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

The Ninth Circuit dismissed an appeal and cross-appeal arising from the magistrate judge's order extending the supervision of the case based on alleged due process violations. This action arose from a class action settlement agreement stemming from California's housing of the plaintiff prisoners in solitary confinement based only upon their gang affiliation. Before the settlement agreement was set to expire, the prisoners moved to extend its duration. A magistrate judge granted the motion on two claims, but denied a third claim, extending the settlement agreement for one year.The panel agreed with the prisoners that it cannot reach the merits of the appeal because the magistrate judge lacked authority to enter a final extension order under 28 U.S.C. 636(c)(1). Because Article III supervision was lacking here, the panel explained that the parties cannot appeal from the extension order under section 636(c)(3). Therefore, the panel cannot reach the merits of the appeal. The panel remanded to the district court to consider construing the magistrate judge's extension order as a report and recommendation. View "Ashker v. Newsom" on Justia Law

Prisoners moved to enforce a civil rights class action settlement agreement stemming from California's housing of the plaintiff prisoners in solitary confinement based only upon their gang affiliation. The prisoners contend that California breached the agreement when it transferred some prisoners from Security Housing to General Population but did not give those prisoners increased out-of-cell time. Furthermore, prisoners contend that California broke the settlement agreement when it limited another inmate group's direct physical contact during yard time.The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's ruling that California violated the settlement agreement. The panel held that California has complied with Paragraph 25's requirements and agreed with California's contention that Paragraph 25 of the agreement requires inmate transfer from Security Housing to General Population but does not control General Population conditions. The panel also held that California has substantially complied with Paragraph 28's requirements for restricted custody inmates and, given the institution's safety concerns, the limitations are only minor deviations from Paragraph 28's requirements. The panel vacated the district court's remedial orders and remanded for further proceedings. View "Ashker v. Newsom" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his convictions for possession of a machinegun in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(o) and possession of an unregistered machinegun in violation of 26 U.S.C. 5861(d).The Ninth Circuit held that a weapon is "designed to shoot" automatically if it has a specific configuration of objective structural features that, in the absence of any minor defect, would give the weapon the capacity to shoot automatically. The panel also held that the challenged phrase is not unconstitutionally vague on its face where it relies on the objective features of the device even when it is combined with the statutory phrase "framer or receiver." The panel further held that defendant's remaining challenges concerning the application of section 5845(b) lacked merit. In this case, there was no plain error in the jury instruction's objective focus on "specific machinegun design features which facilitate automatic fire;" there is no reasonable possibility that the jury here relied on an impermissibly expansive reading of the instruction in convicting defendant; and defendant had fair notice that Exhibit 12 qualified as such a device based on its configuration of objective features. Therefore, the panel rejected defendant's vagueness challenge. Finally, the panel rejected defendant's challenges to his section 5861(d) conviction, but agreed with defendant that his two convictions are improperly multiplicitous. The panel remanded with instructions to vacate one of the two convictions. View "United States v. Kuzma" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review challenging petitioner's removal for committing two crimes involving moral turpitude (CIMT). The panel held that the BIA did not err in concluding that a California Penal Code 646.9(a) criminal stalking conviction qualifies as a CIMT because a section 646.9(a) offense is categorically a CIMT. The panel stated that the BIA's reliance on In re Ajami, 22 I. & N. Dec. 949 (B.I.A. 1999), to determine that a section 646.9(a) criminal stalking conviction constitutes a CIMT is entitled to Skidmore deference, rather than Chevron deference. Pursuant to the panel's review of the statutory text and in light of its CIMT precedents, the panel concluded that section 646.9 does not plainly and specifically criminalize conduct outside the contours of the federal definition of a CIMT.The panel also held that the BIA reasonably concluded that petitioner's two section 646.9(a) counts of conviction did not arise out of a single scheme of criminal misconduct. In this case, Count 1 of the state felony complaint involved petitioner willfully and maliciously following and harassing one person between June 1, 2015 and April 26, 2017. Count 2 involved the same conduct by petitioner against a different person between March 1, 2017 and April 26, 2017. Accordingly, petitioner is removable as charged under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii). View "Orellana v. Barr" on Justia Law

