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

Defendants Rodriquez, Murillo, and Mujica appealed their convictions for conspiracy to commit murder and first degree murder stemming from the stabbing of a prison inmate, Peter Scopazzi. Because defendants failed to demonstrate that any medical negligence or removal of a breathing tube was so extraordinary that it would be unfair to hold defendants responsible for the resulting death, and because the jury instructions included the concepts of foreseeability and proximate cause, the district court acted within its discretion when it cabined the medical evidence; the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence pertaining to the connection between the Surenos and the Mexican Mafia as relevant to defendants' motive in attacking Scopazzi; and defendants failed to demonstrate that a new trial was warranted based on the government's failure to disclose immaterial information regarding a government witness's sentence reduction and his cooperation in a DEA investigation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Rodriguez" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for violating the registration requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16911 et seq. The court held that SORNA's delegation of authority to the Attorney General to determine the applicability of SORNA's registration requirements to pre-SORNA sex offenders is consistent with the requirements of the non-delegation doctrine; the court joined its sister circuits and held that SORNA does not violate the Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering principle; and defendant's claims that SORNA's registration requirements violate the Commerce Clause and Ex Post Facto Clause were foreclosed by circuit precedent. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Richardson" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and other offenses. The court held that a notary seal can be an "authentication feature" under 18 U.S.C. 1028, and that the district court correctly applied an enhancement for use of an authentication feature under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(11)(A)(ii) when it calculated the advisory guidelines range for defendant's sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Sardariani" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for misdemeanor manufacturing, selling, or possessing any badge, identification card, or other insignia, of the design prescribed by the head of any department or agency of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 701. Defendant, a maintenance worker at a Marine Corps base, was issued a yellow card, a card given to employees of the Maintenance Center for the purposes of "quick identification." After defendant misplaced his last yellow card, it appears that he may have created a new yellow card, although defendant insists that it was created by another person. The court reversed the conviction because the evidence introduced at trial did not support the conclusion that the yellow card defendant was convicted of manufacturing or possessing was "of the design prescribed by the head of any department or agency of the United States." View "United States v. Jackson" on Justia Law

Defendant, a citizen of Mexico, was convicted of a California firearms offense, removed from the United States on the basis of that conviction, and, when he returned to the country, tried and convicted of illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. 1326. Declining to find that defendant waived his argument, the court concluded that defendant showed good cause to excuse his failure to raise his argument under Moncrieffe v. Holder in the district court. The court rejected the government's position that the court could not consider Moncrieffe in evaluating whether defendant was removable as charged; the court agreed with defendant that any conviction under a state firearms statute lacking an exception for antique firearms is not a categorical match for the federal firearms ground of removal; California Penal Code 12021(c)(1) does not have an antique firearms exception; and a conviction under the statute is not a categorical match for the federal aggravated felony "firearms offense." The government conceded that defendant's conviction was not for a "crime of moral turpitude" - the other potential ground for removal. Accordingly, there was no legal basis for his 2005 removal order. The court reversed defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Aguilera-Rios" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of second-degree murder, appealed the district court's denial of his habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court held that a prosecutor may not suggest that jurors should vote to convict a defendant lest that defendant endanger their neighborhood. Therefore, the court concluded that the final statement made by the prosecutor was improper, but petitioner was not deprived of a fair trial because there was no reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different verdict without the prosecutorial misstatements. The court also concluded that trial counsel was not constitutionally ineffective for failing to object to prosecutorial misstatements and for objecting to the prosecutor's statements about gang connections where petitioner suffered no prejudice. Finally, the trial court's decision to exclude testimony regarding a statement made by a witness to the victim did not violate the Constitution where there was no evidentiary corroboration at all for the witness statement. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Trillo v. Biter" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for illegal reentry after deportation. The court concluded that the district court's sentencing methodology was proper because the district court adequately considered the Guidelines in fashioning defendant's sentence. Applying the modified categorical approach, the court concluded that the portion of the Arizona statute under which defendant was previously convicted was categorically a forcible sex offense and therefore a crime of violence under the Guidelines. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Quintero-Junco" on Justia Law

Defendants Goldtooth and Tsosie appealed their convictions on two counts of aiding and abetting robbery on the Navajo Nation. As to count 1, the court concluded that no rational juror could have found that defendants had advanced knowledge that the robbery was going to occur. As to count 2, the government acknowledges that defendants could only have been convicted of attempting to rob the victim's money or wallet because nothing was actually taken from him. Because the government failed to prove that Goldtooth or Tsosie possessed the mental state required for the underlying crime of attempted robbery, it necessarily failed to prove that either man had aided and abetted any such attempt. Accordingly, the court reversed the convictions and remanded for entry of judgment of acquittal on both counts. View "United States v. Goldtooth" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed an order certifying a class and a subclass of inmates in Arizona's prison system who claim that they are subject to systematic Eighth Amendment violations. Defendants argued that the district court abused its discretion in concluding that plaintiffs have demonstrated commonality and typicality under Rule 23(a). The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that plaintiffs' claims depend upon common questions of law or fact that are answerable in one stroke. Here, plaintiffs are all inmates in ADC custody and each declares that he or she is being exposed, like all other members of the putative class, to a substantial risk of serious harm by the challenged ADC policies. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court did not err in determining that plaintiffs have satisfied the commonality and typicality requirement of Rule 23(a). Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that a single injunction and declaratory judgment could provide relief to each member of the proposed class and subclass. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Parsons v. Ryan" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to five counts of distributing controlled substances outside the usual course of professional medical practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose. On appeal, defendant argued that his guilty plea lacked a sufficient factual basis, that the government breached the plea agreement and that the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. The court concluded that, because the scope of defendant's appellate waiver concerned only his sentence and the issues raised in this appeal concerned only his conviction, defendant did not waive his right to bring this appeal. In a concurrently filed memorandum disposition, the court affirmed defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Spear, III" on Justia Law