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

Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s dismissal of their claims challenging the constitutionality of Oregon’s since repealed system of suspending, without an inquiry into ability to pay, the driver’s licenses of persons who fail to pay the fines imposed on them in connection with traffic violations. The district court dismissed the operative complaint for failure to state a claim.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The panel first considered Plaintiffs contention that Defendants’ suspension of her driver’s license based on her failure to pay traffic fines, without first determining that she had the ability to pay and had willfully refused to make a monetary payment, violated the due process and equal protection principles recognized in Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), and Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (1956). The panel concluded that suspension of Plaintiff’s license for failure to pay her traffic fines was rationally related to a legitimate government interest in punishing and deterring traffic violations, even if her failure to pay was a result of indigency. The panel rejected Plaintiff’s contention that the State’s distinction between traffic debt and non-traffic debt violated the equal protection principles set forth in James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128 (1972). Finally, the panel rejected Plaintiff’s contention that Defendants violated her procedural due process rights by suspending her license without affording either a “presuspension hearing” or a “post-suspension hearing” concerning her ability to pay her traffic debt. View "CINDY MENDOZA, ET AL V. KRIS STRICKLER, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendants were indicted on many charges related to their participation in the Canta Ranas gang in Whittier, California. Defendants were ultimately convicted on RICO conspiracy. On appeal, Defendants raise multiple challenges to the admissibility of the government's expert witness's testimony.The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant's convictions, finding that the district court had broad latitude when determining reliability and that, in this case, the district court did not commit an abuse of discretion in failing to hold a hearing. The district court erred in failing to put its credibility findings on the record; however, any error was harmless. View "USA V. ENRIQUE HOLGUIN" on Justia Law

Appellants are individuals who bought or leased a vehicle with an emissions defeat device, and they filed individual suits that were consolidated before the same judge who presided over the multidistrict litigation and class action settlements. The jury awarded four of Appellants various amounts in compensatory damages and $25,000 each in punitive damages. The district court reduced the punitive damages award to exactly four times the amount of the compensatory damages suffered by each Plaintiff.   The Ninth Circuit vacated punitive damages awards to appellants (who are Plaintiffs who opted out of the class action) and remanded with instructions that the district court recalculate punitive damages. The panel held that the district court erred by holding that a punitive damages ratio calculation of four times the value of the compensatory damages award was the maximum punitive damages award permitted by the Constitution’s Due Process Clause. Because the panel concluded that the district court erred in applying the Gore factors, the panel next considered what award of punitive damages comported with due process for each party. The panel also concluded that it would be arbitrary and incorrect to set a different ratio between punitive damages and actual compensatory damages as to each of the Plaintiffs under the circumstances of this case. The panel, therefore, vacated the punitive damages awards to each appellant and remanded with instructions that the district court recalculate punitive damages in an amount equal to eight times the actual compensatory damages determination. View "TIMOTHY RILEY V. VOLKSWAGEN GROUP OF AMERICA, I" on Justia Law

Petitioner argued that application of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. Section 2254(d), is unconstitutionally retroactive—i.e., that the relevant event to which AEDPA’s legal consequences attached is the automatic appeal of his capital sentence in state court, which occurred before AEDPA’s effective date.   In a per curiam opinion addressing all issues except penalty phase prejudice, and a separate majority opinion addressing penalty phase prejudice, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment denying Petitioner’s habeas corpus petition challenging his California conviction and death sentence for murder.   The panel wrote that the California Supreme Court’s conclusion on direct appeal that Michaels did not unambiguously invoke either his right to counsel or his right to silence with respect to all questioning is fully supported by the record. The California Supreme Court did recognize that Petitioner selectively invoked his right not to answer a specific question as protected by Miranda, but the California Supreme Court neither determined precisely what question Petitioner had declared off-limits nor whether the ensuing interrogation impermissibly violated Petitioner's invocation of his right to silence with regard to the subject covered by that question. The panel held that the California Supreme Court’s decision to ignore a defendant's unambiguous and unequivocal selective invocation of his right to silence as to an area of inquiry during a custodial interrogation, requiring instead that the refusal be repeated in response to each question regarding the subject matter as to which the right was earlier invoked, was contrary to the law clearly established by Miranda and its progeny. View "KURT MICHAELS V. RON DAVIS, ET AL" on Justia Law

