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

In these consolidated appeals, federal prisoners (collectively “Petitioners”) challenged the dismissals of their habeas corpus petitions in which they asserted that their incarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic violated the Eighth Amendment and sought release from custody. The district court dismissed the petitions for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, concluding that Petitioners were challenging conditions of confinement, not the fact or duration of confinement, and thus their claims did not properly sound in habeas.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgments. Given Petitioner’s transfer from USP Victorville prior to the court’s review of her habeas petition, the panel addressed its jurisdiction. The petition sought relief in the form of release from USP Victorville and an injunction requiring that facility to protect USP Victorville inmates from COVID-19. Because the panel could no longer provide Petitioner’s requested relief, the panel held that she fails to present a live case or controversy, and Article III, therefore, prohibits jurisdiction over her petition.   The panel explained that Hernandez did not instruct federal prisoners to bring claims related to the conditions of their confinement under Section 2241; rather, Hernandez states that challenges to “conditions of a sentence’s execution” may properly be brought under Section 2241. The panel concluded the district court was not required to convert Petitioners’ habeas petitions into civil rights actions and declined the invitation to remand to the district court to perform this conversion in the first instance. View "JEREMY PINSON V. MICHAEL CARVAJAL" on Justia Law

Defendant was arrested after two officers discovered a handgun concealed in his vehicle. At the time of this encounter, Defendant was a registered gang member on California state parole and was subject to a suspicionless search condition that has been upheld by the Supreme Court. After entering a plea of guilty and preserving his right to appeal, Defendant appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence, arguing that the officers did not have advance knowledge that he was on parole at the time of this encounter.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence. The panel held that a law enforcement officer must have probable cause to believe that a person is on active parole before conducting a suspicionless search or seizure pursuant to a parole condition. Consistent with case law and with general Fourth Amendment principles, the officer must possess advance knowledge of an applicable parole condition before they may detain or search a parolee. The officer need not be absolutely certain, with ongoing day-by-day or minute-by-minute awareness of the subject’s parole status. Instead, it is sufficient for the officer to find that the individual to be searched is on active parole and an applicable parole condition authorizes the search or seizure at issue. Applying this standard, the panel concluded that the arresting officers had probable cause to believe that Defendant remained on active parole when he was detained and searched. The panel further held that this encounter did not violate California’s independent prohibition on arbitrary, capricious, or harassing searches. View "USA V. CHRISTIAN ESTRELLA" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Mexican citizen, petitioned for habeas relief after being held in immigration detention for over a year without a bond hearing. A district court judge granted Petitioner’s petition for relief and ordered the Government to provide her with a bond hearing on statutory grounds, relying on Casas-Castrillon v. Department of Homeland Security, 535 F.3d 942 (9th Cir. 2008). The Government appealed on the ground that Casas-Castrillon is no longer good law.   The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court’s grant of habeas relief and remand for consideration of Petitioner’s remaining constitutional argument. The court explained that t Jennings’s reasoning is “clearly irreconcilable” with Casas-Castrillon’s detention-shifting framework and held that Jennings abrogated this portion of Casas-Castrillon. Next, the panel explained that Subsection A provides the Government with authority to detain noncitizens “pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States” and that Jennings provides that Subsection C authorizes detention during the same period as Subsection A, but does not define that period. The panel looked to Prieto-Romero v. Clark, 534 F.3d 1053 (9th Cir. 2008), and held that detention authority under Subsection A continues through judicial review. The panel held that the authority under Subsection C likewise continues through judicial review. Finally, the district court declined to reach Petitioner’s alternative argument that she was entitled to habeas relief as a matter of due process. The panel remanded to the district court to consider this question in the first instance. View "LEXIS HERNANDEZ AVILEZ V. MERRICK GARLAND, ET AL" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed the instant habeas petition in district court. In the amended petition, Petitioner challenges, among other things, the United States Parole Commission’s 2019 decision to issue a three-year “set-off,” the time he must wait until his next parole hearing. The district court for the District of Columbia transferred the case to the District of Arizona, where Petitioner was incarcerated. That court dismissed Petitioner’s petition as an impermissible second or successive petition under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and denied Petitioner’s motion to reconsider.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment. The panel held that Petitioner need not obtain a certificate of appealability (COA) to appeal the denial of the instant petition because Congress did not define or include the District of Columbia Superior Court as a “State court” in 28 U.S.C. Section 2253(c), where it had expressly done so in that and other statutes. The panel held that Section 2253(c)(1)(A)’s language, “in which the detention complained of arises out of process issued by a State court,” does not include the District of Columbia Superior Court. The panel further held that the district court erred in dismissing the petition as an abuse of the writ when Petitioner could not have possibly raised the same claims in prior petitions. Thus, because no court has addressed Petitioner’s three-year set-off claims regarding his 2016 parole denial, he did not abuse the writ by raising the 2019 denial issue in his instant habeas petition. View "CLINTON ELDRIDGE V. CATRICIA HOWARD, ET AL" on Justia Law

