Section 1531 of the UPL was based on a misinterpretation of the statute, and Appellants’ suggested requirement that the Controller use additional databases exceeded due process requirements; (2) Appellants’ argument that the Controller’s pre-escheat notice process is inadequate because it is carried out by companies that received a portion of the escheated value and therefore have a conflict of interest was not supported by law or the alleged facts; and (3) Appellants’ challenged to the post-escheat procedure was not ripe for review. View "Taylor v. Chiang" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought suit after some plaintiffs were threatened with arrest and one plaintiff was arrested for chanting loudly in protest of an organized walk by public officials and others through Los Angeles’ Skid Row. Plaintiffs challenged a California statutory scheme pertaining to public protests. The district court granted summary judgment for the City of Los Angeles. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) Cal. Penal Code 403, which makes it a misdemeanor to willfully disturb any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character with some exceptions, is not unconstitutionally vague or an unconstitutional restriction on speech; but (2) section 403 was unconstitutionally applied to Plaintiffs’ activities, as the statute did not cover the meeting at issue here, and therefore, section 403 did not criminalize Plaintiffs’ conduct. View "CPR for Skid Row v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, filed suit against Flava Enterprises Inc., a retail clothing store, alleging that a bench in the dressing room that was longer than forty-eight inches and ran along the entire length of the dressing room wall prevented him from making a diagonal transfer onto the bench from his wheelchair in violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The district court granted summary judgment for Flava’s on all of Plaintiff’s ADA claims. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the bench did not comply with the 1991 ADA Accessibility Guidelines’s (ADAAG) mandate but did qualify as an “equivalent facilitation” under the ADAAG because Plaintiff could make a parallel transfer; and (2) because the bench complied with the 1991 standards and had not been altered since March 15, 2012, it fell within a safe harbor and was not required to comply with the more recent ADAAG standards promulgated in 2010. View "Kohler v. Flava Enters., Inc." on Justia Law

After City of Glendale police officers arrested Plaintiff for an alleged assault on his father-in-law, Plaintiff’s wife and one of the police officers began a sexual relationship. Plaintiff was charged with two counts of drug possession, which were later dismissed for lack of probable cause, and assault and elder abuse, of which Plaintiff was acquitted. The City subsequently terminated the police officer. Plaintiff brought an action against the City and the police officers pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution. The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) there was probable cause to arrest and prosecute Plaintiff for assault and elder abuse, and the police officer’s later misconduct did not undermine the existence of probable cause; (2) the district court did not err in granting summary judgment as to the individual defendants on the malicious prosecution claim arising from the drug possession charge because Plaintiff failed to demonstrate a Fourth Amendment seizure; and (3) because Plaintiff’s section 1983 claims against the police officers failed, his municipality liability claim also necessarily failed. View "Yousefian v. City of Glendale" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a wheelchair user, filed suit against Pier 1 Imports (U.S.) Inc. claiming that alleged barriers to access in Pier 1’s store in Vacaville, California denied him “full and equal” access to the store in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The district court entered a permanent injunction against Pier 1, concluding that the obstructions in shopping aisles and on a sales counter violated Plaintiff’s rights under the ADA. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) the obstructed aisles that Plaintiff encountered on his numerous visits to the Pier 1 store were not permissible “isolated or temporary interruptions in…access” under the ADA Accessibility Guidelines because the evidence showed that Pier 1 repeatedly failed to maintain accessible routes in its store; but (2) there was insufficient evidence that the obstructions on the sales counter violated Plaintiff’s rights under the ADA. Remanded to the district court to modify the injunction consistent with this opinion. View "Chapman v. Pier 1 Imports (U.S.) Inc." on Justia Law

The City of Sunnyvale enacted an ordinance restricting the possession of “large-capacity magazines” - statutorily defined as any detachable ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than ten rounds. Plaintiffs filed suit against the City and other individual defendants (collectively, Sunnyvale) challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance. Plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction to enjoin the ordinance. The district court denied the motion. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, holding that the court did not abuse its discretion in determining that Sunnyvale presented sufficient evidence to show that the ordinance was likely to survive intermediate scrutiny and that Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate they would likely succeed on the merits of their claim. View "Fyock v. City of Sunnyvale" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who was wheelchair-bound and physically disabled, alleged that her access at three retail stores in a shopping mall was obstructed. Plaintiff settled her claims with a tenant defendant. Thereafter, the district court sua sponte issued an order that dismissed three defendants, concluding that the defendants were improperly joined because Plaintiff’s complaint did not allege that her injuries arose out of the same transaction or occurrence. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding (1) as originally filed, the landlord defendant was properly joined because it shared the common transaction or occurrence of a landlord-tenant relationship with the tenant defendant that settled with Plaintiff; and (2) the district court abused its discretion by dismissing rather than severing Plaintiff’s complaint against the two retail defendants without evaluating the prejudice to Plaintiff. Remanded. View "Rush v. Sport Chalet, Inc." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit amended an opinion and dissent filed on July 28, 2014 in which a panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed a conviction for attempting to enter the United States without consent after having been previously removed. Here the panel amended the opinion and dissent, denied a petition for panel rehearing, and denied a petition for rehearing en banc. Defendant collaterally attacked the underlying removal order, arguing that the immigration judge (IJ) erred in concluding that he had been convicted of an aggravated felony and therefore violated his right to due process by failing to advise him of his apparent eligibility for voluntary departure relief. The panel affirmed the conviction, holding (1) even if the IJ should have informed Defendant of his apparent eligibility for voluntary departure, Defendant was not prejudiced by the error, and therefore, the removal order was not fundamentally unfair under 8 U.S.C. 1326(d)(3); and (2) the conviction based on Defendant’s videotaped confession did not run afoul of the corpus delicti doctrine. View "United States v. Valdez-Novoa" on Justia Law