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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a habeas corpus petition challenging petitioner's Arizona state court conviction for attempted second-degree murder. In this case, the trial court misstated Arizona law in its instructions to the jury by implying that a defendant could be guilty of attempted second-degree murder if he merely intended to cause serious physical injury, not death. Furthermore, trial counsel failed to object to the erroneous instruction. Petitioner petitioned for state post-conviction relief, with the assistance of different counsel, but his counsel did not raise any claims related to the instructional error, and the state trial and appellate courts denied relief. The district court ultimately denied his federal habeas corpus petition, declining to excuse petitioner's procedural default of these claims.The panel declined to excuse petitioner's procedural default under under Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012), so that he could seek habeas relief on the basis of constitutionally ineffective assistance of trial counsel (IATC). The panel concluded that petitioner cannot satisfy Strickland's prejudice requirement for an IATC claim for failure to object to a jury instruction based on the consequent loss of a more favorable standard of appellate review. The panel also concluded that petitioner failed to demonstrate a substantial IATC claim, and accordingly, his procedural default of that claim is not excused under Martinez. View "Dickinson v. Shinn" on Justia Law

After selling two guns to a confidential informant and an undercover agent during a controlled buy, Parlor was indicted for unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Agents searched Parlor’s residence and found 21.63 grams of marijuana, $5,000 in cash, dozens of small plastic baggies, digital scales, and another gun. Parlor’s storage unit contained a semiautomatic rifle, a handgun, and ammunition. The handgun had been reported stolen. Parlor entered a guilty plea.The PSR noted two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense, recommended a three-level decrease for acceptance of responsibility, and recommended a two-level enhancement (U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(b)(1)(A)) because the “offense involved” three-to-seven firearms, a two-level enhancement (2K2.1(b)(4)(A)) because one firearm had been reported stolen, and a four-level enhancement (2K2.1(b)(6)(B)) for possessing firearms in connection with another felony, drug trafficking. The Guidelines range of 121-151 months was reduced to the statutory maximum of 120 months. Absent the three enhancements, Parlor’s range would have been 57-71 months. Defense counsel did not object to the multiple-firearms enhancement. The court noted evidence that a gun was found in Parlor’s home, close to drugs and drug paraphernalia and that Parlor had “exchanged guns for drugs” in the past with the informant.The Ninth Circuit upheld Parlor’s 120-month sentence. The district court connected the various firearms to each other and connected Parlor’s possession of an uncharged firearm with another felony offense, drug trafficking. View "United States v. Parlor" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction on one count of making false statements to a government official, vacated her convictions on two counts of assault within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and remanded for a new trial on the assault counts and for resentencing on the false-statements count. Defendant's convictions stemmed from a physical altercation with her boyfriend. Defendant claimed self-defense at trial, testifying that she feared for her life when she swung the rebar and knocked her boyfriend unconscious. In its rebuttal case, the Government presented evidence that, roughly two years before the charged assault, defendant assaulted her stepmother and sister on separate occasions.The panel concluded that sufficient evidence supported defendant's conviction for making false statements to a government official (Count 3) where a rational juror could infer from the circumstantial evidence presented that defendant knew it was unlawful to lie to the FBI at the time she lied. The panel also concluded that evidence of defendant's prior incidents was inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 404, thus entitling her to a new trial on Counts 1 and 2. The panel explained that, although defendant's testimony may have opened the door to general reputation or opinion testimony about her propensity for violence under Rule 405(a), she did not open the door to detailed descriptions of specific instances of conduct that were completely unrelated to her boyfriend to show that she has a propensity for violence under Rule 405(b). The panel also explained that evidence of a prior incident is not admissible to prove a person's character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with character. Furthermore, the prior incidents do not establish either defendant's motive or intent to commit the charged assault. Finally, the admission of this erroneous "other acts" evidence was not harmless. View "United States v. Charley" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit vacated defendant's sentence for sexually exploiting a minor and remanded for resentencing. The panel concluded that, because there is no evidence that defendant exercised control over the child's mother, the district court abused its discretion in applying the leadership enhancement under USSG 3B1.1(c). The panel also concluded that the district court erred in applying a guardian enhancement under USSG 2G2.1(b)(5) where defendant was not the child's parent and was never entrusted with parent-like authority. The panel could not say that the district court would come to the same conclusions given the proper scope of the enhancements and thus the sentence must be vacated and remanded. View "United States v. Harris" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit filed (1) an order granting respondent's petition for panel rehearing and denying as moot her petition for rehearing en banc, (2) a superseding opinion affirming the district court's denial of petitioner's habeas corpus petition challenging his California conviction for first-degree murder, and (3) a partial dissent/concurrence.The panel concluded that the prosecutor's repeated statements to the jury during final argument that the presumption of innocence no longer applied were misstatements of clearly established law as articulated by the Supreme Court. However, the panel deferred to the state court's finding, applying the Darden standard, that there was not a reasonable probability of a different outcome had the prosecutor not misstated the law. The panel also concluded that the state court did not err under Dunn v. United States, 442 U.S. 100 (1979), in upholding the jury's