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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant’s original life sentence in 1998. Following the Supreme Court’s decisions in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) (holding that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders), and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190 (2016) (holding that Miller’s rule applied retroactively on collateral review), Defendant was resentenced to LWOP in 2016. Defendant argued relying on the now-vacated en banc decision, Briones I, that the resentencing record does not reflect that the district court meaningfully engaged in Miller’s central inquiry, namely, identifying those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility. The Ninth Circuit wrote that Jones made altogether clear that—irrespective of any seemingly contrary language in Miller or Montgomery— permanent incorrigibility is not an eligibility criterion for juvenile LWOP. The court held that Defendant waived his argument that a requirement of meaningful engagement with Miller’s central inquiry comes from this court’s cases interpreting the federal sentencing statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 3553, as to which Jones is irrelevant. The court rejected Defendant’s argument that Briones II vacated his LWOP sentence for a second, independent reason—namely, that the district court may not have understood it was allowed to meaningfully consider evidence of his post-conviction rehabilitation. The court held that Defendant waived his as-applied challenge to the substantive proportionality of his sentence, and wrote that all relevant factors militate against exercising discretion to consider the merits of Defendant’s otherwise waived substantive disproportionality arguments. View "USA V. RILEY BRIONES, JR." on Justia Law

Petitioner was found guilty of kidnapping and first-degree felony murder and sentenced to death. On direct appeal, Petitioner argued that his 1975 California conviction could not be used as an aggravating circumstance under section 13–703(F)(1) of the later-revised Arizona Revised Statutes. He also argued that the use of section 13–703(F)(1) violated his Eighth Amendment rights (this is referred to as the “Eighth Amendment claim”). The Arizona Supreme Court rejected these claims and affirmed Petitioner’s conviction and sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari. However, in light of the Supreme Court’s March 2012 opinion in Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), the district court allowed Petitioner to file a motion for reconsideration of its prior dismissal of his ineffective assistance of sentencing counsel claim as procedurally barred. The district court denied the motion for reconsideration.   The Ninth Circuit denied Petitioner’s motion to seek leave to file a second or successive habeas motion. The court held that Petitioner failed to make a prima facie showing that his proposed petition meets the criteria set forth in 28 U.S.C. Section 2244(b)(2)(B). The court reasoned that because Sawyer provides no equitable exception to Section 2244(b)(2)(B)’s requirements, and because Petitioner does not assert that his first claim otherwise meets those requirements, Petitioner’s first claim does not make a prima facie showing that it meets the requirements for an exception to the bar on second or successive petitions. Finally, Petitioner failed to make a prima facie showing in support of his freestanding actual innocence claim. View "FRANK ATWOOD V. DAVID SHINN" on Justia Law

Plaintiff alleged excessive force after being shot by a correctional officer during an incident that occurred while Plaintiff was incarcerated at California’s San Quentin State Prison. Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s third amended complaint against Defendant Clawson for failure to state a claim and because Plaintiff had not exhausted administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) before he filed his original complaint. The district court agreed that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his claim against Defendant at the time he filed his original complaint and dismissed the third amended complaint for lack of exhaustion under the PLRA.   The Ninth Circuit held that the district court erred and reversed the district court’s dismissal.  The court clarified the underlying principle in Jackson v. Fong, 870 F.3d 928 (9th Cir. 2017). Jackson made clear that the PLRA does not supplant or modify Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15. Rule 15 allows plaintiffs, regardless of their incarceration status, to supplement pleadings with leave of court “even though the original pleading is defective in stating a claim or defense.” A prisoner who has fully complied with the PLRA’s exhaustion requirement need not file an entirely new federal case simply because he had not exhausted when he filed his original federal complaint. The parties agreed that Plaintiff had fully exhausted by the time he filed his third amended complaint, which the district court deemed the “operative complaint.” Plaintiff’s operative third amended complaint was the only relevant pleading for purposes of the PLRA exhaustion analysis. View "SHIKEB SADDOZAI V. RON DAVIS" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of distributing and receiving child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2252A. He challenged the sentences imposed. The Ninth Circuit held that the district court did not err in applying the enhancement and did not err in assessing a fine of $5,000 for each of Defendants two counts of conviction.   The court reasoned that to be eligible for a five-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. Section 2G2.2(b)(3)(B), which applies to offenders who distribute child pornography “in exchange for any valuable consideration,” Defendant need not actually receive the valuable consideration.   Further, the court held that the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 3014(a), mandates a $5,000 assessment for each of a defendant’s counts of conviction—not a single assessment per defendant in the case. The court explained that Section 3014(a) works in conjunction with 18 U.S.C. Section 3013, to which Section 3014 is closely related in terms of text, purpose, and statutory structure; and observed that every circuit court has interpreted Section 3013’s assessment on a person “convicted of an offense” to apply separately to each count of conviction rather than to each offender. The panel wrote that the ordinary meaning of Section 3014’s “convicted of an offense” also supports a separate assessment per conviction. View "USA V. DUSTIN RANDALL" on Justia Law

