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

This case concerns a public high school’s ability under the First Amendment to discipline students for assertedly “private” off-campus social media posts that, once they predictably made their way onto campus, amounted to “severe bullying or harassment targeting particular” classmates.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment rejecting First Amendment claims brought by students against Albany High School and school officials after the students were disciplined for assertedly “private” off-campus social media posts that amounted to severe bullying or harassment targeting particular classmates. The panel held that, under the circumstances of the case, the school properly disciplined two of the involved students for bullying. The court explained that some of the posts used violent imagery that, even if subjectively intended only as immature attempts at malign comedy, would reasonably be viewed as alarming, both to the students targeted in such violently-themed posts and to the school community more generally. Nothing in the First Amendment would even remotely require schools to tolerate such behavior or speech that occurred under its auspices.   The panel concluded, taking into account the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mahoney Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L. ex rel. Levy, 141 S. Ct. 2038 (2021), that the speech bore a sufficient nexus to Albany High School and its students to be susceptible to regulation by the school. Finally, the panel concluded that the discipline did not independently violate the California Constitution or the California Education Code. Because California follows federal law for free expression claims arising in a school setting, Plaintiffs’ reliance on the California Constitution failed for the same reasons discussed above. View "KEVIN CHEN, ET AL V. ALBANY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendants challenged their convictions for various sexual offenses against children, under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Defendants first argued that the district court erred in denying their first motion to suppress because a detective’s affidavit supporting a 2016 warrant to search the residence contained material, intentionally false and/or reckless statements and omissions that misled the issuing judge; specifically, that the affidavit misstated the contents of a CyberTipline Report, drew conclusions unsupported by the Report, and ignored exculpatory factors.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s orders denying Defendants joint motions to suppress evidence. The panel held that Defendants failed to show that the affidavit contained any materially false statements or omissions (much less any such statements knowingly or recklessly made). The panel wrote that Defendants misstated the factual record by insisting that only one IP address was relevant, and that Defendants do not substantively address the results from a Tumblr search warrant referenced in the affidavit, which further supports the probable cause determination.   Defendants further argued that the district court erred in denying their second motion to suppress evidence derived from a 2018 search. The panel held that the district court did not clearly err by finding that Defendants abandoned the devices. The panel wrote that Defendants’ failure to ensure that their brother recovered the devices before the home was sold, and their subsequent failure to take any additional action, is sufficient to support a finding of abandonment, even if Defendants ceased their efforts only because they feared detection by law enforcement. View "USA V. JOSHUA FISHER" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) inmate, is a validated member of a Security Threat Group (STG) and, pursuant to ADC’s policy, has been assigned to maximum custody confinement. Plaintiff first argued that ADC’s annual reviews of his maximum-security confinement are insufficient to satisfy the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Second, Defendant claimed that his removal from ADC’s Step-Down Program (SDP) violated his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court screened his complaint, dismissing his claim regarding ADC’s annual reviews for failure to state a claim. The district court later granted summary judgment to Defendants on Plaintiff’s claims regarding his removal from the SDP. Plaintiff appealed, challenging both orders.   The Ninth Circuit (1) affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Defendant’s claim ADC’s annual reviews of his maximum-security confinement were insufficient to satisfy the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and (2) reversed the district court’s summary judgment for defendants and remanded on Defendant’s claims that his removal from the Department’s Step-Down Program.   The panel held that Plaintiff has a liberty interest in avoiding assignment to maximum custody as a consequence of his STG validation. Nevertheless, Plaintiff failed to state a claim for a due process violation under the three-prong framework set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge. However, because Plaintiff was not given a meaningful opportunity to learn of the factual basis for his transfer from close custody to maximum custody or to prepare a defense to the accusations, Plaintiff was likely denied due process in the procedures that resulted in his return to maximum custody. View "RICHARD JOHNSON V. CHARLES RYAN, ET AL" on Justia Law

