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

Defendant argued that the Marine Corps surveillance violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which codified the longstanding prohibition against military enforcement of civilian law. Rejecting that argument, the Ninth Circuit explained that the military may still assist civilian law enforcement agencies if Congress expressly authorized it, and here, the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act directed the U.S. Secretary of Defense to offer military assistance to Border Patrol in hopes of securing the southern land border. The court concluded that the district court therefore properly denied Defendant’s suppression motion based on the alleged violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. The court also denied Defendant’s Batson challenge to the prosecution’s striking two Asian jurors from the venire, concluding that Defendant failed to rebut the prosecution’s race-neutral reasons for doing so. View "USA V. CLEMENTE HERNANDEZ-GARCIA" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought a 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 alleging that the City of Vallejo violated the Fourth Amendment, by adding license checks to what was concededly a sobriety checkpoint. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment for Defendants.Reviewing a line of relevant Supreme Court decisions, the court derived a “two-step analysis” for assessing the validity of a checkpoint under the Fourth Amendment. Applying that two-step analysis to this case, the panel first held that because the City’s checkpoint did not have any impermissible primary purpose of advancing the general interest in crime control, it was not per se invalid. The panel then applied the factors for assessing reasonableness set forth in Lidster and concluded that the City’s systematic addition of driver’s license checks to an otherwise valid sobriety checkpoint was objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.The court held that, once Plaintiff refused to produce his license for examination at the checkpoint, the officer had probable cause to believe that plaintiff was committing an offense in violation of California Vehicle Code Section 12951(b), and his continued detention and arrest were therefore reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, the officer’s action of physically removing Plaintiff from his car by grabbing his arm was objectively reasonable as a matter of law given Plaintiff’s lack of cooperation with her commands up to that point and the modest nature of the force used. View "DAVID DEMAREST V. CITY OF VALLEJO" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to 360 months in prison. At sentencing, the district court imposed a special condition of supervised release set forth in the parties’ plea agreement that prohibited Defendant from associating with any member of the Norteño or Nuestra Familia gangs. On appeal, Defendant argues that this condition violates his fundamental right to familial association because it does not exclude his siblings who might be gang members.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s imposition of the special condition. The court The declined the Government’s invitation to dismiss Defendant’s appeal based on the invited error doctrine. The panel wrote that the record does not suggest that Defendant either caused the alleged error intentionally or abandoned a known right. The court therefore treated the right as forfeited, as opposed to waived, and reviewed the district court’s decision to impose the gang condition for plain error.The court wrote that Defendant’s relationship with a sibling or half sibling does not inherently constitute an “intimate relationship” with a “life partner,” child, or fiancée, and thus does not give rise to a “particularly significant liberty interest” that would require the district court to undertake additional procedural steps at sentencing.The court rejected Defendant’s contention that the condition is substantively unreasonable. The panel explained that given Defendant’s history of coordinating and executing violent gang attacks, a prohibition on gang association does not constitute an unreasonable deprivation of liberty. View "USA V. JOHNNY MAGDALENO" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs—a collection of organizations and individuals interested in petitioning in Montana—alleged that both of these restrictions violated their speech and association rights under the First Amendment. In upholding both restrictions, the district court held that strict scrutiny did not apply because plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that either restriction imposed a severe burden on their rights. It went on to find that both restrictions sufficiently furthered Montana’s important regulatory interest to survive less exacting review.The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment for Defendants. The court reversed the district court’s holding with regards to the residency requirement because it (1) imposed a severe burden on the exercise of First Amendment rights and therefore was subject to strict scrutiny, and (2) was not narrowly tailored to further Montana’s compelling interest.The court affirmed the district court’s holding with regards to the pay-per-signature restriction because it concluded that (1) on the basis of the record produced here, plaintiffs had not demonstrated that the pay-per-signature ban imposed a severe burden on First Amendment rights and therefore less exacting review applied; and (2) the state had established that an important regulatory interest was furthered by this restriction. View "NATHAN PIERCE V. CHRISTI JACOBSEN" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought this action against Defendant and the Maricopa County Community College District (the “College District”). Plaintiffs allege that a module on Islamic terrorism within a course in world politics taught by Defendant at Scottsdale Community College (the “College”) violated Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights under the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Plaintiffs also allege that Defendant’s disparaging treatment of Islam was part of an official policy embraced by the College District. The district court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss the Complaint, and the Plaintiffs appealed.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the action. The court held that Plaintiffs could not sustain a claim for municipal liability against the College District. First, Plaintiffs abandoned their municipal liability claim on appeal by failing to address it in their Reply Brief even after the College District raised the argument in its Answering Brief on appeal.But even on the merits, the claim could not survive dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Although Plaintiffs alleged that Defendant has taught his World Politics class for 24 years, they did not allege that the course in other years contained the same content that offended Plaintiff, or that Defendant’s views or teaching methods were so persistent and widespread as to constitute part of the College District’s standard operating procedure. Further, the court held that Defendant was entitled to qualified immunity with respect to Plaintiffs’ Establishment Clause and Free Exercise claims. View "MOHAMED SABRA V. MARICOPA COUNTY COMMUNITY COLL" on Justia Law

