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

Plaintiff, a California state prisoner, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging violations of his constitutional rights. Plaintiff claimed that prison officials engaged in retaliatory conduct, of which the governmental actors were aware, because of plaintiff's mother's website, which exposed prison corruption and fought for inmates' rights. The district court granted summary judgment to defendant and plaintiff appealed. Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that plaintiff was disqualified from proceeding in forma pauperis. The court held that repeated and knowing violations of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)'s "short and plain statement" requirement are strikes as "failures to state a claim" when the opportunity to correct the pleadings has been afforded and there has been no modification within a reasonable time. Plaintiff accrued two strikes for Ninth Circuit dismissals, and three additional strikes for district court dismissals. Therefore, plaintiff has more than met the requirement for a revocation of in forma pauperis status under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 28 U.S.C. 1915(g). Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal. View "Knapp v. Hogan, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant, a Chinese national, unlawfully obtained two driver's licenses issued by the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). At issue was whether defendant's possession of those licenses could be punished under 18 U.S.C. 1546(a). The court concluded that section 1546(a) could not be read to criminalize the mere possession of an unlawfully obtained CNMI driver's license. Because the government presented no evidence that defendant possessed any other document covered by the statute, defendant's section 1546(a) conviction could not stand. However, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, a rational jury could find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for making a false statement to a federal agent in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001(a)(2). Accordingly, the court reversed defendant's conviction under section 1546(a) and affirmed his conviction under section 1001(a)(2), remanding for further proceedings. View "United States v. Lin" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of failing to register and/or update a registration, in violation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 18 U.S.C. 2250(a). On appeal, defendant challenged his sentence of 14 months' imprisonment and lifetime supervised release. Joining its sister circuits, the court held that 18 U.S.C. 3583(h), which authorized an additional term of supervised release following revocation of supervised release, permitted imposition of a lifetime term of supervised release. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Crowder" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction after pleading guilty to unlawful reentry into the United States. The court held that a prior felony conviction under Florida Statutes section 800.04(4)(a) for lewd and lascivious battery did not qualify as a crime of violence because the crime did not constitute a forcible sex offense or statutory rape within the meaning of the applicable Guidelines. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Caceres-Olla" on Justia Law

After the jury had been empaneled, the district court accepted defendant's guilty plea, declared a mistrial, and discharged the jury. After successfully moving to rescind his guilty plea, defendant sought to avoid trial altogether by invoking the Double Jeopardy Clause's protection of his right to have the first empaneled jury decide his case. The court concluded that, in this case, it was difficult to understand why defendant should be treated differently from one who was coerced into pleading guilty before a jury was empaneled. Defendant already had achieved a remedy for the alleged violation of Rule 11 - withdrawal from the plea agreement. The Double Jeopardy Clause protects a defendant from improper attempts by the prosecutor or the judge to avoid having the empaneled jury reach a verdict, but it did not give an added benefit to a defendant when alleged misconduct happened to occur after the jury had been empaneled but bears no relations to the identity, composition, or proceeding of that particular jury. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Mondragon" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his convictions for aiding and abetting offenses. In this case, there was evidence that defendant suffered from a low I.Q. or a learning disability and there was no written waiver. The court concluded that the jury-trial waiver was invalid because the district court failed to take necessary precautions to ensure that defendant's jury-trial waiver was made knowingly and intelligently. Although the court reversed defendant's conviction on all counts, the court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's aiding and abetting convictions and, therefore, the Double Jeopardy Clause was not implicated and the government could retry defendant on all counts. View "United States v. Shorty" on Justia Law

Defendant, a federal sex offender, appealed his conviction under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16901 et seq., for failing to register. The court held that the Attorney General has not validly specified that 42 U.S.C. 16913(a)'s requirement of initial registration in the jurisdiction of the sex-offense conviction applied to offenders like defendant - offenders who were, at the time of SORNA's enactment and implementation, already subject to sex-offender registration obligations under a pre-SORNA scheme. The court concluded that the jury instructions contained an error of law in that they permitted the jury to convict solely on the basis of defendant's failure to register in the jurisdiction of his sex offense conviction and the error was harmful. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for a judgment of acquittal. View "United States v. DeJarnette" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a noncitizen "enemy combatant" undergoing proceedings before a military commission at Guatanamo Bay, sought a declaratory judgment that the commission lacked jurisdiction to hear the charges against him because the alleged acts occurred in Yemen, where he argued no war or hostilities existed in 2000 or 2002. The court held, pursuant to Hamad v. Gates, that Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act, 28 U.S.C. 2241(e), deprived the district court of subject matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's suit. The court rejected plaintiff’s claims challenging the constitutionality of the Act. View "Al-Nashiri v. MacDonald" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for criminal copyright infringement based on his sale of Adobe software. The court applied the willfulness standard for criminal copyright cases as recently clarified in United States v. Liu and concluded that the jury instruction was flawed but did not rise to the level of plain error; the evidence of uncharged acts was properly admitted as intrinsic to the charged conduct and the court affirmed the conviction; and the district court erred in failing to award restitution reflecting the victim's actual loss and the court vacated the restitution order and remanded for reconsideration. View "United States v. Anderson, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(2). On appeal, defendant argued that his act of "showing" child pornography did not qualify as "distribution" under the sentencing guidelines. The court declined to address this argument, concluding that defendant's act of permitting the child victim to print copies of child pornography stored on his computer independently qualified as "distribution." The court also concluded that penile plethysmograph testing was not warranted given the lack of requisite findings by the district court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Roybal" on Justia Law