Two Coast Guard employees were shot and killed at a Coast Guard station on Kodiak Island, Alaska. A jury found that their co-worker, Defendant, had committed the murders. Defendant contends contention that under the Fifth Amendment, statements he made to government investigators should have been suppressed because they were made under the threat of loss of employment.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant’s convictions, vacated the district court’s restitution order, and remanded for further proceedings. The panel’s independent review of the record confirmed that the investigators did not explicitly threaten Defendant’s job security if he refused to incriminate himself, and Defendant did not argue otherwise. Instead, Defendant advanced a theory of implicit coercion by virtue of an employment manual, and a letter of caution he received after allegedly using a fuel card for his personal vehicle, which, he argued, operated in the background of his interviews to create “an impermissible penalty situation.” The panel held that in the absence of a direct threat of loss of employment, the appropriate framework for the court is to consider both the public employee’s subjective belief and the objective reasonableness of that belief to determine whether the employee’s statements were improperly coerced; it is only when both elements are satisfied that the employee is, under Garrity, entitled to suppression of his statements absent a grant of immunity. The panel vacated the restitution order and remanded for the district court to determine whether each of Defendant’s benefit payment streams constituted “earnings” under Section 1673; if so, the MVRA limited garnishment of those funds to 25%. View "USA V. JAMES WELLS" on Justia Law

After the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Twitter banned President Donald Trump for life. Soon after Twitter announced the ban, the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) served Twitter with a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) asking it to produce various documents relating to its content moderation decisions. Twitter sued Paxton, in his official capacity, in the Northern District of California, arguing that the CID was government retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment. Twitter asked the district court to enjoin Paxton from enforcing the CID and from continuing his investigation and to declare the investigation unconstitutional. The district court dismissed the case as not ripe.   The Ninth Circuit amended its opinion filed on March 2, 2022; denied a petition for panel rehearing; and denied a petition for rehearing en banc on behalf of the court. The panel held that Twitter is not really making a pre-enforcement challenge to a speech regulation; Twitter does not allege that its speech is being chilled by a statute of general and prospective applicability that may be enforced against it. The panel, therefore, concluded that a retaliatory framework rather than a pre-enforcement challenge inquiry was appropriate to evaluate Twitter’s standing. The panel held that Twitter’s allegations were not enough to establish constitutional standing and ripeness because Twitter failed to allege any chilling effect on its speech or any other legally cognizable injury that the requested injunction would redress. Finally, Twitter had not suffered any Article III injury because the CID is not self-enforcing. Preenforcement, Twitter never faced any penalties for its refusal to comply with the CID. View "TWITTER, INC. V. KEN PAXTON" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a Native American tribe—asked the Dysart School District (“District”) to accommodate her religious practice by allowing her to wear an eagle feather on her cap during high-school graduation. The District declined the request on the ground that the policy permitted no exceptions. Plaintiff arrived at graduation wearing an eagle feather, and District officials prohibited her from attending. But that same day, as alleged in the complaint, the District permitted other students to wear secular messages on their graduation caps.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal Plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, asserting, among other things, that the District violated her rights to free exercise of religion and free speech by selectively enforcing its policy of prohibiting students from decorating their graduation caps.   The panel held that Plaintiff plausibly alleged, at the motion-to-dismiss stage, that the District selectively enforced its policy, in violation of her First Amendment rights. As to the claim brought pursuant to the Free Exercise Clause, Plaintiff alleged sufficient facts to assert that the District enforced its policy to permit the secular and forbid the religious. As alleged, the District’s policy was not enforced evenhandedly and, therefore, was not generally applicable.   Plaintiff also carried her burden at this stage to show that the District’s selective enforcement of its policy constituted impermissible viewpoint or content discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. The panel rejected the District’s argument that the restrictions were necessary in order for the District to comply with the Establishment Clause. View "LARISSA WALN, ET AL V. DYSART SCHOOL DISTRICT, ET AL" on Justia Law

