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

There is no presumption of public access under the First Amendment or common law that attaches to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 17(c) subpoena applications and their supporting materials. Accordingly, parties can only justify accessing sealed or in camera Rule 17(c) subpoenas, subpoena applications, and supporting documents by demonstrating a "special need." The Ninth Circuit held that, in this case, defendant failed to demonstrate a special need for his codefendant's Rule 17(c) subpoena materials, and that there was a continuing need to seal them. Accordingly, the panel affirmed the denial of defendant's motion. View "United States v. Sleugh" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's determination that petitioner's conviction for felony child endangerment constituted a crime of child abuse that rendered him removable under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(E)(i). Petitioner's conviction of felony child endangerment under California Penal Code 273a(a) was for driving under the influence with a child in his car who was not wearing a seat belt. The panel held that the Board's interpretation of a crime of child abuse, neglect or abandonment in Matter of Velazquez-Herrera, 24 I. & N. Dec. 503 (BIA 2008), and Matter of Soram, 25 I. & N. Dec. 378 (BIA 2010), was entitled to Chevron deference. Applying that definition in this instance, the panel held that petitioner's California conviction was a categorical match to the crime of child abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Furthermore, the Board's interpretation applied retroactively to Martinez-Cedillo's 2008 conviction, which occurred before the Board's decisions in Velazquez-Herrera and Soram. View "Martinez-Cedillo v. Sessions" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for theft of mail by a postal employee and possession of stolen mail. The panel held that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment on due process grounds based on the government's failure to preserve a video of a Postal Service employee parking lot. In this case, the investigating agent did not act in bad faith and the exculpatory value of the video was speculative. The panel also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by failing to instruct the jury on lost or destroyed evidence as a sanction for the government's failure to preserve the parking lot video; a conversation between the prosecutor and two investigating agents outside the courtroom did not violate Fed. R. Evid. 615; the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's request for production of an agent's notes under the Jencks Act; and the district court did not err by adopting a jury instruction on embezzlement of mail by a postal employee. View "United States v. Robertson" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The panel held that the district court did not err by denying defendant's motion to suppress where, although the underlying warrant for defendant's arrest was the product of judicial abandonment, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule was applicable. In this case, the officers executing the infirm warrant were unaware, and had no reason to be, of any judicial misconduct. The panel also held that the district court properly barred defendant's necessity defense because he failed to adequately demonstrate that he took possession of the gun in response to an imminent threat of death or bodily injury. View "United States v. Barnes" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of an amended habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254 as time-barred. Petitioner filed an amended habeas petition eight months after the statute of limitations under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) had run. The panel held that the facts set out in the state court order were not clearly incorporated into petitioner's original petition, and Rule 2 of the Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases in the United States precluded the panel from construing the petition as incorporating such facts. Therefore, the district court did not err in concluding that the amended petition could not relate back to the claims in his original petition. View "Ross v. Williams" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c) and motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255. Defendant filed his motions after President Obama's commutation of his sentence from life in prison without release to 360 months in prison. The panel held that defendant was ineligible for a sentence modification where he was originally sentenced based on a statutory mandatory minimum, not based on a sentencing range; a presidential commutation did not overturn the sentence imposed by the sentencing court; President Obama's commutation was not based on a recalculation of a sentencing range and it did not create a new judgment; and thus the sentence remained subject to the restrictions on second-or-successive motions under section 2255. View "United States v. Buenrostro" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for conspiring to suppress and restrain competition by rigging bids, in violation of 15 U.S.C. 1. The panel held that bid rigging is per se illegal under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, and thus the district court did not err by refusing to permit defendant to introduce evidence of the alleged ameliorative effects of his conduct. View "United States v. Joyce" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of a petition for habeas relief based on the ineffective assistance of counsel at resentencing. The panel held that counsel performed deficiently by failing to challenge evidence that petitioner committed murder for pecuniary gain, and by failing to conduct an adequate investigation of mitigating factors; the state post-conviction court's contrary conclusion was an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington and Wiggins v. United States; and there was a reasonable likelihood that petitioner would have received a different sentence if counsel's performance were not deficient. Accordingly, the panel remanded with instructions to grant a conditional writ. View "White v. Ryan" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit vacated defendant's conviction and sentence under the 2005 version of 18 U.S.C. 2423(c), which applies to a U.S. citizen who travels in foreign commerce, and engages in any illicit sexual conduct with another person. In this case, defendant, a U.S. citizen, drugged and raped several children in Cambodia, where he claims to have resided for several years. The panel held that Congress subsequently amended the statute to add a new basis for criminal liability. The panel held that, from the statutory amendment, as well as the accompanying legislative history, it was evident that section 2423(c) was previously inapplicable to U.S. citizens living abroad unless they were traveling—meaning something more than being in transit—when they had illicit sex. Because the jury was not properly instructed on the travel element in this case, the panel vacated and remanded should the government elect to retry him. View "United States v. Pepe" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's determination that the distribution-of-pornography enhancement in USSG 2G2.1(b)(3) applies when the perpetrator creates an illicit image of a minor victim and shares it only with the victim. The panel issued a limited remand for resentencing because the record suggesteds that the district court penalized defendant by increasing his sentence based on his decision to exercise his Sixth Amendment right to go to trial. View "United States v. Silva Hernandez" on Justia Law