At around nine o’clock in the evening, a concerned citizen called 911 to report a Ford Mustang darting erratically in the streets. Behind the wheel was a young white male, along with a blindfolded female in the car. With the aid of the car’s license plate number provided by the caller, Fountain Valley police officers figured out the home address of the driver and raced to that house. But this was not an ongoing kidnapping. In reality, the driver was taking his wife for a “surprise” anniversary dinner. And his parents would soon experience a surprise of their own as the police officers descended upon the home that they shared with their son. Before this mix-up could be cleared, the police officers ordered the Plaintiffs out of their home for obstructing the police and pushed the father to the ground as they handcuffed him. The Hills later sued, alleging (among other things) violations of their Fourth Amendment rights against warrantless arrests and excessive force. The district court granted summary judgment for police officers.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel rejected Plaintiffs’ contention that the police officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure when the officers ordered them to exit the home or face arrest for obstruction. The officers never seized Plaintiffs, who did not submit to the officers’ demand to leave the home. They, therefore, could not claim that they were unlawfully arrested. The panel next held that while the officers did not have probable cause to arrest Plaintiff for obstruction of justice, they were nevertheless shielded by qualified immunity. View "STEPHEN HILL, ET AL V. CITY OF FOUNTAIN VALLEY, ET AL" on Justia Law

A grand jury indicted Defendant on four counts, including one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. Sections 846, 841. Defendant pleaded guilty to the conspiracy count. At sentencing, the district court found the Presentence Report (PSR) prepared by the Probation Officer accurate and correct and so adopted it. For the offense of conviction, the PSR calculated the base offense level at 32 based on the Drug Quantity Table set forth in U.S.S.G. Section 2D1.1(c). The PSR then found that Defendant had two prior convictions under Cal. Health & Safety Code Section 11378 that qualified as controlled substances offenses under U.S.S.G. Sections 4B1.1; 4B1.2(b).   The Ninth Circuit vacated Defendant’s sentence and remanded for resentencing. The panel held that Kisor is an intervening decision and is clearly irreconcilable with the holdings in Vea-Gonzales and Crum. Applying the traditional tools of statutory construction to the text of the guideline, as Kisor instructs, the panel concluded that Section 4B1.2(b) unambiguously identifies a list of crimes that do not include inchoate offenses. Because Section 4B1.2(b)’s definition of “controlled substance offense” is unambiguous, the Supreme Court’s decision in Kisor now makes it impermissible to defer to Application Note 1 to determine whether conspiracy fits into this definition. Because the text of Section 4B1.2(b) unambiguously does not include inchoate offenses, and because the court is no longer permitted to rely on the commentary of an unambiguous guideline after Kisor, the panel held that Defendant’s conspiracy conviction is not a “controlled substance offense” under Section 4B1.1. View "USA V. ROBERTO CASTILLO" on Justia Law

