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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for possessing a firearm while being an alien unlawfully in the United States. The panel assumed without deciding that unlawful aliens in the United States held some degree of rights under the Second Amendment and held that 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5) is constitutional under intermediate scrutiny. The panel held that the government's interests in controlling crime and ensuring public safety are promoted by keeping firearms out of the hands of unlawful aliens—who are subject to removal, are difficult to monitor due to an inherent incentive to falsify information and evade law enforcement, and have already shown they are unable or unwilling to conform their conduct to the laws of this country. View "United States v. Manuel Torres" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the state in an action brought by LL Liquor, claiming that Montana's Senate Bill 193 impaired the company's contract to purchase liquor with the Montana Department of Revenue, in violation of the Contracts Clause. Montana's Senate Bill 193 restructured the formula for calculating the rate at which state-approved agency franchise stores could purchase liquor from the state.The panel held that Montana's Senate Bill 193, which applied a uniform commission structure to all franchise stores in the state, did not give rise to a Contracts Clause claim by LL Liquor against the state. In this case, the state did not impair its contractual obligation within the meaning of the Contracts Clause because it did not eliminate LL Liquor's remedy for breach of its contract with the state. View "LL Liquor, Inc. v. Montana" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and state civil rights law, contending that the impoundment of their vehicles by local authorities based on plaintiffs' lack of a driver's license violated the Fourth Amendment. California Vehicle Code 4602.6(a)(1) provides that a peace officer may impound a vehicle for 30 days if the vehicle’s driver has never been issued a driver's license.Applying Brewster v. Beck, 859 F.3d 1194, 1196–97 (9th Cir. 2017), the panel held that 30-day impounds under section 14602.6 are seizures for Fourth Amendment purposes. Therefore, the only issue in this case was whether the impounds were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The panel held that, although the state's interest in keeping unlicensed drivers off the road is governed by the community caretaking exception of the Fourth Amendment, the exception does not categorically permit government officials to impound private property simply because state law does. Furthermore, even if the panel were to balance the state's interest against the driver's interests, the County would still be wrong to rely on a deterrence or administrative penalty rationale to support California's interests. Therefore, the panel affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for plaintiffs on the Fourth Amendment claims.The panel affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiffs claim that the County and the City were liable for money damages as final policymakers who caused the constitutional violations; affirmed the denial of class certification for lack of commonality and typicality; and affirmed summary judgment for defendants on the California Bane Act claim. View "Sandoval v. County of Sonoma" on Justia Law

Inmates at the ADC, and the Arizona Center for Disability Law, filed suit against senior ADC officials, alleging that ADC's policies and practices governing health care delivery in ADC prisons and conditions of confinement in ADC isolation units exposed them to a substantial risk of serious harm to which defendants were deliberately indifferent. The parties eventually entered into a settlement agreement in which defendants agreed to comply with more than 100 performance measures. At issue on appeal were the district court's rulings interpreting and enforcing the settlement agreement.Determining that it had jurisdiction, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's November 10, 2016 Outside Provider Order; reversed the February 3, 2017 ruling that the Stipulation precludes it from issuing a general staffing order; and reversed the December 23, 2016 ruling that close custody inmates are part of the subclass. The panel noted that the district court may, in the future, consider ordering defendants to develop and implement a plan to increase staffing in general as a remedy for defendants' non-compliance. Furthermore, offering close custody inmates 15.5 hours or more out-of-cell time per week is sufficient to place these inmates outside of the subclass for purposes of monitoring compliance with the Stipulation. View "Parsons v. Ryan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) against St. James after she was terminated from her teaching position when she told the school that she had breast cancer and would need to miss work to undergo chemotherapy. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the school, holding that, based on the totality of the circumstances test under Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. E.E.O.C., 565 U.S. 171 (2012), the First Amendment's ministerial exception did not foreclose plaintiff's claim. In this case, plaintiff did not have any credentials, training, or ministerial background; there was no religious component to her liberal studies degree or teaching credential; St. James had no religious requirements for her position; and St. James did not hold plaintiff out as a minister. View "Biel v. St. James School" on Justia Law

