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

Plaintiff and his children (plaintiffs) brought a 42 U.S.C. 1983 suit against defendants for damages resulting from plaintiff's unlawful arrest. Plaintiff was arrested as he stood outside a fair selling promotional tickets for $5 that he had received for free from a radio station. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on the grounds of qualified immunity. The court agreed with the district court that there was no probable cause to arrest plaintiff and his right to be free from unlawful arrest was violated. The court held, however, that the district court's grant of summary judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity for an unlawful arrest was reversed where all reasonably competent officers would have agreed that plaintiff was not committing a crime because there was no scalping law in Nevada; it was simply not a crime to sell tickets to a fair; plaintiff's t-shirt, which had the logo of the radio station, did not suggest fraud; and the ticket buyers were not duped by the sale. The court also held that plaintiffs' substantive due process right to family integrity was not violated where the facts of the case did not come close to rising to the level of conduct that shocked the conscience. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's claim on this issue.

Defendant appealed his conviction for failing to register as a sex offender and challenged the legality of the Attorney General's interim regulation for failure to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq. In United States v. Valverde, the court held that for persons such as defendant, who were convicted of sex offenses prior to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act's (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16911, 16913, enactment, SORNA's registration requirements did not become effective until August 1, 2008, because the Attorney General's interim regulation did not comply with the APA. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded this case for dismissal of the indictment.

Defendant appealed his misdemeanor convictions, after retrial, of three counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 1382. Defendant's charges arose from his protest activities on Ocean Avenue, which was a public road that crossed the Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB). On appeal, defendant argued that his retrial violated the proscription against double jeopardy, that there was insufficient evidence to convict, and that his conviction violated his First Amendment rights. The court found that in all three incidents, defendant was within the physical limits of the public road easement corresponding to Ocean Avenue, a fact which the government did not challenge. The court held that because the government did not have an exclusive right of possession over Ocean Avenue, defendant's presence and protest activities could not constitute violations of section 1382 under the court's precedent.

Petitioner, a native and citizen of El Salvador, petitioned for review of a decision of the BIA ordering him removed to his native country. The BIA affirmed the IJ's ruling that petitioner was ineligible for asylum, withholding of removal, and withholding under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) because he had been "convicted of a particularly serious crime," driving under the influence (DUI). The BIA also ruled that petitioner was ineligible for deferral of removal under the CAT because he failed to prove a likelihood of future torture. The court held that it had jurisdiction to review the BIA's determination that an alien had been convicted of a "particularly serious crime." The court also held that driving under the influence was not statutorily defined as an aggravated felony did not preclude the BIA from determining that it could be a particularly serious crime. The court further held that the BIA, as the Attorney General's delegate, was permitted in this case to determine whether petitioner's DUI offenses were particularly serious for purposes of asylum eligibility. The court held, however, that the BIA's explanation for its decision was so ambiguous that the court could not conduct meaningful judicial review and therefore, remanded to the BIA for a clear explanation.

Defendant was convicted of one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base and one count of possession with intent to distribute marijuana. Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to have his sentence reduced pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). The court held that, when determining a sentencing range under U.S.S.G. 1B1.10(b), a district court could apply the offense level dictated by the career offender guidelines, U.S.S.G. 4B1.1, offense level at the defendant's original sentencing, so long as the court determined at the original sentencing that defendant was a career offender. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of defendant's motion for a reduction of sentence.

In these consolidated appeals, respondents appealed the district court's order granting petitioner's, an enrolled member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, amended petition for writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the Indian Civil Rights Act, 25 U.S.C. 1302(7), prohibited the tribal court from imposing consecutive sentences cumulatively exceeding one year for multiple criminal violations arising from a single criminal transaction. The court held that section 1302(7) unambiguously permitted tribal courts to impose up to a one-year term of imprisonment for each discrete criminal violation. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court.

This case arose when a student told a police officer that her teacher, plaintiff, inappropriately touched her and police subsequently searched plaintiff's home for child pornography. Plaintiff and his son sued the police officer, the City of Covina, and the Chief of Police for violating his constitutional rights, claiming that the city and the officers violated his and his son's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure; the city inadequately trained and inadequately investigated complaints about its officers (Monell claim); and all defendants inadequately supervised and trained their subordinates with respect to the incidents alleged. The court held that, under the totality of the circumstances, a search warrant issued to search a suspect's home computer and electronic equipment lacked probable cause when no evidence of possession or attempt to posses child pornography was submitted to the issuing magistrate; no evidence was submitted to the magistrate regarding computer or electronics used by the suspect; and the only evidence linking the suspect's attempted child molestation to possession of child pornography was the experience of the requesting police officer, with no further explanation. The court held, however, that it had not previously addressed such issues and therefore, the officers involved in the search were entitled to qualified immunity. The court also affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's Monell and supervisory liability claims where amending the complaint would be futile.

This consolidated appeal asked the court to consider the constitutionality of the Nevada Department of Corrections' (NDOC) policy prohibiting inmates' personal possession of typewriters. NDOC inmates appealed pro se the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the NDOC. The court held that the NDOC's prohibition on inmate possession of typewriters did not unconstitutionally infringe upon the rights of the inmates. The ban was enacted to reasonably advance a legitimate correctional goal of institutional safety. As applied to these inmates, it did not result in an unconstitutional denial of access to courts because they have failed to demonstrate actual injury. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in either admitting the NDOC's affidavits or ruling on summary judgment when it did. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition in connection with his membership in the Mongols Motorcycle Club, a motorcycle gang. On appeal, defendant challenged his convictions and sentence. The court held that the search warrant was valid and did not consider whether the officers acted in good faith in relying on it. Therefore, the evidence of the guns and ammunition could not be suppressed because the warrant was invalid. The court also held that there was sufficient evidence for a trier of fact to concluded that defendant constructively possessed the firearms. The court further held that the judge exercised sound discretion to ensure the punishment fit the crime by weighing the seriousness of the offense with all the mitigating factors and sentencing defendant to a significantly below-Guidelines term of imprisonment. Therefore, the sentence was reasonable.

A majority of the en banc court overruled the court's prior holding in Navarro-Lopez v. Gonzales that the modified categorical approach did not apply "[w]hen the crime of conviction [was] missing an element of the generic crime altogether." A different majority overruled the court's prior decisions to the extent they held that a conviction under California Penal Code 459 qualified as a generic burglary conviction if the defendant pleaded guilty to entering a building "unlawfully" or a jury found the defendant guilty as charged in an indictment reciting that allegation. This majority concluded, in this case, that defendant's prior conviction under section 459 could not be used to enhance his sentence. Therefore, the district court's sentence was vacated and the case remanded to the original three-judge panel for consideration of the remaining issues on appeal.