The Estate of a man who was shot and killed by police brought claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 and state law alleging that police officers used excessive force. The Estate claimed that the decedent was known to the officers to be homeless and mentally ill. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel held that, under the totality of the circumstances, it was objectively reasonable for the officers to believe that the man posed an immediate threat. Construing the facts in the light most favorable to the man, he was carrying a replica gun, disregarded multiple warnings to drop it, and pointed it at the officers. While the misidentification of the replica gun added to the tragedy of this situation, it did not render the officers’ use of force objectively unreasonable. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Estate leave to amend the complaint. The complaint established that the man pointed the replica gun’s barrel at the officers, so it was objectively reasonable for the officers to respond with lethal force. Under these pleaded facts, it would be futile to allow leave to amend. View "ESTATE OF GABRIEL STRICKLAND, ET AL V. NEVADA COUNTY, ET AL" on Justia Law

Petitioner was sentenced to death in 1991 after a California state jury convicted him of robbery, burglary, and felony murder. He appealed the district court’s denial of his federal habeas corpus petition filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 2254. Petitioner raised several certified claims, including claims that the prosecutor knowingly used false and misleading testimony in violation of Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), and failed to disclose favorable material evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).   The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded to the district court with instructions to grant a conditional writ of habeas corpus as to the special-circumstances findings and the imposition of the death penalty and affirmed the district court’s holding as to Petitioner’s certified guilt-phase claims. The panel wrote that this is an exceptional case in which the prosecutor deliberately elicited, and then failed to correct, false and misleading testimony from the State’s star witness. The prosecutor went on to exploit the witness’s false testimony in his closing argument. He also failed to produce evidence to the defense team that would have seriously impeached the witness’s testimony. The panel wrote that the record makes clear that the State’s special-circumstances evidence depended on the witness’s testimony. Reviewing under the deferential standard afforded to state-court decisions by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), the panel concluded it was objectively unreasonable for the state court to decide that the prosecutor’s misconduct was immaterial to the jury’s special circumstances findings. View "COLIN DICKEY V. RON DAVIS" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted by a jury of sixteen counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor under 18 U.S.C. Section 2251(a) and one count of possession of child pornography under 18 U.S.C. Section 2252A(a)(5)(B). At trial, the jury heard extensive evidence that Defendant placed a hidden camera in his bathroom with the purpose of secretly recording and amassing a collection of nude videos of his then fourteen-year-old stepdaughter. Defendant asserts there was insufficient evidence to sustain his convictions, arguing on appeal (1) that he did not “use” his stepdaughter in a way that violates Section 2251(a) and (2) that the videos did not depict “sexually explicit conduct,” as defined by 18 U.S.C. Section 2256(2)(A)(v), which applies to both Sections 2251(a) and 2252A.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that the videos reasonably fell within the definition of sexually explicit conduct. The panel wrote that the district court did not clearly err in determining that a reasonable jury could find (1) that the focal point of the videos was on T.A.’s genitals or pubic area, (2) that T.A. is fully nude in the videos, and (3) that the videos were intended or designed to elicit a sexual response in the viewer. The panel reached the same result under a de novo review of the sufficiency of the evidence. View "USA V. TEL BOAM" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted for possessing a Jimenez Arms .380 semiautomatic handgun in violation of the felon in possession of a firearm statute. He was not tried until August 30, 2021— 557 days after his indictment—largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over Defendant’s objection, the district court excluded much of this time from Defendant’s Speedy Trial Act calculation using the “ends of justice” provision of the Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 3161(h)(7)(A), and as a result, denied Defendant’s Sixth Amendment and Speedy Trial Act motions to dismiss his indictment. At trial, the district court rejected Defendant’s request for a jury instruction requiring the jury to find that he knew that the handgun he possessed had traveled in interstate commerce. Defendant appealed both the speedy-trial and jury instruction issues.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel held that the district court properly excluded time under the ends of justice provision. The panel held that the non-exhaustive factors set forth in United States v. Olsen, 21 F.4th 1036 (9th Cir. 2022), support the district court’s exclusion of time and that the district court did not err in its ends of justice determination. The panel wrote that the district court acted commendably in doing its best to balance speedy trial rights and public safety in the face of what is hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. The panel held that the district court did not err by refusing to give Defendant’s requested mens rea instruction. The panel rejected his challenge to the revocation of supervised release. View "USA V. TOMMY WALKER" on Justia Law