After federal agencies issued two interim final rules (IFRs) exempting employers with religious and moral objections from the Affordable Care Act requirement that group health plans cover contraceptive care without cost sharing, states filed suit to enjoin the enforcement of the IFRs. The Ninth Circuit affirmed that venue was proper in the Northern District of California; affirmed that plaintiff states have standing to sue based on procedural injury where the states have shown with reasonable probability that the IFRs will first lead to women losing employer-sponsored contraceptive coverage, which will then result in economic harm to the states; affirmed the preliminary injunction insofar as it barred enforcement of the IFRs in the plaintiff states; but vacated the portion of the injunction barring enforcement in other states because the scope of the injunction was overbroad. View "California v. Azar" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a candidate for public office in California, challenged the California Elections Code, which mandated that the primary ballot list his party preference as "None" instead of the Socialist Party USA.The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded, holding that California, at this very early stage of the litigation, failed to demonstrate as a matter of law why its ballot must describe plaintiff as having no party preference when in fact he preferred the Socialist Party USA. The panel agreed with the Secretary of State that the burden the California statutes imposed on plaintiff's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights was not severe. However, the burden imposed on plaintiff's rights was more than "slight" and warranted scrutiny that was neither strict nor wholly deferential. In this case, the primary purported justification for the statutes—avoiding voter confusion—was an important government interest, but it was unclear why less burdensome and less misleading alternatives would not accomplish the state's goals. View "Soltysik v. Padilla" on Justia Law

A 2006 Initiative, amending Alaska’s election laws, returned the individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits to their pre-2003 levels of $500 per year, Alaska Stat. 15.13.070(b)(1); capped the amount a non-political party group could contribute to a candidate at $1,000; restricted the amount candidates could receive from nonresidents to $3,000 per year, and limited the amount a political party, including its subdivisions, could contribute to a candidate. The voter information packet included a statement that "Corruption is not limited to one party or individual. Ethics should be not only bipartisan but also universal. From the Abramoff and Jefferson scandals in Washington D.C. to side deals in Juneau, special interests are becoming bolder every day. They used to try to buy elections. Now they are trying to buy the legislators themselves." In 2015, Plaintiffs brought a First Amendment challenge. The Ninth Circuit held that affirmance on the individual-to-candidate and individual-to-group limits was compelled by precedent and upheld the political party-to-candidate limit. Those restrictions were narrowly tailored to prevent quid pro quo corruption or its appearance and did not impermissibly infringe constitutional rights. The court held that the nonresident limit, which at most, targeted contributors’ influence over Alaska politics, did not target an “important state interest” and therefore violated the First Amendment. View "Thompson v. Hebdon" on Justia Law

Dropbox, an internet company providing data storage, submitted a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that child-pornography images had been uploaded to a specific account. The FBI linked the Dropbox and email accounts to IP addresses and to a cellphone number. Executing a search warrant, FBI agents seized a desktop computer tower, a loose hard drive, and another hard drive. Each contained videos or images of child pornography and was linked to the Dropbox account, so that all images were accessible from Dropbox on the other devices. Charged with child-pornography possession, 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(4)(B), the defendant unsuccessfully moved to dismiss a four-count superseding indictment as multiplicitous. Chilaca was convicted on all four countst and was sentenced to four concurrent 66-month terms, a lifetime of supervised release, a special assessment, and $6,000 in restitution. The Ninth Circuit reversed in part and remanded. Section 2254(a)(4)(B) makes it a crime to knowingly possess “1 or more” matters containing any visual depiction of child pornography; simultaneous possession of different matters containing offending images at a single time and place constitutes a single violation. The four counts charging the defendant with possession of child-pornography images on separate media found at the same time and in the same place were multiplicitous and constituted double jeopardy. No new trial is warranted. The panel remanded for resentencing on the remaining count. View "United States v. Chilaca" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Officer Jeremy Hellawell under 42 U.S.C. 1983, after the officer fatally shot and killed Ernest Foster. The district court denied the officer's motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity.The Ninth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to consider questions of evidentiary sufficiency on interlocutory review, and thus dismissed the officer's appeal of the district court's order with respect to the claims that the shooting violated Foster's Fourth Amendment right and plaintiffs' Fourteenth Amendment rights. The panel reversed the district court's denial of qualified immunity on the Fourth Amendment claims, holding that the officer's actions during the investigative stop did not violate any clearly established law. In this case, the officer had reasonable suspicion to stop and investigate Foster after the 911 call warning of an armed man matching Foster's description, and unholstering a gun during the stop did not constitute a violation of Foster's right to be free from excessive force. View "Foster v. Hellawell" on Justia Law