Appellants J.K. and Mr. Electric (jointly “Mr. Electric”) challenged the district court’s grant of summary judgment in this 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action in favor of Defendants-Appellees, and the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (together “the Department”). Two Mr. Electric employees provided the Department with copious amounts of Mr. Electric’s data, particularly printouts of cell site location information that provided GPS coordinates for company vehicles which showed all movement of electricians in the field. The Department used the data to write citations and assess administrative fines against Mr. Electric for violations of Washington’s electrical code stemming from improper supervision of journeymen electricians in Clark County.   Appellants argued that Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018), and Wilson v. United States, 13 F.4th 961 (9th Cir. 2021), foreclosed the Department’s use of Appellants’ location information because, when read together, the cases extinguished the applicability of the private search exception to the Fourth Amendment to location information.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for Appellees. The panel noted that although Carpenter held that the third-party doctrine does not apply as an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement when the government seeks cell site location information, the private search exception is an altogether separate exception to the Fourth Amendment. View "JAMES KLEISER, ET AL V. BENJAMIN CHAVEZ, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sought to build housing on their properties in an area that under the the City of Half Moon Bay’s (City) Land Use Plan (LUP) was designated for public recreation and which severely restricted housing development. Plaintiffs took the position that California Senate Bill 330 (SB 330), enacted in 2019 to increase the stock of affordable housing in the state, required the City to approve their proposed development plan. After rejecting Plaintiffs’ proposal, the City informed plaintiffs that it intended to acquire their properties through eminent domain and made a purchase offer based on the properties’ appraised values. Plaintiffs rejected the offer and filed this action in district court claiming, among other things, that the City effected a regulatory taking in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments by rejecting their building proposal and enforcing LUP’s restrictions on their property.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order granting the City’s motion to abstain pending resolution of an eminent domain action in state court. The panel held that as an initial matter, neither Knick nor Pakdel, which address when a claim accrues for purposes of judicial review, explicitly limit abstention in takings litigation. Abstention allows courts to stay claims that have already accrued. The panel held that the requirements for Pullman abstention were met in this case. First, the complaint touched a sensitive area of social policy, land use planning. Second, a ruling in the state eminent domain action would likely narrow the federal litigation. View "THOMAS GEARING, ET AL V. CITY OF HALF MOON BAY" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit in August 2021 to halt the September 2021 recall election involving California Governor Gavin Newsom, and later amended his complaint to also assert nominal damages. Plaintiff intended to vote “no” on the first question and wanted to vote for Governor Newsom as a successor candidate on the second question. He argued that, absent injunctive relief invalidating Article II, Section 15(c), California’s recall process would violate his Fourteenth Amendment due process and equal protection rights in two respects: by denying him an equally weighted vote, as required under the “one-person, one-vote” principle; and by denying him the right to vote for his candidate of choice on question two.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim of an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. The panel first held that this case was not moot even though the election was completed and a majority of voters had defeated the effort to remove Governor Newsom from office. Plaintiff adequately alleged a completed injury—namely, his inability to vote for Governor Newsom on question two during the recall election— that was fairly traceable to the California election procedures; and an award of nominal damages would redress that injury.   Further, the panel held that under controlling precedent, Section 15(c)’s prohibition does not constitute a severe restriction on the right to vote. California has an important interest in ensuring that the power to recall guaranteed to its voters is effective and does not invite an endless cycle of recall attempts. View "A. CLARK V. SHIRLEY WEBER" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a citizen of El Salvador, was detained pursuant to 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1226(a), which authorizes the federal government to detain aliens pending the completion of their removal proceedings. Petitioner requested and received a bond hearing before an Immigration Judge to determine if his detention was justified. The Immigration Judge concluded that Petitioner, who had an extensive criminal history, presented a danger to the community due to his gang affiliation. Based on this, the Immigration Judge denied release on bond. Petitioner claims that his continued detention was unconstitutional because under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, he is entitled to a second bond hearing at which the government bears the burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence.The district court ruled that Petitioner was constitutionally entitled to another bond hearing before the Immigration Judge.The Ninth Circuit held that the Due Process Clause does not require more than Sec. 1226(a) provides. View "AROLDO RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. MERRICK GARLAND, ET AL" on Justia Law