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

Defendant contended that the district court committed a procedural error because it improperly enhanced his sentence in violation of the First Step Act of 2018. Despite the district court imposing a sentence that is below his guidelines range, Defendant argued that the court ran afoul of this proscription when it relied on information from his safety valve proffer to deny him a further sentence reduction.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed a sentence imposed following Defendant’s guilty plea to importing methamphetamine under 21 U.S.C. Sections 952 & 960. The court held that the district court did not impose an improper sentence “enhancement” of a sentence under 18 U.S.C. Section 3553(f)(5). The court wrote that the district court’s imposition of a sentence not just below the mandatory minimum, but also below the low end of Defendant’s guidelines range, after considering a host of aggravating mitigating factors, does not constitute an enhancement; and that the failure to reduce a sentence is not an enhancement. The court also held that the sentence is substantively reasonable, rejecting Defendant’s arguments concerning a disparity with similarly situated offenders and the district court’s application and weighing of the 18 U.S.C. Section 3553(a) factors. View "USA V. MARQUIS BROWN" on Justia Law

Petitioner challenged his conviction and sentence through the PCR proceeding because pleading defendants in noncapital cases in Arizona are prohibited from taking a direct appeal. The district court found that the Arizona Court of Appeals had incorrectly determined that Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), did not apply to Arizona’s of-right PCR proceedings. The district court also determined, on de novo review, that Arizona’s PCR procedure was deficient under Anders.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of conditional habeas relief to Petitioner. The panel first explained that it was clearly established that Anders and its progeny apply to Arizona’s of-right PCR proceedings. Because the Arizona Court of Appeals’ decision can be construed as finding Anders applicable and nothing clearly suggests otherwise, and a federal habeas court must give the state court of appeals the benefit of the doubt and presume that it followed the law, the panel found that the Arizona Court of Appeals correctly found Anders applies to of-right PCR proceedings. The court, therefore, reversed the district court’s contrary determination. The court held that the district court also erred in reviewing de novo whether Arizona’s of-right PCR procedure is constitutionally adequate under Anders, and should have applied the required deference under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). View "LINO CHAVEZ V. MARK BRNOVICH" on Justia Law

Defendant contended that the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion based on the dangerousness finding imposed by U.S.S.G. Section 1B1.13. In United States v. Aruda, the Ninth Circuit held that the current version of Section 1B1.13 is not an applicable policy statement for Section 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) motions filed by a defendant. Following Aruda, while the Sentencing Commission’s statements in Section 1B1.13 may inform a district court’s discretion for Section 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) motions filed by a defendant, they cannot be treated as binding constraints on the court’s analysis. Here the Ninth Circuit wrote that the district court did precisely what Aruda proscribes: it denied Defendant’s motion by holding that he failed to demonstrate that he is “not a danger to others or [to] the community” pursuant to Section 1B1.13. The court wrote that this holding is an abuse of discretion. View "USA V. JOEL WRIGHT" on Justia Law

Petitioner pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and, in 1999, was sentenced to death by the State of Arizona. The district court granted a certificate of appealability as to five claims, and the Ninth Circuit later issued a certificate of appealability as to a sixth. The Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court that Petitioner has not shown an entitlement to relief on any of his claims.   The Ninth Circuit filed an order (1) stating that the opinion filed May 17, 2021, is amended by a concurrently filed opinion, and that Judge Berzon’s dissent is amended by a concurrently filed dissent; (2) denying a petition for panel rehearing; and (3) denying on behalf of the court a petition for rehearing en banc, in a case in which the district court denied Petitioner’s federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which is governed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). View "JOHN SANSING V. CHARLES RYAN" on Justia Law

Defendant was arrested after two people separately reported that a man in a truck had displayed a firearm while asking them questions about an alleged kidnapping in the area. After his arrest, a search of Defendant’s vehicle and person recovered illegal firearms and a modified CO2 cartridge. He was charged with making and possessing a destructive device in violation of the National Firearms Act.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order granting Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence and statements obtained after his arrest, in a case that required the panel to determine whether there was probable cause to arrest Defendant for displaying a weapon in a manner that “warrant[ed] alarm for the safety of other persons.” Wash. Rev. Code Section 9.41.270(1).   The court noted that Washington is an open carry state (i.e., it is presumptively legal to carry a firearm openly) in which it is a misdemeanor to carry a concealed pistol without a license, but also a “shall issue state” meaning that local law enforcement must issue a concealed weapons license if the applicant meets certain qualifications. The court wrote that the bare fact that Defendant displayed a weapon would not be sufficient to stop Defendant, because there is no evidence that Defendant was carrying a concealed weapon.   Noting that Washington courts have narrowed terms in Section 9.41.270(1) to preserve the constitutionality of the statute, the court observed that what emerges is a workable standard: The act must warrant alarm in a reasonable person for the safety of others. View "USA V. MARC WILLY" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied on behalf of the court a petition for rehearing en banc in a case in which the court’s opinion, which vacated convictions on two counts of encouraging or inducing an alien to reside in the United States for private financial gain in violation of 8 U.S.C. Section 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), held that subsection (iv) is overbroad and unconstitutional because its narrow legitimate sweep pales in comparison to the amount of First Amendment protected expression it encompasses.   Judge Gould concurred in the order denying rehearing en banc. He wrote that Judge Bumatay’s dissent seeks to rewrite subsection (iv) by conducting a so-called textual analysis that fails to analyze the text of subsection (iv) itself; analyzes additional words not in that section, such as “aiding,” “abetting,” and “solicitation,” to support the conclusion it advocates; misreads the opinion, the record, Section 1324 itself, and precedent; conjures up parades of horribles belied by its own citations; introduces arguments the Government’s Petition for Rehearing did not make; and asks this court improperly to disregard Supreme Court precedent regarding the applicability of the facial overbreadth doctrine.   Dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc, Judge Collins concluded that (1) under the canon of constitutional avoidance, the court can and should interpret the statute as being limited to soliciting and facilitating the unlawful entry of, or the unlawful taking up of residence by, specific aliens; and (2) so construed, the statute is not facially unconstitutional. View "USA V. HELAMAN HANSEN" on Justia Law