The City of Phoenix’s Police Department concluded that a Sergeant with the Department violated a Department policy by posting content to his personal Facebook profile that denigrated Muslims and Islam. When the Department took steps to discipline the Sergeant, he sued, alleging that the Department was retaliating against him for exercising his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s action. In analyzing the content, form and context of the Sergeant’s posts, the court concluded that the posts qualified as speech on matters of public concern. While it was true that each of the Sergeant’s posts expressed hostility toward, and sought to denigrate or mock, major religious faith and its adherents, the Supreme Court has made clear that the inappropriate or controversial character of a statement is irrelevant to the question of whether it deals with a matter of public concern.The court, therefore, reversed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ First Amendment retaliation claim and his related claim under the Arizona Constitution. The court held that the district court properly rejected Plaintiffs’ facial overbreadth challenge to certain provisions of the Department’s social media policy, except as to the clauses prohibiting social media activity that (1) would cause embarrassment to or discredit the Department, or (2) divulge any information gained while in the performance of official duties, as set forth in section 3.27.9B.(7) of the policy. The court affirmed the district court’s rejection of Plaintiffs’ facial vagueness challenge to the same provisions discussed above and their municipal liability claim. View "JUAN HERNANDEZ V. CITY OF PHOENIX" on Justia Law

The California Supreme Court affirmed Petitioner’s conviction and sentence on direct appeal and later summarily rejected “on the merits” Petitioner’s state habeas petition. Petitioner argued primarily that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).Petitioner argued that the Ninth Circuit should review his Strickland claims de novo, because the California Supreme Court’s four-sentence denial of his claims “on the merits,” without issuing an order to show cause, signifies that the court concluded only that his petition did not state a prima facie case for relief such that there is no “adjudication on the merits” to which this court owes deference under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).The Ninth Circuit disagreed, citing Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170 (2011), in which the Supreme Court afforded AEDPA deference to the California Supreme Court’s summary denial of a habeas petition raising a Strickland claim. The court, therefore, applied the deferential AEDPA standard, asking whether the denial of Petitioner’s claims “involved an unreasonable application of” Strickland.The court held, however, under AEDPA's highly deferential standard of review, that the California Supreme Court could reasonably have concluded that Petitioner’s claim fails under the second prong of Strickland. The court wrote that comparing the mitigation evidence that was offered with what would have been offered but for Petitioner’s trial attorney’s alleged errors, the state court could reasonably have decided that there was not a substantial likelihood that the jury would have returned a different sentence if the attorney had not performed deficiently. View "RICHARD MONTIEL V. KEVIN CHAPPELL" on Justia Law

