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

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in connection with his membership in the Mongols Motorcycle Club, a motorcycle gang. On appeal, defendant challenged his convictions and sentence. The court held that the search warrant was valid and did not consider whether the officers acted in good faith in relying on it. Therefore, the evidence of the guns and ammunition could not be suppressed because the warrant was invalid. The court also held that there was sufficient evidence for a trier of fact to concluded that defendant constructively possessed the firearms. The court further held that the judge exercised sound discretion to ensure the punishment fit the crime by weighing the seriousness of the offense with all the mitigating factors and sentencing defendant to a significantly below-Guidelines term of imprisonment. Therefore, the sentence was reasonable.

Steve Baldwin and the Pacific Justice Institute challenged the constitutionality of the so-called "individual mandate" provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, which would take effect in 2014. Baldwin objected to this provision but failed to allege that he did not have qualifying health insurance or that he would not have it in 2014. The Institute also objected but failed to allege that the "individual mandate" applied to it or that it had enough employees to be subject to the analogous "shared employer responsibility" provision. Therefore, neither Baldwin nor the Institute had shown injury in fact, or a genuine threat of prosecution, sufficient to give them standing or making their challenge justiciable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint.

This appeal concerned the requirements of due process when law enforcement officers charged with felonies were suspended without pay. The officers brought claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 in federal district court, alleging violations of their Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. The district court subsequently granted defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that the officers had failed to state a claim against the County of Los Angeles, and that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. The court held that the officers have adequately alleged that defendants' policies caused violations of their constitutional rights and therefore, plaintiffs have stated Monell v. Dept. of Soc. Servs. claims against the county. All individual defendants, however, were entitled to qualified immunity from the claims of two of the officers (Debs and O'Donoghue), whose right to a more substantial post-suspension hearing was not clearly established at the time of the violations. The individually named Civil Service Commissioners were also entitled to qualified immunity from two of the officers' (Wilkinson and Sherr) claims because the Commission was stripped of jurisdiction by the California Court of Appeal in Zuniga v. Los Angeles Civil Service Commission. But those claims could go forward against the Sheriff and the County Supervisors, who were constitutionally required to provide post-suspension procedures for suspended deputy sheriffs who later retired. Therefore, the court remanded for further proceedings.

A majority of the en banc court overruled the court's prior holding in Navarro-Lopez v. Gonzales that the modified categorical approach did not apply "[w]hen the crime of conviction [was] missing an element of the generic crime altogether." A different majority overruled the court's prior decisions to the extent they held that a conviction under California Penal Code 459 qualified as a generic burglary conviction if the defendant pleaded guilty to entering a building "unlawfully" or a jury found the defendant guilty as charged in an indictment reciting that allegation. This majority concluded, in this case, that defendant's prior conviction under section 459 could not be used to enhance his sentence. Therefore, the district court's sentence was vacated and the case remanded to the original three-judge panel for consideration of the remaining issues on appeal.

Defendant was convicted of two counts of aggravated murder in the first degree, one count of attempted murder in the first degree, and one count of attempting to elude a police vehicle. Defendant raised several issues on appeal. The court held that defendant was not entitled to relief on his claim that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to represent himself where the Washington Supreme Court's determination was not unreasonable in light of the circumstances. The court also held that the admission of one of the victim's out-of-court statements at trial as an excited utterance was an unreasonable application of clearly established law, but that defendant could not establish prejudice as a result of the Confrontation Clause violation. Therefore, defendant was not entitled to habeas relief on this issue. The court affirmed the district court's denial of relief on defendant's two sub-claims regarding the state's withholding of exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland. The court finally held that, although defendant's trial counsel might not have provided a model defense, counsel's actions did not render defendant's trial fundamentally unfair. Therefore, the court affirmed the denial of relief on defendant's claim of cumulative deficiency. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

In connection with an assessment of a taxpayer for unpaid taxes, the IRS began searching for the taxpayer's assets and issued a summons to a bank for a related third party's account information. The taxpayer and third party argued that 26 U.S.C 7609 required the IRS to notify them, which would have enabled them to seek a court order quashing the summons. Applying Ip v. United States, the court held that under the circumstances of the case, no notice was necessary. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

This case arose when defendant was charged with one count of embezzlement and theft of labor union assets. At issue was whether the district court's employment of supplemental arguments impermissibly coerced a guilty verdict and whether the district court committed plain error by failing to instruct the jury regarding defendant's defense that her actions were authorized by the union's president. The court held that the district court neither coerced a guilty verdict nor abused its discretion by ordering supplemental closing arguments under the circumstances presented in this case. The district court also did not commit reversible plain error by failing to instruct the jury on an authorization defense, as the evidence presented and relied on by defendant at trial did not support a finding that her actions were authorized by the union. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Defendant pled guilty to one count of reentry of removed alien and the district court applied a sixteen-level enhancement for a previous "alien smuggling offense." Defendant filed a motion on March 5, 2010, arguing that the enhancement should not have applied and the district court, twenty-eight days after sentencing, held a hearing on the motion. At a hearing on April 12, 2010, the district court entered an amended judgment and the government subsequently appealed the district court's resentencing of defendant, arguing that the district court did not have jurisdiction to resentence more than fourteen days after sentencing, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a). The court held that the fourteen day provision in Rule 35(a) was jurisdictional and the district court was thus without jurisdiction to resentence defendant. Accordingly, defendant's original sentence must be reinstated. The court further held that, even if the district court had jurisdiction to correct its error, it was still error nonetheless. Accordingly, the amended judgment was vacated and the original judgment was reinstated.

Defendant was convicted of conspiring to manufacture one kilogram or more of a substance containing phencylcidine (PCP); possession of approximately eleven kilograms of piperidinocyclohexanecarbonitrile (PCC) with intent to manufacture PCP; and attempted manufacture of more than one kilogram of a substance containing PCP. At issue was whether the district court had jurisdiction to hear defendant's self-styled Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) motion, or whether that court should have dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction because it was actually a disguised third request for relief under 28 U.S.C. 2255 that did not meet the standard in section 2255(h) for second or successive motions brought under that section. The court held that because all of the issues on appeal were of the merits variety, the court vacated the district court's denial of defendant's Rule 60(b)(4) motion and remanded with instructions to dismiss it as an unauthorized successive section 2255 motion.

Plaintiff appealed the dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction of its action against defendant, alleging tort, contract, and state statutory claims and seeking, among other remedies, a constructive trust and declaratory judgment over an oil and gas lease located on allotted land, wherein title to the land was held by the United States in trust for various Indian allottees. At issue was whether the district court had federal jurisdiction. The court held that 28 U.S.C. 1360(b), 28 U.S.C. 1331, and 25 U.S.C. 345 did not grant federal jurisdiction and therefore, plaintiff presented no basis for concluding that the action was within the "limited jurisdiction" of federal courts. Accordingly, the district court properly dismissed the suit based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction and the court did not need to reach any other issues raised by the parties, including exhaustion of tribal remedies. The court noted, however, that its holding did not preclude plaintiff from seeking relief in Blackfeet Tribal Court.