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

The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and Grand Canyon Wildlands Council (collectively, “CBD”) contend that the United States Forest Service (“USFS”) is liable under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”), for “contributing to the past or present . . . disposal” of lead ammunition in the Kaibab National Forest. The district court concluded that USFS is not liable as a contributor under RCRA and dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal. The panel held that (a) the Forest Service’s choice not to regulate despite having the authority to do so does not manifest the type of actual, active control contemplated by RCRA; (b) although the Forest Service has the authority to further regulate Special Use permits, it has not done so, and RCRA does not impose a duty on the Forest Service to do so; and (c) mere ownership is insufficient to establish contributor liability under RCRA. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying CBD’s motion to amend its complaint to add RCRA claims against Arizona officials because CBD’s proposed amendment did not add any new claims or allegations against the Forest Service, and its claims against Arizona officials were barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Finally, the panel denied as moot CBD’s request that this case be reassigned to a different district judge. View "CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, ET AL V. USFS, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence of twenty-seven months’ imprisonment followed by three years’ supervised release for attempted reentry following removal. Defendant had been deported from the United States six times, most recently about a month before his arrest. The same district court judge who sentenced Defendant in this case had presided over his prior sentencing hearing for illegal reentry. On appeal, Defendant raised two challenges to the court’s sentence.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant’s sentence. The panel held that so long as Defendant is apprised of the consequences of entering into a Type B plea agreement and accedes to them voluntarily, he has no right to withdraw from the agreement on the ground that the court does not accept the sentencing recommendation or request. Accordingly, the district court’s use of the word “reject” in the context of a Type B plea agreement can have no legal effect. The panel wrote that the record establishes that Defendant was aware of the consequences of entering into a Type B plea agreement, and concluded that the district court therefore did not abuse its discretion under the circumstances.   Defendant argued that the district court committed procedural error when it used Defendant’s alleged promise at his prior sentencing hearing not to return to the United States as a sentencing factor. Reviewing for plain error, the panel held that the district court’s factual finding that Defendant had assured the court at the prior sentencing hearing that he would not return to the United States is supported by the record. View "USA V. URBANO TORRES-GILES" on Justia Law

Two police officers were dispatched to a gym after a man reportedly threatened gym patrons and assaulted a security guard. The suspect then violently attacked the officers and refused to stop after they repeatedly deployed their tasers. One officer eventually resorted to lethal force to end the aggression. Plaintiff, the man’s mother, filed this lawsuit against Defendant and the City of Los Angeles. She claimed a violation of Section 1983 based on the officer’s allegedly unreasonable use of deadly force. She also sought to hold the City liable under Monell v. Dep’t of Social Services. Plaintiff further brought wrongful death actions against the officer and the City under California law. The court concluded that Defendant was not entitled to qualified immunity. The court denied Defendant’s motion for summary judgment on Plaintiff’s state law claims for similar reasons. Defendant appealed.   The Ninth Circuit reversed. The panel held that because Defendant did not challenge the district court’s determination that a reasonable juror could conclude that Defendant violated the man’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force, this appeal turned solely on the second step of the qualified immunity analysis. The panel held that Defendant’s use of deadly force, including his failure to give a warning that he would be using such force, did not violate clearly established law given the specific circumstances he encountered. The court wrote that there was no basis to conclude that Defendant’s use of force here was obviously constitutionally excessive. View "PAULETTE SMITH V. EDWARD AGDEPPA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendant moved from the United States to Cambodia in the spring of 2003. Between June 2005 and June 2006, he sexually abused young girls. The government presented evidence at trial from which a jury could infer that one of Defendant’s primary activities in Cambodia was molesting children. A jury convicted Defendant of two counts of violating 18 U.S.C. Section 2423(b) by traveling in foreign commerce with the purpose of committing illicit sexual acts and two counts of violating 18 U.S.C. Section 2241(c) by crossing a state line with intent to sexually abuse a child under 12 and then so doing. Defendant appealed the sufficiency of the evidence for each of these convictions, as well as the district court’s instructions to the jury.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel wrote that Mortensen does not remove from the jury’s province its ability to rationally find that a person embarked on a trip with an innocent purpose but returned home with a motivating purpose of illicit conduct. The panel held that a jury could rationally find that the sexual abuse of children was one of Defendant’s primary motivations for returning from the United States to Cambodia, which is sufficient to uphold his convictions under Section 2423(b) (Counts 1 and 2). Noting that Section 2241(c) (Counts 3 and 4) requires the jury to find a slightly more specific motivating purpose, the panel held that a rational trier of fact could have found that Defendant’s charged victims were, in fact, under 12, and that Pepe crossed state lines with a motivating purpose of sexually abusing girls under 12. View "USA V. MICHAEL PEPE" on Justia Law

Defendant challenged the sentence he received after violating several conditions of his supervised release. Defendant first argued that the district court unlawfully delegated its judicial authority to his probation officer to determine the duration of his inpatient substance abuse treatment. His second argument is that the court erred because one year of inpatient treatment, plus the prison time he was sentenced to serve, exceeds the maximum recommended sentence for his offense, and the district court failed to explain what Defendant considers an upward variance.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the special conditions of supervised release. The panel held that the district court, which ordered a specific time range for Defendant’s inpatient substance treatment with a hard upper limit of one year, did not unconstitutionally delegate its judicial authority by ordering the probation officer to supervise Defendant’s progress in inpatient treatment, and allowing the probation officer the discretion to reduce—but not increase—the duration of his inpatient treatment in consultation with Defendant’s care provider. The panel held that the district court’s imposition of Special Condition 2 in addition to a high-end Guidelines sentence did not constitute an upward variance. View "USA V. ARNOLD TAYLOR" on Justia Law

