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

This appeal arose from a Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), 5 U.S.C. 552, request concerning documents about individuals who reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") regarding their suspicions that appellant, a real estate company, was violating the law. HUD produced the documents with certain redactions, asserting that the redactions were justified pursuant to FOIA Exemption 6. At issue was whether the district court properly granted HUD's motion for summary judgment. In light of FOIA's strong presumption in favor of disclosure, and the narrow reach of FOIA exemptions, the court could not affirm the grant of summary judgment where HUD had conjured the specter of privacy interests but it had not adduced evidence establishing such interests were actually at stake, or if they were, how much weight they should be accorded. Accordingly, the court vacated the grant of summary judgment to HUD and remanded to allow the parties to develop an adequate factual basis for the district court to determine whether the information at stake could be withheld pursuant to Exemption 6.

Defendant appealed his conviction and 220 month sentence after being found guilty by a jury of one count of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ("RICO") conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. 1962(d), for participation in violent acts undertaken by the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Defendant appealed his convictions and sentence and raised several issues of error. In light of the district court's extensive curative instructions, the strength of the evidence of defendant's guilt on the offenses for which he was convicted, and the jury's independence in rejecting five of the alleged predicate acts, the court held that defendant was not prejudiced by any improper conduct on the judge's part, either individually or in the aggregate. The court affirmed the sentence where defendant was sentenced within a properly calculated Guidelines range; the presentence report ("PSR") explained in great detail the calculations and responses to objections; and defendant did not argue for a sentence outside the Guidelines and where no detailed explanation by the district court was necessary.

Defendant appealed from the sentence imposed by the district court following his guilty plea to one count of attempted reentry after deportation. At issue was whether the district court committed reversible error by applying a 16 level increase to the offense level pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii). The court held that defendant failed to satisfy the applicable plain error standard of review with respect to the district court's determination that he was previously convicted of a "crime of violence," namely, "statutory rape." The court also held that the district court did not otherwise abuse its discretion or impose a sentence that was either procedurally erroneous or substantively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the sentence entered by the district court where the district court provided a thorough explanation for its determination, appropriately responded to the various arguments made by defense, did not give undue weight to the Guidelines, and reasonably took into account defendant's prior record as well as several mitigating factors.

Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to imprisonment in 1982. In 2005, the California Board of Prison Terms ("Board") found petitioner eligible for parole and calculated a tentative release date. Four months later, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reversed the Board's decision, concluding that the gravity of petitioner's offense and his violent criminal history made him unsuitable for parole. After a series of unsuccessful petitions for collateral relief in state court, petitioner was subsequently granted federal habeas corpus relief. At issue was whether petitioner's habeas corpus claims were foreclosed by the Supreme Court's recent decision in Swarthout v. Cooke and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court held that due process did not require that the Governor hold a second suitability hearing before reversing a parole decision and due process was satisfied because petitioner was allowed to speak at his parole hearing and to contest the evidence against him, was afforded access to his records in advance, and was notified as to the reasons why parole was denied. The court also held that, because there was no Supreme Court precedent holding that a state governor must conduct a second parole hearing before reversing a parole board's favorable decision, petitioner's habeas corpus claims necessarily failed. Accordingly, in light of Cooke and AEDPA, the court reversed the district court's order directing habeas corpus relief.

Petitioner, a California prisoner, appealed the district court's denial of his habeas corpus petition challenging his California felony murder conviction. At issue was whether petitioner was entitled to habeas corpus relief where petitioner alleged violations that required the California state courts to suppress the incriminating statement he made after he expressly waived his Miranda rights. The court held that it could not conclude that the decisions of the California state courts were contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, established Supreme Court precedent. Therefore, because petitioner could not show that the state's court's ruling was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement, the court affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief.

Plaintiff appealed a district court order dismissing for lack of subject matter jurisdiction his suit against defendants, asserting that federal constitutional and state common law torts arising out of allegations that defendant fraudulently enlisted plaintiff into the National Guard. At issue was whether plaintiff's suit was barred by the doctrine of intra-military immunity in Feres v. United States because it sought monetary damages for injuries arising out of or were in the course of activity incident to military service. The court held that the Feres doctrine did not bar a discharged serviceman, who remained in the Individual Ready Reserve, from suing active duty National Guard recruiters whom he accused of forging his signature on re-enlistment papers where the alleged injury was not incident to the plaintiff's service. The court also held that defendants met the prima facie test as federal employees under the Westfall Act, 28 U.S.C. 2671, and remanded for further factual determinations on this issue.

Defendant pled guilty to importing 33.46 kilograms of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. 952 and 960 and sentenced to 57 months imprisonment. At issue was whether the district court erred in declining to decrease the base offense level, as recommended by the plea agreement he had entered into with the government, where the district court found that he had failed to demonstrate that he was a minor participant in the offense. The court held that the district court did not clearly error in its factual determination or abuse its discretion in declining to award the minor-role adjustment under U.S.S.G. 3B1.2(b) and that there was no support in the record for defendant's claim that the judge purposefully circumvented U.S.S.G. 2D1.1(a)(5). The court also held that the sentence imposed was substantively reasonable where it weighed the totality of the circumstances and the 18 U.S.C. 3553 factors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the sentence imposed upon defendant by the district court.

Defendant appealed his statutorily mandated, five-year minimum sentence following his guilty plea to conspiracy to possess crack cocaine with intent to distribute, and distribution of at least five grams of crack cocaine under 21 U.S.C. 846 and 841(a)(1). At issue was whether the Fair Sentencing Act ("Act"), 21 U.S.C. 841, applied to a sentence that was imposed prior to the date of the new statute's enactment. The court held that it was compelled to affirm defendant's five-year mandatory minimum sentence where it could find no evidence that Congress intended for the Act to apply to defendants who had been sentenced prior to the August 3, 2010 date of the Act's enactment.

Defendant appealed the district court's dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion as untimely. Defendant argued that the court's order recalling the mandate, so that it could consider his motion for appointment of certiorari counsel, restarted the clock for the 90-day period within which he was required to petition the Supreme Court for certiorari review of his conviction on direct appeal. Defendant also argued, in the alternative, that misconduct by his attorney and misinformation provided by someone in the office of the Ninth Circuit Clerk entitled him to equitable tolling. The court held that its order recalling the mandate did not restart the clock for purposes of petitioning for certiorari and therefore, defendant's petition for certiorari and his section 2255 motion were untimely. The court held, however, that defendant's contention that the court's clerk provided him with inaccurate advice, if true, could entitle him to equitable tolling. Accordingly, the court vacated the dismissal of the section 2255 motion and remanded for further proceedings.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR") had a paid chaplaincy program that employed Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Native American clergy. These chaplains served all inmates but other religions were also served by volunteer chaplains. A Wiccan volunteer chaplain and a small group of inmates challenged the paid chaplaincy program asserting that the Wiccan chaplain should be eligible for employment in the paid-chaplaincy program. The court held that the inmates failed to exhaust their claims or brought them in an untimely fashion and the chaplain was pursuing constitutional claims that were derivative of the inmates' claims rather than his own. Accordingly, the court held that the district court properly dismissed and granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on the Wiccan chaplains' claims because, for the most part, he lacked standing. The court agreed that the district court need not exercise jurisdiction over these derivative claims. The court also held that, although the Wiccan chaplain had standing to pursue his personal employment claims, and also constitutional claims for different treatment as a volunteer chaplain and retaliation, ultimately he could not prevail on those claims.