Petitioner challenged his conviction and sentence through the PCR proceeding because pleading defendants in noncapital cases in Arizona are prohibited from taking a direct appeal. The district court found that the Arizona Court of Appeals had incorrectly determined that Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), did not apply to Arizona’s of-right PCR proceedings. The district court also determined, on de novo review, that Arizona’s PCR procedure was deficient under Anders.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of conditional habeas relief to Petitioner. The panel first explained that it was clearly established that Anders and its progeny apply to Arizona’s of-right PCR proceedings. Because the Arizona Court of Appeals’ decision can be construed as finding Anders applicable and nothing clearly suggests otherwise, and a federal habeas court must give the state court of appeals the benefit of the doubt and presume that it followed the law, the panel found that the Arizona Court of Appeals correctly found Anders applies to of-right PCR proceedings. The court, therefore, reversed the district court’s contrary determination. The court held that the district court also erred in reviewing de novo whether Arizona’s of-right PCR procedure is constitutionally adequate under Anders, and should have applied the required deference under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). View "LINO CHAVEZ V. MARK BRNOVICH" on Justia Law

Two members of the Poway Unified School District (“PUSD” or the “District”) Board of Trustees, (together, “the Trustees”), created public Facebook and Twitter pages to promote their campaigns for office. Plaintiffs, two parents of children in the School District, frequently left comments critical of the Trustees and the Board on the Trustees’ pages, The Trustees eventually blocked Plaintiffs entirely from their social media pages. Plaintiffs sued, asserting that the Trustees violated their First Amendment rights by ejecting them from the social media pages. The district court agreed with Plaintiffs that their First Amendment rights had been violated. Both parties appealed.   The Ninth Circuit rejected the Trustees’ assertion that the dispute was moot because after Plaintiffs filed their lawsuit, the Trustees began using a word filter on Facebook to prevent any new comments from being posted. The court held that: (1) using a word filter on Facebook would not affect Plaintiffs’ claims involving being blocked from Twitter; (2) the word filter limit did not change Facebook’s non-verbal “reaction” feature; and (3) the Trustees failed to carry their burden of showing they would not, in the future, remove the word filters from their Facebook pages and again open those pages up for verbal comments from the public.   The court further held that the district court correctly concluded that at the time the Trustees blocked Plaintiffs, it was not clearly established that Plaintiffs had a First Amendment right to post comments on a public official’s Facebook or Twitter page. The district court, therefore, did not err by granting qualified immunity to the Trustees as to Plaintiffs’ damages claim. View "CHRISTOPHER GARNIER V. MICHELLE O'CONNOR-RATCLIFF" on Justia Law

Defendant determined that Plaintiff’s renovation of property violated local ordinances. Although he conceded the ordinance violation, Yoshikawa alleged that the enforcement action against him was motivated by racial animus, in violation of Section 1981. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order denying the building inspector Defendant’s motion to dismiss, on the basis of qualified immunity.   The court held that, in addressing a qualified immunity claim in an action against an officer for an alleged violation of a constitutional right, the court first asks whether, taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, the facts alleged show that the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right. If not, the complaint must be dismissed for failure to state a claim. Second, the court asks whether the constitutional or statutory right was clearly established, such that the officer had fair notice that his conduct was unlawful.   The court held that Plaintiff stated a Section 1981 damages claim against Defendant a state actor. Under Comcast Corp. v. Nat’l Ass’n Afr. Am.-Owned Media, 140 S. Ct. 1009 (2020), an allegation of discrimination on the basis of race is a but-for element of a claim brought under Section 1981. The court further held that Defendant’s alleged actions violated clearly established law because he was accused of intentional racial discrimination. The court found irrelevant to qualified immunity, at the motion to dismiss stage, the issue of the applicability of the McDonnell Douglas test, an evidentiary standard, for analyzing Section 1981 claims in non-employment cases. View "HITOSHI YOSHIKAWA V. TROY SEGUIRANT" on Justia Law