arguably inconsistent verdict. Accordingly, the panel affirmed the district court's denial of relief. View "Ford v. Peery" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's 15-month sentence imposed for violating the terms of his supervised release. Defendant argued that the sentence violates his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights because it extends his incarceration beyond the maximum term of imprisonment for his underlying conviction, without findings of fact proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.The panel explained that defendant's argument is based on the plurality opinion in United States v. Haymond, 139 S.Ct. 2369 (2019), and Justice Breyer's controlling concurring opinion did not adopt the plurality's position. Therefore, the panel concluded that Haymond did not overrule or undermine the panel's prior opinion in United States v. Purvis, 940 F.2d 1276 (9th Cir. 1991), which held a term of supervised release may extend beyond the statutory maximum for the underlying substantive offense. Nor does defendant hold that the right to jury findings proved beyond a reasonable doubt recognized in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), extends to a revocation of supervised release hearing. Furthermore, when district courts revoke supervised release, the new sentences they impose are treated, for constitutional purposes, "as part of the penalty for the initial offense," Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 700 (2000). The panel explained that neither this circuit nor any of its sister circuits has adopted or endorsed defendant's argument that the terms of imprisonment and the terms of reimprisonment must be aggregated and may not exceed the maximum term of the statute of conviction. View "United States v. Henderson" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for seven instances of armed robbery and three instances of attempted armed robbery. Defendant raised three alleged trial errors: (1) denial of his motion to suppress body camera footage of him taken during an unrelated police encounter; (2) denial of his motion in limine to exclude video evidence of his flight from police; and (3) denial of his motion to sever the offenses. Furthermore, defendant argued that cumulative errors affected the fairness of his trial; the mandatory minimum term of imprisonment violated the Eighth Amendment; and a Hobbs Act robbery case should be overturned.The panel concluded that the police violated the Fourth Amendment when they opened the door to defendant's residence without a warrant on February 7, 2017, and the fruit of that search should not have been introduced at trial. However, given the strength of the other evidence that defendant committed the ARCO robbery, the panel concluded that the district court's error in admitting the body camera evidence was harmless. The panel rejected the remainder of defendant's challenges to his conviction and his 85-year sentence as meritless. View "United States v. Holiday" on Justia Law

Lopez, attempting to drive across the border in Otay Mesa, California, was referred to secondary inspection. The inspection of Lopez’s vehicle revealed packages containing methamphetamine. Lopez pleaded guilty under 21 U.S.C. 952 and 21 U.S.C. 960, triggering a mandatory minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment.The 18 U.S.C. 3553(f) “safety valve” allows a district court to sentence a criminal defendant below the mandatory minimum sentence for certain drug offenses if the defendant meets the criteria in section 3553(f)(1)-(f)(5). A 2018 amendment, the First Step Act, focuses only on the defendant’s prior criminal history as determined under the Sentencing Guidelines and requires a defendant to prove that he does not have: (A) more than 4 criminal history points . . . (B) a prior 3-point offense . . . and (C) a prior 2-point violent offense.” Lopez’s only relevant conviction was for vandalism in 2008. Because of a probation violation, he served 13 months of imprisonment, so that conviction constituted a “3-point offense” under U.S.S.G. 4A1.1(a)The district court concluded that section 3553(f)(1)’s “and” is ambiguous and invoked the rule of lenity to reach a conjunctive interpretation, then sentenced Lopez to four years of imprisonment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, finding 3553(f)(1)’s “and” unambiguously conjunctive. View "United States v. Lopez" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's imposition of two conditions of supervised release after defendant was convicted of receipt or distribution of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(2). The panel concluded that the place condition, which prohibits defendant from being near any place primarily used by children, is not unconstitutionally vague nor overbroad and is reasonable for the protection of the public. The panel also concluded that the third-party risk notification condition, where a probation officer may require defendant to notify another person of the defendant's risk to that person, was not unconstitutionally vague where the limited discretion vested in the probation officer as to when the condition should be triggered does not render it unconstitutionally vague. View "United States v. Gibson" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of a prison officer based on qualified immunity in an action brought by plaintiff under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that defendant violated plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights by screening and intermittently checking in on plaintiff's phone conversations with the attorney he had hired to bring lawsuits on his behalf.The panel concluded that defendant was entitled to qualified immunity because she did not violate any Fourth Amendment right that was clearly established at the time of her challenged conduct. In this case, the panel exercised its discretion to consider only the second prong of the qualified immunity analysis. The panel explained that plaintiff has not cited any precedent that has placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate. In this case, there is no Supreme Court case considering whether a prison official's monitoring of an inmate's legal calls in this manner violates the inmate's Fourth Amendment rights. Furthermore, plaintiff has not pointed to any Ninth Circuit precedent holding that monitoring the beginning of an inmate's calls to ensure their legal character and then intermittently checking on those calls to confirm their continuing legal character violates a prisoner's Fourth Amendment rights. Consequently, the panel declined to address the merits of plaintiff's Fourth Amendment claim. Finally, the panel briefly responded to the concurrence's argument that plaintiff's claim warranted a merits decision even though such a decision could not affect the case's outcome. View "Witherow v. Baker" on Justia Law