In July 2020, during the heart of the COVID pandemic, Defendant was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Defendant's case went to trial no long after his arrest, when the district court's COVID procedures were still in effect. More specifically, the Northern District of California imposed a restriction stating only "persons who have been authorized by a judge or the Clerk of Court may enter courthouse property." However, the district court judge overseeing Defendant's motion to suppress and trial imposed additional restrictions, disallowing any member of the public from entering the courtroom and instead streamed live audio over the internet. Defendant objected, citing a violation of his right to a public trial. The district court rejected Defendant's challenge, and a jury convicted him.On appeal, the Ninth Circuit vacated Defendant's conviction and reversed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress, holding that the district court’s COVID protocols violated Defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial. The court found that the government presented an overriding interest in limiting the transmission of COVID while holding a criminal trial; however, the court's restriction on video access was not narrowly tailored. The Ninth Circuit noted that other courts around the county were able to allow for video access during the pandemic. View "USA V. JAMES ALLEN, II" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder of an Arizona police officer after a jury trial in 1997 and was sentenced to death by the state court. Petitioner moved in the district court under Rule 60(b)(6) for additional discovery to develop (1) a potential claim under Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), that the prosecution knowingly elicited false testimony; and (2) a potential claim of actual innocence after a witness’s apparent recantation of key guilt-phase testimony. Petitioner relied on Mitchell v. United States, 958 F.3d 775 (9th Cir. 2020), for two propositions.   The Ninth Circuit denied Petitioner’s request for a certificate of appealability (COA) that would allow Petitioner to challenge the district court’s denial of his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6) motion for relief from final judgment. The court agreed with Petitioner that, under Mitchell, the district court had jurisdiction to consider his Rule 60(b)(6) motion for discovery to develop potential claims, and correctly declined to dismiss the motion as a disguised second or successive petition.   Applying the factors set forth in Phelps v. Alameida, 569 F.3d 1120 (9th Cir. 2009), the court found that the holding in Mitchell, which did not disturb the underlying rules governing the discovery that Petitioner sought, did not constitute an extraordinary circumstance justifying relief from final judgment under Rule 60(b)(6). Because no reasonable jurist would disagree with the district court’s decision to deny the Rule 60(b)(6) motion, the court declined to grant Petitioner’s requested COA. View "ERNESTO MARTINEZ V. DAVID SHINN" on Justia Law

Following entry of Defendant’s guilty plea and his two sentencing proceedings, the Supreme Court clarified in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), that to be a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of Section 922(g)(1), a defendant must know that they belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm.Defendant argued that the government’s failure to list the knowledge of status element in his indictment should invalidate his conviction. The Ninth Circuit held that Defendant, who had been incarcerated for more than three years for his prior felony convictions and pointed to nothing in the record suggesting that he would have entered a different plea but for the indictment’s deficiency, failed to satisfy the third and fourth prongs of plain error review.Defendant further argued that the district court’s failure to advise him of the knowledge of status element during the plea colloquy rendered his guilty plea unconstitutionally involuntary and unknowing. The court concluded that there was no plain error requiring reversal, where none of Defendant’s confusion was related to the elements of the Section 922(g)(1) charge, the court already determined in a prior memorandum disposition that his plea was constitutionally valid despite any confusion, and the record contains indisputable evidence of prior felony convictions.Finally, the court held that Defendant’s predicate conviction is not sufficient to trigger the enhancement. The court deferred to the government’s concession, declining to decide whether Bautista controls. View "USA V. TYRONE DAVIS" on Justia Law

Petitioner pled guilty one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury and one count of use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. He moved for postconviction relief under Section 2255, arguing that his Section 924(c)(1)(A) conviction and sentence were invalid in light of United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019). The district court denied the petition and Petitioner sought leave to file a second or successive motion for postconviction relief under Section 2255. He, again, claimed that his Section 924(c)(1)(A) conviction and sentence are unlawful under Davis, and he added a claim that under Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021), his Section 113(a)(6) conviction cannot serve as a predicate crime of violence for his Section 924(c)(1)(A) conviction.   The Ninth Circuit denied Petitioner’s application for leave to file a second or successive Section 2255 motion. The court held Petitioner did not make the necessary prima facie showing under Section 2255(h)(2) with respect to his Davis claim because that claim is not “previously unavailable,” where Petitioner presented that claim to the district court in his first Section 2255 motion, and the district court erroneously held on the merits that Petitioner was not entitled to relief, and he did not appeal that decision. Additionally, Borden does not provide a basis under Section 2255(h)(2) for granting Petitioner’s application for leave to file a second or successive Section 2255 motion because Borden did not announce a new rule of constitutional law. View "WILLIE JONES, SR. V. USA" on Justia Law

In 2008, Defendant was convicted of murder in Arizona and sentenced to death. He is scheduled to be executed on May 11, 2022. On May 9, 2022, Petitioner filed a Sec. 2254 petition challenging the Arizona state court's determination that he was competent to be executed. He also sought a stay of execution. The district court denied relief on May 10, 2022, and Petitioner now appeals.The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of Petitioner's habeas corpus petition and denying his request for a stay of execution. Petitioner failed to establish that the Arizona state court's determination of his competency was unreasonable under the applicable case law, as required under AEDPA. The Ninth Circuit also determined that the state court's decision was not based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. View "CLARENCE DIXON V. DAVID SHINN" on Justia Law

Challenging his second-degree murder conviction, Defendant argued on appeal that the district court erred by failing to instruct the jury that the government bore the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant did not act upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion. The en banc court could not conclude on the record that the district court plainly erred. Challenging his Section 924(c) conviction for discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, Defendant argued that second-degree murder can be committed recklessly under Section 1111(a) and that, under the categorical approach, “crime of violence” does not encompass offenses that can be committed with a reckless mens rea.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant’s convictions for second-degree murder and for discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, vacated the district court’s order of mandatory restitution, and remanded the district court’s restitution order. The court held that second-degree murder can be committed recklessly and therefore does not qualify as a crime of violence. The en banc court explained that such a conviction qualifies because a defendant who acts with the requisite mens rea to commit second-degree murder necessarily employs force “against the person or property of another,” and rather than acting with ordinary recklessness, the defendant acts with recklessness that rises to a level of extreme disregard for human life. View "USA V. RANDLY BEGAY" on Justia Law