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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion for a new trial on the basis of improper contact with the jury. The panel held that defendant failed to carry his burden to offer any credible evidence to establish that his ex-girlfriend had said nasty things about him to the jurors at trial. The district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to recall the jury for live questioning, by recusing itself under 28 U.S.C. 455(a) and (b), and by excluding defendant from pre-hearing telephonic conferences. Finally, defendant forfeited any right to challenge the destruction of surveillance videos and, even without forfeiture, his claim failed because he failed to allege bad faith. View "United States v. McChesney" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of petitioner's habeas petition as time-barred. In this case, the state trial court entered a second Amended Judgment reinstating petitioner's murder and attempted murder convictions after the Nevada Supreme Court reversed the state trial court's amended judgment overturning and vacating the convictions. The panel held that petitioner's habeas petition was timely filed because "the judgment" under 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1) can only refer to the state judgment pursuant to which the petitioner was being held because that was the only judgment identified in the statute-of-limitations provision. Therefore, the statute of limitations must run from the judgment pursuant to which the petitioner was being held. In this case, the Second Amended Judgment started a new one-year statute of limitations, and thus the petition was timely. The panel remanded for further proceedings. View "Smith v. Williams" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant Barragan, Franco, and Fernandez, and Guitierrez's conviction for conspiracy in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1962(d), and Barragan's conviction of drug crimes. The panel affirmed Barragan, Franco, and Fernandez's sentences, but vacated Guitierrez's sentence. In this case, the government conceded, and the panel agreed, that the district court erred in classifying Gutierrez as a career offender because his conviction in this case was not for a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense. Accordingly, the court remanded for resentencing of Gutierrez on an open record. View "United States v. Barragan" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's order denying defendant's motion for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). Although the Government agreed that defendant was eligible for a sentence reduction, it argued that the appeal was moot because defendant had been released from federal prison. The panel held that the appeal was not moot and that USSG 1.10(b)(2)(B) allows a court to consider a number of departures when calculating a reduction in sentence where the defendant has provided substantial assistance. The panel also held that defendant was entitled to the benefit of the rule of lenity because the Guideline was ambiguous. Accordingly, the court remanded to the district court. View "United States v. D.M." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying defendant's motion to suppress contraband seized during a warrantless search of defendant's truck. The court held that, under the totality of the circumstances, there was probable cause to believe that contraband would be found in defendant's truck and thus the search was permissible under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. In this case, defendant was associating with a known drug dealer, defendant had been introduced to the dealer by one of the dealer's drug dealing associates, and law enforcement agents knew that the associate and dealer had previously engaged in three illegal drug transactions and that the associate had assisted the dealer in collecting a drug debt. View "United States v. Del Mundo Faagai" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions and sentences for racketeering, drug trafficking conspiracy, and related offenses involving the Puente-13 street gang. The panel held that the district court's jury instruction for determining drug quantities under 21 U.S.C. 841(b) was not reversible error, even though the jury was not required to find that the drug quantities related to violations that were part of a jointly undertaken criminal activity; the district court did not err in denying a defendant's request for an instruction on multiple conspiracies where the evidence did not show that defendant was involved only in a separate, unrelated conspiracy; and the district court did not err in concluding that defendants had state convictions that were prior to the conviction in this case for purposes of the section 841(b) mandatory minimum. View "United States v. Torres" on Justia Law

21 U.S.C. 881(a)(6) does not authorize forfeiture based on mere intent to facilitate drug transactions without proof of some act to effectuate that intent. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's civil forfeiture judgment under section 881(a)(6) from claimant. The panel held that the district court's instructions to the jury on the facilitation theory were plain error because they permitted forfeiture even if the claimant never took any step to use the money to facilitate drug transactions. The court remanded to the district court for a new trial. View "United States v. Guerrero" on Justia Law

Petitioner claimed that he was categorically exempt from the death penalty because he was intellectually disabled pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). The Nevada Supreme Court rejected petitioner's claim of intellectual disability on the merits. The district court then deferred to its determination under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254. The Ninth Circuit did not decide whether petitioner was intellectually disabled, nor whether the Nevada Supreme Court made a reasonable or an unreasonable determination of fact when it concluded that he is not. Instead, panel decided only that the district court erred in its analysis under AEDPA, and thus the panel remanded for reconsideration in light of Bromfield v. Cain, 135 S. Ct. 2269 (2015), and in light of a doctor's report concluding that petitioner was intellectually disabled. The panel affirmed the district court's order holding that petitioner's Hurst-based Rule 60(b) motion was disguised as an unauthorized second or successive habeas petition. Finally, the panel held that Hurst did not apply retroactively and thus denied petitioner's application for leave to file a second or successive habeas petition. View "Ybarra v. Filson" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's order denying defendant's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion and remanded with instructions to vacate defendant's sentence. The district court sentenced defendant under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), finding that defendant had five convictions that qualified as violent felonies. However, the district court failed to specify whether it found each of those convictions qualified under the residual clause of the statute, the force clause, or both. In this case, the panel held that defendant's new 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion relied on the rule announced in Johnson v. United States (Johnson II), 135 S. Ct. 2551, 2563 (2015), and thus he may bring his motion under one of the narrow exceptions to the bar on second or successive section 2255 motions. The panel also held that any reliance by the sentencing court on the now-invalidated residual clause of ACCA was not harmless, because at least three of his convictions did not qualify as violent felonies under any of the remaining valid ACCA clauses. Because defendant has already been in prison longer than the statutory maximum sentence for a non-ACCA-enhanced conviction under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1), the district shall direct that defendant be released from custody immediately. View "United States v. Geozos" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's requested jury instruction. The panel reversed the sentence, however, holding that California Health & Safety Code section 11378 is a divisible statute that was susceptible to the modified categorical approach. Using the modified categorical approach, the government failed to prove that defendant had pleaded guilty to violating a controlled-substance element under section 11378 that was encompassed by the federal definition for "felony drug offense," 21 U.S.C. 802(44). The panel remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Ocampo-Estrada" on Justia Law