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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the convictions of Defendants Eduardo Hernandez, Leonidas Iraheta, and Vladimir Iraheta; affirmed in part and reversed in part the convictions of Javier Perez; vacated Perez's sentence; and remanded for resentencing. Defendants' convictions and sentences stemmed from their involvement in the Columbia Lil Cycos clique of the 18th Street gang.The panel held that the post-verdict filing made in camera by a third party did not contain Brady material and there was no abuse of discretion in not allowing Leonidas and Hernandez's attorneys to view it; in the few instances in which admission of the witnesses' testimony was error, Leonidas and Hernandez suffered no prejudice; the Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering (VICAR) statute may reach a crime committed abroad with sufficient nexus to the conduct of an enterprise's affairs; but VICAR does not reach all crimes committed in other countries; because California requires the formulation of criminal intent—and a non-de-minimis act in furtherance of the crime’s commission—in California, the district court's instruction on Perez's count one, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen was in error; the error as to count eighteen was not harmless and required reversal; and the evidence was sufficient to support defendants' underlying convictions.The panel also held that, although the district court improperly applied the firearm enhancement to Hernandez, the error was harmless, and all of Hernandez and Leonidas's other sentencing-related challenges failed; there was no error in the district court's decision to give both Hernandez and Leonidas life sentences; and remand of Perez's sentence was necessary in light of the error on his count eighteen conviction. View "United States v. Perez" on Justia Law

A conviction for being under the influence of a controlled substance, in violation of California Health and Safety Code 11550(a), is divisible with respect to controlled substance such that the modified categorical approach applies to determining whether a conviction under the statute is a controlled-substance offense as defined by federal law.The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's dismissal of petitioner's appeal from the IJ's decision finding him removable under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(B)(i) for having been convicted of a controlled-substance offense as defined by federal law. The panel explained that, where, as here, the controlled-substance requirement of a state statute is divisible and where, as here, the relevant substance is shown by application of the modified categorical approach to be federally controlled, then there is "a direct link between an alien's crime of conviction and a particular federally controlled drug" such that section 1227(a)(2)(B)(i) is satisfied. Furthermore, the divisibility of the actus reus element of Section 11550(a) is irrelevant, because under the modified categorical approach a conviction for using or being under the influence of amphetamine relates to a federally controlled substance. View "Tejeda v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's determination that petitioner's conviction for felony vehicular flight from a pursuing police car while driving against traffic, in violation of California Vehicle Code section 2800.4, is categorically a crime involving moral turpitude that made him removable.The panel applied the two-step process in determining whether California Vehicle Code section 2800.4 is categorically a crime involving moral turpitude by first reviewing the elements of the statute de novo and then by deferring, to some extent, to the BIA's conclusion that a crime involves moral turpitude. The panel concluded that it need not decide the appropriate level of deference because, even affording only minimal deference, the BIA's interpretation was correct. View "Lepe Moran v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order granting defendant's motion to suppress evidence. The panel held that where, as here, law enforcement officers are asked to assist in the execution of an administrative warrant authorizing the inspection of a private residence, they violate the Fourth Amendment when their "primary purpose" in executing the warrant is to gather evidence in support of a criminal investigation rather than to assist the inspectors.The panel need not address defendant's argument that the warrant itself was invalid under state law nor whether LASD exceeded the scope of the warrant. The panel only held that the LASD's execution was unreasonable and thus the district court properly granted defendant's motion to suppress. View "United States v. Grey" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of petitioner's habeas corpus petition challenging his Nevada convictions for three murders and an attempted murder, as well as his death sentence for one of the murders. The district court issued a certificate of appealability (COA) for petitioner's argument that the procedural default of his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim should be excused in light of Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012).The panel affirmed the denial of habeas relief and held that, although counsel's performance was deficient at the second penalty-phase hearing, petitioner failed to show that he was prejudiced by counsel's performance. In this case, petitioner failed to show that he was prejudiced by the lack of an evidentiary hearing, and his claim remains procedurally defaulted. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing the Martinez claim without holding an evidentiary hearing.The panel certified petitioner's claim alleging violation of the rule set out in Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359 (1931), but ultimately concluded that this claim does not entitle petitioner to habeas relief because the Stromberg error was harmless. The panel declined to certify the remaining claims because they do not raise substantial questions of law and the panel was not persuaded that reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong. View "Smith v. Baker" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for writ of mandamus filed under the Crime Victims' Rights Act. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining the amount of restitution to which petitioner is entitled. Furthermore, the panel held that the district court's finding that the prior civil settlement reduced the amount of petitioner's loss was supported by the evidence and was neither an abuse of discretion nor legally erroneous. View "Barber v. USDC, San Francisco" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit certified the following questions of state law to the Arizona Supreme Court: 1. Is Arizona's possession of drug paraphernalia statute, A.R.S. 13-3415, divisible as to drug type? 2. Is Arizona's drug possession statute, A.R.S. 13-3408, divisible as to drug type? 3. Put another way, is jury unanimity (or concurrence) required as to which drug or drugs listed in A.R.S. 13-3401(6), (19), (20), or (23) was involved in an offense under either statute? View "Romero-Millan v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress after he pleaded guilty to receipt of stolen mail and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence seized from his residence and the statements he made to law enforcement on the basis that the search warrant obtained by the Postal Inspection Service relied on evidence that was obtained illegally.The panel declined to address the potential Fourth Amendment privacy interests that may be implicated by the warrantless use of this Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology, and held that defendant does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the historical location data of the Yukon under the facts of this case. The panel found no evidence in the record that Prestige Motors had a policy or practice of allowing lessees to keep cars beyond the rental period and Prestige had made affirmative attempts to repossess the vehicle by activating the GPS unit to locate and disable the vehicle. Therefore, defendant lacked standing to challenge the warrantless search of the database. View "United States v. Yang" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's habeas corpus petition challenging his California conviction and death sentence for murder and other crimes. Petitioner raised two certified claims and two uncertified claims.The panel held that petitioner failed to show that the California Supreme Court's denials of his claims were unreasonable determinations of the facts or contrary to clearly established federal law. In this case, the California Supreme Court reasonably determined that an officer's misstatement during petitioner's interrogation that there was no death penalty in California did not prompt petitioner's confessions. Furthermore, petitioner failed to show that his statements were not knowing, voluntary, and intelligent. Even if petitioner were able to show that trial counsel was ineffective in not fully investigating his abuse as a child or his alleged organic brain injury, the panel held that the state court could reasonably have determined that any shortcoming in trial counsel's investigation was not prejudicial. Finally, the panel granted a certificate of appealability on petitioner's two uncertified claims and held that the state court reasonably rejected the claims that his trial counsel should have impeached the government's case and the prosecutor withheld material, exculpatory evidence. View "Benson v. Chappell" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit granted in part a petition for review of the BIA's finding that petitioner was removable based on his conviction for possession of visual presentation depicting sexual conduct of a person under 16 years of age, in violation of Nevada Revised Statutes (N.R.S.) 200.730.Applying the categorical approach, the panel compared the elements of N.R.S. 200.730 with the applicable definition of "sexual abuse of a minor," which requires proof of three elements. The panel held that N.R.S. 200.730 punishes a broader range of conduct because the Nevada statute does not require proof that the offender participated in sexual conduct with a minor. Therefore, petitioner's conviction did not qualify as sexual abuse of a minor. The panel explained that, with a possession-only offense such as N.R.S. 200.730, the minor depicted in the image is not the direct object of the offender's conduct, which is a necessary predicate for the offense to qualify as sexual abuse of a minor. View "Mero v. Barr" on Justia Law