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

Plaintiffs filed suit against officials of the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC), challenging aspects of the Arizona execution process. Plaintiffs contend that Arizona's practices violate their First Amendment right of access to governmental proceedings and violate inmates' rights of access to the courts.The Ninth Circuit held that the First Amendment right of access to governmental proceedings encompasses a right to hear the sounds of executions in their entirety. Furthermore, on the facts alleged, Arizona's restrictions on press and public access to the sounds of executions impermissibly burden that right. However, the panel held that neither the public nor the press has a First Amendment right of access to information regarding the manufacturers, sellers, lot numbers, National Drug Codes, and expiration dates of lethal-injection drugs, as well as documentation regarding the qualifications of certain execution team members. Finally, the court held that plaintiffs' claim that Arizona's restrictions violate the inmates' First Amendment right of access to the courts failed as a matter of law. Accordingly, the panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's second amended complaint. View "First Amendment Coalition of Arizona v. Ryan" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit vacated defendant's life sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to producing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2251(a). Defendant had several prior Alaska convictions relating to the sexual assault and sexual abuse of minors, none involving the production of child pornography.After determining that the appeal waiver did not bar defendant's appeal, the panel held that his prior Alaska convictions were not offenses "relating to the sexual exploitation of children" under section 2251(e), and thus the district court improperly applied the multiple conviction enhancement contained in section 2251(e). The court explained that the term "relating to" in section 2251(e) encompasses state offenses that are a categorical match to the federal offense of production of child pornography and state offenses involving the production of such pornography. However, the term does not include offenses that entirely lack the visual depictions element that separates "sexual exploitation of children" from other forms of child abuse in the federal criminal offense panoply. The panel remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Schopp" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions for health care fraud where the evidence of actual knowledge was overwhelming, and thus the court did not need to determinate whether the district court erred in giving a deliberate ignorance instruction on the knowledge element of health care fraud. Furthermore, the panel rejected defendant's arguments regarding the sufficiency of the illegal remunerations convictions.However, the panel reversed the aggravated identity theft convictions, because defendant did not "use" the patients' identities within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 1028A. The panel also held that United States v. Osuna-Alvarez, 788 F.3d 1183 (9th Cir. 2015), foreclosed defendant's claim that the "without lawful authority" element of aggravated identity theft was not satisfied because the patients voluntarily provided their information. Finally, the panel held that the district court did not err in applying sentencing enhancements for obstruction of justice and aggravating role in the offense. The panel remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Hong" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence imposed upon revocation of multiple supervised release terms. The panel held that Chapter 7 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines does not preclude the imposition of consecutive sentences under these circumstances.The panel held that neither the negative pregnant principle nor the rule of lenity served to deprive the district court of its discretionary authority under 18 U.S.C. 3584(a) to impose consecutive terms of imprisonment following revocation of concurrent supervised release terms. In this case, the district court acted within the discretion conferred upon it by section 3584(a) when it imposed consecutive terms of imprisonment following revocation of multiple supervised release terms. Accordingly, the panel affirmed defendant's sentence. View "United States v. Campbell" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend and her daughter, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus. The Ninth Circuit reversed in part, holding that petitioner demonstrated cause and prejudice to overcome the procedural default of his ineffective assistance of trial claim. In this case, post conviction counsel, whom Arizona concedes performed deficiently, failed to raise a substantial claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel in petitioner's initial state collateral proceeding. The panel remanded the claim for the district court to allow evidentiary development of petitioner's ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim.The panel affirmed the district court's conclusion that petitioner's right to due process under Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68 (1985), was not violated; agreed that the Arizona state courts did not improperly exclude mitigating evidence that lacked a causal connection to his crime; and declined to expand the certificate of appealability to include the three uncertified issues raised by petitioner. View "Ramirez v. Ryan" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction under the Assimilative Crimes Act for felony telephone harassment in violation of Washington Revised Code section 9.61.230(1)(a),(b). Defendant's conviction stemmed from his repeated telephone calls to a Veterans Administration medical center.Washington Revised Code section 9.61.230(1)(a) requires proof that the defendant specifically intended to harm the victim when initiating the call. As applied here, the panel held that the requirement ensures that defendant was convicted for his conduct, not for speech protected by the First Amendment. Therefore, the panel rejected defendant's claim that the statute violated his First Amendment rights because he just wanted to talk about his medical care and the VA's unpaid bills, and did not intend to harass or want to harass the secretary who answered the calls. View "United States v. Waggy" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition challenging his conviction and capital sentence for first degree murder and rape of a fifteen year old girl. The Ninth Circuit applied the habeas standards in effect prior to the implementation of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996; petitioner's numerous ineffective assistance of counsel claims, governed by Strickland v. Washington, were unavailing because he did not show that trial counsel's performance fell below an objective reasonableness standard at the time of the trial in 1987; petitioner failed to show prejudice in the few instances where counsel's performance was deficient; and petitioner's conflict of interest claim under Mickens v. Taylor, 535 U.S. 162, 171 (2002), were unpersuasive.However, the panel held that the issue of juror misconduct must be remanded to the district court in light of the panel's recent decision in Godoy v. Spearman, 861 F.3d 956 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc). The panel otherwise denied habeas relief and affirmed the district court's denial of evidentiary hearings for all claims. View "Clark v. Chappell" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit filed an amended opinion affirming a conviction for knowingly possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1); denied a petition for panel rehearing; and denied a petition for rehearing en banc.The panel held that the district court correctly refused to instruct the jury that, to convict, they had to find that defendant knew that his firearm was manufactured after 1898. In this case, defendant did not dispute the government's evidence that his gun could not have been manufactured before 1915, and he offered no evidence that he reasonably believed that the gun was manufactured before 1898. Therefore, the panel held that defendant failed to meet his burden of production to put the antique firearm affirmative defense at issue, and his sufficiency of the evidence argument failed as well. The panel also held that, at a minimum, the prior convictions for being a felon in possession of a firearm and being a felon in possession of ammunition proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had the knowledge required by Rehaif v. United States , 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), and that any error in not instructing the jury to make such a finding did not affect defendant's substantial rights or the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the trial. Finally, the confrontation clause error was harmless. View "United States v. Benamor" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence imposed after he was convicted of one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. The panel held that defendant's prior Minnesota conviction for aiding and abetting simple robbery qualifies as a predicate violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act's force clause because the minimum force required to sustain a Minnesota simple robbery includes the amount of force necessary to overcome a victim’s resistance. The panel noted that its prior distinction between "substantial" and "minimal" force in the robbery context under the Act could not be reconciled with the Supreme Court's holding in Stokeling v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 544 (2019). View "Ward v. United States" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for engaging in a monetary transaction of over $10,000 derived from a specified unlawful activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1956. In this case, defendant, a citizen of South Korea employed at a government-funded research institute, solicited and received payments from two seismometer manufacturers in exchange for ensuring that the research institute purchased their products, and gave the companies inside information about their competitors.The panel held that "bribery of a public official" in section 1956 is defined by that phrase's ordinary, contemporary, common meaning and is not constrained by 18 U.S.C. 201, a statute to which section 1956 makes no reference. Because the panel found the crime described in Article 129 of the South Korean Criminal Code fits comfortably within the ordinary meaning of "bribery of a public official" as used in section 1956, the panel held that the indictment was sufficient and that there was no instructional error. View "United States v. Heon-Cheol Chi" on Justia Law