When a confession results from certain types of Fourth Amendment violations, the government must go beyond proving that the confession was voluntary—it must also show a sufficient break in events to undermine the inference that the confession was caused by the Fourth Amendment violation.In 2017, police officers went to defendant's home after someone at his address pointed a laser at a police aircraft in flight and illegally detained defendant. The police interrogated defendant without Miranda warnings and seized the laser. Eight months later, an FBI agent approached defendant to ask follow up questions about the incident where defendant again admitted to shining the laser at the plane. After defendant was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. 39A, he moved to suppress the statements he made to the FBI agent.The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress the inculpatory statements he made to the FBI agent. In this case, the panel considered the temporal proximity of the search to the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct, and held that the second encounter was directly linked to the original illegalities. Therefore, defendant's statements should have been suppressed. View "United States v. Bocharnikov" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of petitioner's Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) motion to reopen proceedings on his habeas corpus petition. Petitioner sought to invalidate his plea of "guilty but mentally ill." Three years after Nevada eliminated the insanity defense, petitioner pleaded guilty but mentally ill to lewdness with a child under the age of fourteen.The panel held that petitioner's motion was timely under Rule 60(b)(6) rather than any of Rule 60(b)'s other grounds for relief. Furthermore, in Mena v. Long, 813 F.3d 907 (9th Cir. 2016), the panel clarified that district courts can indeed stay and abey entirely unexhausted habeas petitions. The panel also held that petitioner presented extraordinary circumstances warranting re-opening the final judgment. In this case, the six Phelps factors supported reconsideration of the district court's 2009 judgment and the district court abused its discretion in denying the motion. Accordingly, the panel remanded for further proceedings. On remand, petitioner may request the district court to stay his petition while he returns to state court to exhaust his federal constitutional claims. View "Bynoe v. Baca" on Justia Law

Moran-Garcia, caught off the California coast in a disguised boat, was indicted for attempting to enter the United States after having been deported, 8 U.S.C. 1326(a) and (b), and for attempting to enter other than at a place designated, 8 U.S.C. 1325. The indictment alleged that these offenses occurred “within the Southern District of California.” The evidence established that Moran was apprehended six miles off the coast, within sight of the lights of San Diego. San Diego is within the Southern District of California. Defense counsel moved for a judgment of acquittal based on insufficient evidence of venue, arguing that the Southern District extended only three miles out to sea. The court denied the motion and ruled that no jury instruction was appropriate because venue was a legal question that it had already decided.The Ninth Circuit vacated, finding that venue was not established. The Southern District of California as defined by Congress comprises the counties of (landlocked) Imperial and San Diego. The territorial sea of the United States extends to 12 nautical miles, but that is not true of the Southern District of California. California law defines the western border of San Diego County as extending “to a point three English miles [into the] Pacific Ocean.” Venue is a question of fact that the government must prove by a preponderance of the evidence.” It is a jury question. View "United States v. Moran-Garcia" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed defendants' conviction for federal mortgage fraud. In this case, the government disclosed after the close of evidence information impeaching a government witness in violation of Brady v. Maryland.The panel held that there is a reasonable likelihood that the undisclosed evidence impeaching the government witness could have affected the judgment of the jury. The panel explained that the impeachment substantially weakened the credibility of the government's cooperating witnesses and the strength of its case, and the panel could not conclude that the district court's instruction fully cured the prejudice. Furthermore, given the difficulty the jury faced in reaching a verdict, the panel could not say with confidence that the undisclosed impeachment did not affect the jury's judgment. Accordingly, the panel remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Obagi" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions stemming from his robbery of a victim at gun point after luring him into a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train station by posting an advertisement for a used car on a Craigslist site. The panel held that, because a rational juror could have concluded that defendant advertised a commercial transaction on Craigslist to facilitate the robbery, the evidence was sufficient to satisfy the interstate-commerce element of the Hobbs Act. The panel also held that, because there was sufficient evidence presented at defendant's first trial to sustain a conviction, there was a fortiori sufficient evidence presented at his retrial.The court further held that there was no construction amendment of the indictment; the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's request for a specific unanimity instruction; any error in the Hobbs Act jury instruction was harmless; claims of prosecutorial misconduct rejected; Rehaif claim rejected; Hobbs Act robbery constitutes a predicate crime of violence and thus defendant's conviction on count 2 affirmed; but the district court erred by declining to give defendant a two-level downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility. Accordingly, the panel vacated defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Tuan Ngoc Luong" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's pre-sentencing order enjoining the government from spending additional funds on the prosecution of defendants, who pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy to manufacture and possess with intent to distribute marijuana.The panel held that the appropriations rider that prohibited the Department of Justice from using congressionally-allocated funding to prevent states from implementing their medical marijuana laws does not bar the government from spending funds on this appeal. The panel also held that the district court did not err in concluding that defendants met their burden to show that they were strictly compliant with the Medical Marijuana Program Act at the time of their arrest. In this case, the district court properly focused the McIntosh hearing on the conduct underlying the charge, and the district court's analysis of state law was not in error and its factual findings were not clearly erroneous. View "United States v. Pisarski" on Justia Law