The district court revoked Defendant’s supervised release for violating 18 U.S.C. Section 1001(a) by submitting a monthly supervision report with false statements to his probation officer. Section 1001(a) bars lying “in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States.” Defendant argued that because the report was eventually forwarded to a judge, he’s entitled to the exemption in 18 U.S.C. Section 1001(b) for statements “submitted to a judge or magistrate” in a judicial proceeding.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment revoking supervised release based on the Defendant committing a new crime, and the sentence imposed upon revocation. The court wrote that the judicial proceeding exception only protects statements made “by [the] party . . . to the judge or magistrate”—not statements made to others in the judicial branch. The court emphasized that taking an expansive view of “submission” would threaten to swallow the rule, and would undermine the will of Congress, which broadly proscribed false statements made in “any matter” of the “judicial branch.”   Relying on United States v. Haymond, 139 S. Ct. 2369 (2019), Defendant argued that the district court violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights when it decided by the preponderance of the evidence that he violated Section 1001. The court wrote that because a sentence for a supervised release violation is generally part of the penalty for the original offense, it is not a new and additional punishment requiring jury findings beyond a reasonable doubt. View "USA V. JONATHAN OLIVER" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and felon in possession of a firearm, but reserved the right to appeal the denial of the motions. An officer stopped the vehicle after learning that the vehicle— whose registered owner had an outstanding arrest warrant—was in the parking lot of a gas station.   In his motion to suppress, Defendant argued that the officer unconstitutionally prolonged the vehicle stop when he asked Defendantto provide his license, registration, and proof of insurance because the suspicion that motivated the stop had evaporated once the officer determined that Ross was not in the vehicle. The government countered that the stop was supported by independent reasonable suspicion because the officer began to suspect that Defendant was intoxicated shortly after initiating contact.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motions to suppress. The panel wrote that the circumstances of the officer’s encounter with Defendant’s implicate the same vehicle safety purpose discussed in Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015), under which a routine document check would remain part of the officer’s mission even when the suspicion that justified a stop was based on an outstanding warrant rather than a traffic violation.   The court wrote that Defendant failed to make a substantial preliminary showing that any statement or omission in the affidavit was intentionally or recklessly false or misleading, where an expert report provided by Defendant at most establishes that the canine’s alert was unreliable on a single unrelated occasion. View "USA V. SHANE NAULT" on Justia Law

While serving two life sentences for multiple convictions for first-degree murder, Petitioner beat a fellow inmate to death. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to death in Idaho state court. Petitioner obtained federal habeas relief with respect to his sentence and was resentenced to death in 1995. In a second petition, Petitioner thereafter unsuccessfully sought federal habeas relief in the district court. The district court granted certificates of appealability (COAs) as to two issues.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Petitioner’s second amended habeas corpus petition challenging his death sentence. The court denied a COA as to Petitioner’s claims (1) that the district court erred in summarily denying his motion for reconsideration of its denial of his second habeas petition, (2) that the Idaho Supreme Court violated the Due Process Clause by refusing to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea prior to his first resentencing, and (3) that the duration of Petitioner’s confinement for his murder constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.   The court granted a COA as to Petitioner’s argument under Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U.S. 320 (2010), that claims in his second federal habeas petition attacking his guilty plea are not “second or successive” under 28 U.S.C. Section 2244(b) and should be decided on the merits. The court concluded that because Petitioner’s original sentence was vacated and a new sentence was imposed, the claims are not barred as second or successive. View "THOMAS CREECH V. TIM RICHARDSON" on Justia Law

Defendants in three consolidated cases were convicted of conspiring to distribute cocaine on board a vessel, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute on board a vessel, and aiding and abetting. They challenged the district court’s denial of their pre-trial motions to dismiss the indictment. Defendants also argue that the prosecutor committed misconduct in his closing argument. The Defendants made individual claims as well.   Defendants argued that even if outrageous government conduct does not require dismissal of the indictment, the district court should have used its supervisory powers to provide the same remedy, asserting that the government should tread lightly in international waters, and the court should not condone mistreatment of foreigners with no connection to the United States. The Ninth Circuit wrote that pursuant to United States v. Matta-Ballesteros, 71 F.3d 754 (9th Cir. 1995), that is not a sufficient reason to hold that the district court abused its discretion by not dismissing the indictment. The court, therefore, affirmed the district court’s denial of the defendants’ motions to dismiss the indictment.   Further, the court held that a court has the power to dismiss an indictment for egregious violations of Rule 5, and that the proper inquiry is whether transportation to the United States as a whole was unnecessarily delayed, rather than whether there was some other district in the United States in which the defendant could have been brought before a magistrate judge more quickly. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in its determination that 23 days was not an unreasonable delay. View "USA V. SEGUNDO DOMINGUEZ-CAICEDO" on Justia Law