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

The Ninth Circuit denied the petition for review of the BIA's December 2015 order of removal, holding that the BIA did not err in relying on binding precedent to conclude that petitioner was removable on the ground that he was convicted of two or more crimes involving moral turpitude. The panel discussed that, if it were writing on a clean slate, what categorical analysis it would use. However, because the panel was not writing on a clean slate, the panel held, according to binding precedent, that petty theft under section 484(a) of the California Penal Code is a crime involving moral turpitude.The panel also denied the petition for review of the BIA's denial of petitioner's motion to reopen, holding that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in concluding that petitioner failed to establish a prima facie case for asylum or withholding of removal. Finally, the panel held that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in concluding that petitioner failed to establish a prima facie case for protection under the Convention Against Torture. View "Silva v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress evidence found during a search that followed a 911 call and the stop of defendant's car. Defendant was subsequently convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm.The panel held that the totality of the circumstances in this case demonstrates that the 911 call was sufficiently reliable to support reasonable suspicion. Furthermore, the 911 call gave the police reason to suspect defendant was carrying a concealed firearm, which is presumptively a crime in California. Therefore, the 911 call generated reasonable suspicion justifying the stop and the district court was correct to deny defendant's motion to suppress the evidence obtained during the stop. View "United States v. Vandergroen" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted by a jury of six counts of assault on a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon, six counts of discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Defendant argued that the five assault counts based on four shots he fired toward the door of his motel room are multiplicitous in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause.The Ninth Circuit held that defendant failed to show that the district court erred, let alone plainly erred, in entering judgment on the four assault convictions based on the four shots he fired toward the door. However, the panel reversed one assault conviction. Furthermore, because each assault conviction served as a predicate offense for each firearm conviction, the panel also reversed one firearm conviction. The panel rejected defendant's remaining arguments and remanded with instructions. View "United States v. Voris" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's imposition of a special condition of supervised release prohibiting defendant from residing in the town of Browning, Montana, which is the tribal headquarters of the Blackfeet Indian Nation, or visiting the town without prior approval of his probation officer. Defendant is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation and the special condition was imposed after he violated the conditions of his probation through alcohol and drug-related infractions.The panel held that the residency restriction is a legitimate condition of supervised release, because the condition is not an illegal banishment or exclusion. In this case, the condition allows defendant to freely travel or reside in all but one quarter square mile of the 1.5 million acres of reservation land, restricting only his access to Browning itself. Furthermore, defendant is free to visit his family, to participate in tribal life, and to receive tribal services in Browning. The panel also held that the tribe's authority does not preclude the federal government from exercising its own authority over defendant and the government's exercise of authority over defendant does not infringe the inherent sovereignty of the Blackfeet Nation. Finally, the panel held that the residency restriction is substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Many White Horses" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's order suppressing 135 pounds of cocaine and 114 pounds of methamphetamine found during the course of a traffic stop. The panel held that the district court erred by failing to evaluate the totality of the circumstances known to the officer prior to his search. In this case, during the Terry frisk of defendants, one defendant made statements contradicting his earlier story about when he had smoked the marijuana cigarette. The panel concluded that the district court erred by not including these contradictory statements in its analysis, and that this error was part and parcel of its broader error of focusing on the officer's subjective motivations for performing the search. The panel stated that the officer stopped the tractor-trailer because he reasonably suspected that one of the defendants was speeding, and the officer had probable cause to search the cab and containers for evidence of violations of Nevada state law based on defendant's admission and shifting story. View "United States v. Malik" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions for child pornography-related charges, including one count of making a notice offering child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2251(d)(1)(A). In this case, defendant used an online instant messaging platform to exchange child pornography with one other individual.The panel held that one-to-one communications can satisfy the "notice" requirement in section 2251(d)(1), and that a rational fact-finder could find that defendant made a notice offering child pornography when she sent a one-to-one electronic message linking to a Dropbox account that contained child pornography. The panel also held that the district court did not err by admitting a Kik messenger exchange under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) to prove defendant's identity and absence of mistake. View "United States v. Cox" on Justia Law

On remand from the Supreme Court for further consideration in light of Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), the Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions for being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1).Because defendant did not raise his sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge in the district court, the panel reviewed that challenge for plain error under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b). The panel held that the district court erred by not requiring the government to prove defendant's knowledge of his status as a convicted felon, and that error is now clear following Rehaif. The panel also assumed without deciding that the error affected defendant's substantial rights. However, in assessing the fourth prong of plain error review, the panel may consider the entire record on appeal, not just the record adduced at trial. In this case, given the overwhelming and uncontroverted nature of that evidence, the panel concluded that defendant cannot show that refusing to correct the district court's error would result in a miscarriage of justice. View "United States v. Johnson" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress contraband found in the vehicle defendant was driving. The district court held that the evidence was discovered during a valid inventory search.As a preliminary matter, the panel held that defendant has not waived arguments challenging the district court's denial of his motion to suppress. On the merits of the motion, the panel affirmed and held that the officers' failure to precisely comply with police department towing policy by failing to completely fill out the CHP 180 form did not render the search invalid. The panel stated that this case was considerably clearer than United States v. Garay, 938 F.3d 1108 (9th Cir. 2019), which held that the failure to complete the form under the circumstances was not a material deviation from policy and did not make the search invalid. In this case, by creating a list of recovered items and incorporating it into a CHP 180 form, an officer complied substantially with the policy's direction to inventory the property in an impounded vehicle. Furthermore, given the early stage at which an officer decided to impound the vehicle, it is a reasonable view of the evidence that the officer's intent at the time the vehicle was impounded was administrative rather than investigatory.Finally, the panel vacated three conditions of supervised release where the government conceded error or made no argument. The panel remanded for revision, as well as vacated and remanded the notification-of-risk condition. View "United States v. Magdirila" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of habeas relief to petitioner, who was convicted of first degree murder. Petitioner moved for a new trial based on his discovery that a juror had made a false representation during voir dire.The panel applied review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), holding that it was not unreasonable for the state court to conclude that McDonough Power Equipment, Inc. v. Greenwood, 464 U.S. 548 (1984), which permits a new trial where a juror's lies during voir dire hide a fact that would have permitted the juror to be stricken for cause, accommodates a prejudice analysis. Because the Supreme Court has not given explicit direction as to whether McDonough requires a criminal defendant to show prejudice to obtain a new trial, and because the state court's interpretation is consistent with many other courts' interpretations, the panel cannot hold that the state court's interpretation was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, Supreme Court precedent. View "Scott v. Arnold" on Justia Law

An order denying a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 70(a) motion to enforce a conditional writ of habeas corpus pertains to the district court's adjudication of the habeas petition, and 28 U.S.C. 2253(c)(1)(A) therefore requires a habeas petitioner to obtain a certificate of appealability (COA) in order to appeal the district court's order.The Ninth Circuit denied petitioner a COA and dismissed for lack of jurisdiction his appeal from the district court's order denying his motion under Rule 70(a) to enforce the district court's conditional writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner was convicted, after a jury trial, of aggravated kidnapping, assault with a weapon, and assault on a peace officer, and sentenced to 100 years in prison with 20 years suspended. In this case, petitioner failed to make the requisite showing that reasonable jurists would debate whether the district court abused its discretion in finding that the State complied with the conditional writ and thus in denying petitioner's Rule 70(a) motion. Consequently, petitioner failed to make a substantial showing under section 2253(c)(2) to permit the issuance of a COA. View "Rose v. Guyer" on Justia Law