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

Petitioner, convicted of first-degree murder, petitioned for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court concluded that the prosecution's failure to disclose that the police dog had a history of mistaken identifications violated Brady v. Maryland, and the California Court of Appeal's decision to the contrary was an unreasonable application of Brady. Accordingly, the court granted the petition and reversed the district court's judgment on the Brady claim. View "Aguilar v. Woodford" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of money laundering, bank fraud, loan fraud, and conspiracy to commit loan and bank fraud. On appeal, defendant challenged his convictions, which stemmed from a Los Angeles-based scheme to defraud mortgage lenders. The court affirmed, concluding that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's convictions and, therefore, the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion for acquittal. View "United States v. Grasso" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to illegal reentry after a prior deportation and subsequently appealed the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the prior deportation order was fundamentally unfair. The court concluded that defendant had shown that he exhausted his administrative remedies by appealing the IJ's adverse ruling to the BIA. Defendant failed, however, to show that an error or obstacle related to his deportation proceedings improperly deprived him of the opportunity for judicial review. Because 8 U.S.C. 1326(d)(1), (d)(2), and (d)(3) must all be satisfied either directly or constructively, the court affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss and his conviction without addressing the merits of his argument. View "United States v. Gonzalez-Villalobos" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, appealed the denial of his federal habeas petition. Because the existence or absence of mitigating circumstances directly affected whether petitioner was death eligible under Arizona law, petitioner had a right to have a jury decide those facts under Ring v. Arizona. Applying the harmless error test, the court concluded that, in this instance, the absence of a jury at the sentencing stage had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on petitioner's sentence of death. Therefore, the court granted the habeas petition. Because the court reversed the denial of relief on the Ring claim, the court need not reach the claims concerning petitioner's competence to waive the presentation of mitigating evidence. The court otherwise affirmed and remanded with instructions to grant the petition unless the state court conducts a new sentencing hearing within a reasonable period of time. View "Murdaugh v. Ryan" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to illegal reentry under an agreement providing that the government could withdraw in the event that the presentence report reflected a prior conviction of a crime of violence. At issue was whether defendant's prior Arizona conviction for resisting arrest was a crime of violence that authorized a sixteen-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2. The court held that defendant's prior conviction for resisting arrest in violation of Ariz. Rev. Stat. 13-2508(A)(1) was not categorically a crime of violence within the meaning of federal law, and that the court's decision in Estrada-Rodriquez v. Mukasey, to the extent it suggested otherwise, was superseded by controlling, intervening authority. Under Descamps v. United States, remand for application of the modified categorical approach was not appropriate in this instance where Ariz. Rev. Stat. 13-2508(A)(1) was not a divisible statute with alternative elements. Accordingly, the court vacated defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Flores-Cordero" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted for unlawfully attempting to procure citizenship and making false statements in a passport application. Defendant was sentenced to 51 months in custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) followed by three years of supervised release. At issue was whether a term of supervised release was automatically tolled during a period of state custody without a judicial tolling order. The court held that the district court had jurisdiction to revoke defendant's supervised release where his period of state custody tolled his term of supervised release. Defendant's supervision was properly revoked since the district court issued a bench warrant within the period of the tolled supervised release term. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Ahmadzai" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction of involuntary manslaughter, contending that the Ninth Circuit model jury instruction for involuntary manslaughter given by the district court was defective because it failed to tell the jury that "gross negligence," defined as "wanton or reckless disregard for human life," was required for a conviction. The court reversed the conviction, concluding that the jury was not properly instructed that involuntary manslaughter required finding gross negligence. In regards to evidentiary issues, the court concluded that the district court should have allowed defendant to testify about the victim's prior violent acts and the district court should have admitted three photographs that had been posted on the victim's MySpace page, showing the victim holding a sawed-off shotgun, as impeachment evidence. View "United States v. Garcia" on Justia Law

Defendant, a Mexican citizen, alleged that the Arizona crime of conviction, "attempt to commit smuggling" in violation of A.R.S. 13-2319, did not categorically fit the federal definition of an alien smuggling offense and thus ought not to have triggered a sixteen-level sentencing guidelines enhancement. On the merits, the parties agreed that defendant was improperly sentenced. However, the issue on appeal was the proper appellate remedy for defendant who was entitled to a resentencing but, having been deported, was unable to be present for a resentencing hearing. The court affirmed the sentence without prejudice, pursuant to United States v. Plancarte-Alvarez, to a later request by defendant, if and when he should return to the United States or waive his right to be physically present at resentencing, that his previous sentence be vacated and that he be resentenced in light of this opinion. View "United States v. Aguilar-Reyes" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for both receipt and possession of child pornography, alleging violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The court concluded that the conjunctive phrasing of the indictment created the possibility of multiplicitous convictions, and neither the government nor the district court did anything to remove that possibility. Therefore, the district court's entry of judgment on both counts, absent some assurance that the convictions were based on separate conduct, was error. However, the error did not affect defendant's substantial rights and, thus, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Teague" on Justia Law

The parties dispute whether the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997e(d)(2), limited the amount that plaintiff, a prisoner who qualified as a prevailing party who would ordinarily be entitled to an award of attorney's fees, could recover from defendant for attorney's fees incurred in defending his judgment on appeal to 150 percent of the monetary relief awarded to him at trial. The court held that the fee cap in section (d)(2) did not apply to attorney's fees earned in conjunction with an appeal in which prison officials sought unsuccessfully to reverse a verdict obtained by the prisoner before the district court. The court granted plaintiff's motion for attorney's fees on appeal and referred the matter to the Appellate Commissioner to determine the amount of such fees, as well as the amount of reimbursable costs. View "Woods v. Carey" on Justia Law