When Plaintiff was a pretrial detainee and a patient at Patton State Hospital in California, he was twice attacked by a fellow patient. He sued Defendant, the psychiatrist in charge of his unit, under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 for injuries from the second attack, alleging that Defendant violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to substantive due process. The district court granted Defendant’s motion for summary judgment based on the defense of qualified immunity.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel determined that both tests ask whether Defendant’s conduct was reasonable, and both require Alexander to show that Defendant’s conduct was worse than negligent. The panel held that under either test, Plaintiff offered no evidence that Defendant failed to act reasonably, let alone that he was “more than negligent” in not transferring Plaintiff or the other patient after the first attack. Although Plaintiff was attacked a second time, the evidence showed that Defendant’s responses to both incidents were thorough and careful. Accordingly, the panel found no violation of Plaintiff’s constitutional rights. View "SURIE ALEXANDER V. DAU NGUYEN" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. Section 2254 habeas petition. Petitioner was convicted in California state court of making criminal threats and assault with a deadly weapon. The victim was not authorized to reside in the United States at the time of the crimes. Prior to testifying in Petitioner’s trial, the victim received a U-Visa, which provides immigration benefits for victims of certain crimes who cooperate with law enforcement. At trial, the court barred Petitioner from cross-examining the victim about his U-Visa status, which Petitioner asserted was relevant to the victim’s credibility.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that under the standard prescribed in Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (1993), which requires a habeas petitioner to persuade the court that a constitutional error at trial had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence” on the verdict, the panel held that Petitioner is not entitled to habeas relief. The panel wrote that nothing in the record indicates that the victim had an eye toward immigration benefits when he made his initial statement implicating Petitioner; rather, the record suggests the opposite. The panel therefore did not harbor the requisite “grave doubt” that the jury would have convicted Burgos had it known about the victim’s immigration status. View "ORLANDO BURGOS V. RAYMOND MADDEN" on Justia Law

Defendant challenged the district court’s judgment on the third revocation of his supervised release. He contends that the district court lacked jurisdiction because, at the time of his third violation, he was serving a term of supervised release that exceeded the applicable statutory maximum.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. Applying the rationale of United States v. Castro Verdugo, 750 F.3d 1065 (9th Cir. 2014), which involved the same issue in the context of probation revocation, the panel held that because Defendant was serving a term of supervised release when he committed the instant violation, the district court had jurisdiction to revoke his supervised release and impose an additional term of imprisonment, regardless of any error in the sentence imposed on the second revocation. The panel declined to reach Defendant’s argument that the term of supervised release imposed on his second revocation exceeded the statutory maximum. Consistent with Castro Verdugo and earlier precedent, the panel held that an appeal challenging a supervised release revocation is not the proper avenue through which to attack the validity of the underlying sentence. View "USA V. CARLOS ESTRADA" on Justia Law

Petitioner challenged the constitutionality of the appointment and removal process for Immigration Judges and members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). These officials exercise significant authority within our immigration system, making them officers under the Appointments Clause.   The Ninth Circuit denied the petition. The panel rejected Petitioner’s suggestion that Immigration Judges and BIA members are principal officers who, under the Appointments Clause of Article II, must be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Rather, the panel concluded that they are inferior officers (whose appointment may be vested in the head of a department) because the Attorney General ultimately directs and supervises their work. Thus, the panel held that the Appointments Clause allows Congress to vest their appointment in the Attorney General. The panel next held that the removal process for Immigration Judges and BIA members satisfies Article II, which requires that officers remain accountable to the President by limiting restrictions on the removal of the President’s subordinates. The panel explained that Attorney General has the power to remove Immigration Judges and BIA members, and that nothing restricts the Attorney General’s ability to remove them. Thus, these officers remain dependent on the Attorney General for their positions—and by extension, on the President. View "FORTUNATO AMADOR DUENAS V. MERRICK GARLAND" on Justia Law

Plaintiff alleged that the practice of requiring lockdown inmates to use a paging system to request law library materials—instead of physically visiting the law library— deprived him of access to the courts because the paging system required inmates to request the specific source by name, and thereby prevented him from discovering a Nevada Supreme Court decision that supported his claim for postconviction relief. Specifically, Plaintiff, who was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder, argued that the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision in Nika v. State, 198 P.3d 839, 850 (Nev. 2008), resurrected his habeas claim related to a jury for the instruction on mens rea, but because of the paging system, he did not learn of Nika until seven years after it was decided, at which point he had already filed three unsuccessful habeas petitions. Upon discovering Nika, Plaintiff filed additional petitions in 2016 and 2019, which were denied.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel held that Plaintiff lacked standing to pursue a claim that the prison officials denied him meaningful access to the courts under the First Amendment. The panel held that because Plaintiff could not show actual injury—the hindrance of a nonfrivolous underlying legal claim—he lacked standing. Plaintiff offered no reason, beyond speculation, to think that the Nevada courts would have reached a different decision had he filed a habeas claim within a year of Nika instead of seven years later. His habeas claim would have failed no matter when it was raised. View "BRENDAN NASBY V. STATE OF NEVADA, ET AL" on Justia Law