Five deputies responded to a 911 call reporting that P.M. was acting erratically and threatening someone with a firearm. The deputies asserted that P.M. ignored their warnings, picked up a gun, and began raising it toward them. Two of the deputies shot and killed P.M. His wife claimed that eyewitness testimony and ballistics analysis proved that P.M. was not moving toward the gun, never touched the gun, and did not pose an immediate threat to himself or others. Plaintiff brought this action asserting that the deputies violated P.M.’s Fourth Amendment rights and her own Fourteenth Amendment right to a familial relationship.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s denial of Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. On the excessive-force claim, the panel concluded that the deputies who shot P.M. were not entitled to qualified immunity. The panel concluded a jury could conclude that Defendants fired at an unarmed man who, although in the presence of a gun, never picked it up and in fact was moving away from it when he was shot. Officers may not kill suspects simply because they are behaving erratically, nor may they kill suspects who do not pose an immediate threat to their safety or to the safety of others simply because they are armed. Nevertheless, even under this court’s case law relating to familial-association claims asserted by parents and children, Plaintiff’s claim failed because no showing of a purpose to harm had been made or even attempted. View "SUSAN PECK, ET AL V. ANTHONY MONTOYA, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendants used fake driver’s licenses and a false tissue procurement company as cover to infiltrate conferences that Planned Parenthood hosted or attended. Using the same strategy, defendants also arranged and attended lunch meetings with Planned Parenthood and visited Planned Parenthood health clinics. During these conferences, meetings, and visits, defendants secretly recorded Planned Parenthood staff without their consent. After secretly recording for roughly a year-and-a-half, Defendants released on the internet edited videos of the secretly recorded conversations. After a jury trial, the district court entered judgment in favor of Planned Parenthood and awarded it statutory, compensatory, and punitive damages as well as limited injunctive relief.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s judgment, after a jury trial, in favor of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., and other plaintiffs on claims of trespass, fraud, conspiracy, breach of contracts, unlawful and fraudulent business practices, violating civil RICO, and violating various federal and state wiretapping laws. Affirming in part, the panel held that the compensatory damages were not precluded by the First Amendment. The panel held that under Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663 (1991), and Animal Legal Def. Fund v. Wasden, 878 F.3d 1184 (9th Cir. 2018), facially constitutional statutes apply to everyone, including journalists. The panel reversed the jury’s verdict on the claim under the Federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 2511(2)(d), and vacated the related statutory damages for violating this statute. View "PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION, ET AL V. CENTER FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS, ET AL" on Justia Law

Users of Reddit, a social media platform, posted and circulated sexually explicit images and videos of minors online. The victims, or their parents, sued Reddit pursuant to Section 1595, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal. Rhe panel held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. Section 230(c)(1), shielded defendant Reddit, Inc., from liability. The panel held that Reddit, an “interactive computer services” provider, generally enjoys immunity from liability for user-posted content under Section 230(c)(1). However, pursuant to the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2018 (“FOSTA”), Section 230 immunity does not apply to child sex trafficking claims if the conduct underlying the claim also violates 18 U.S.C. Section 1591, the criminal child sex trafficking statute.   The panel held that the plain text of FOSTA, as well as precedent interpreting a similar immunity exception under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, established that the availability of FOSTA’s immunity exception is contingent upon a plaintiff proving that a defendant-website’s own conduct—rather than its users’ conduct—resulted in a violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1591. The panel held that FOSTA’s wider statutory context confirmed its reading. In Section II.C, the panel held that its reading was also supported by the legislative history of FOSTA. View "JANE DOES, ET AL V. REDDIT, INC." on Justia Law

Petitioner entered the United States without inspection and was immediately detained by Officers from the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). Two days later, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. Section 1225, DHS issued an expedited removal order against him. Petitioner asserted a fear of persecution, an asylum officer conducted a credible fear interview and concluded that Petitioner had not shown a reasonable fear of future persecution on account of a protected ground.   The Ninth Circuit dismissed Petitioner’s s petition for review from a decision of an immigration judge affirming an asylum officer’s negative credible fear determination in expedited removal proceedings. The court held that because Congress has clearly and unambiguously precluded the court from asserting jurisdiction over the merits of individual expedited removal orders, even with regard to constitutional challenges to such orders, and because that prohibition on jurisdiction raises no constitutional difficulty, the court lacked jurisdiction over Petitioner’s petition for review. View "HEVER MENDOZA LINARES V. MERRICK GARLAND" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought a putative class action under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 alleging that tire chalking violated the Fourth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment for Defendants and held that municipalities are not required to obtain warrants before chalking tires as part of enforcing time limits on city parking spots. The panel held that even assuming the temporary dusting of chalk on a tire constitutes a Fourth Amendment “search,” it falls within the administrative search exception to the warrant requirement. Complementing a broader program of traffic control, tire chalking is reasonable in its scope and manner of execution. It is not used for general crime control purposes. And its intrusion on personal liberty is de minimis at most. View "ANDRE VERDUN, ET AL V. CITY OF SAN DIEGO, ET AL" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a habeas corpus petition brought by Petitioner, who was sentenced to death in 1994 after a state jury convicted him of first-degree murder and other offenses. In the opinion, the panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Petitioner's certified claim that the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection pursuant to Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).   Petitioner argued the California Supreme Court’s decision was an unreasonable application of Johnson v. California, 545 U.S. 162 (2005), under 28 U.S.C. Section 2254(d)(1) because the state court “engaged in the prohibited exercise of reviewing the trial court record regarding the struck jurors and identifying colorable reasons why the prosecutor might have legitimately struck the three jurors.”   The panel held that the California Supreme Court unreasonably applied Johnson by doing exactly what this court has explained Johnson forbids: the court scanned the record, articulated its own race-neutral reasons why the prosecutor may have exercised his peremptory strikes, and denied Petitioner’s claim at Step One. The panel addressed Petitioner’s six other certified claims in a simultaneously filed memorandum disposition and affirmed the district court’s rulings on those claims. The panel declined to reach Petitioner’s uncertified claims. View "JAIME HOYOS V. RONALD DAVIS" on Justia Law