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

Petitioner challenged the district court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus because it was time barred. In order to determine whether petitioner's state post-conviction petition for relief was a "properly filed" application that was eligible for tolling, the court looked to Nevada state filing requirements. Although Nevada applied the prison mailbox rule to state notices of appeal filed by pro se prisoners, it has expressly rejected application of the rule to state post-conviction relief petitions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court View "Orpiada v. McDaniel" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against defendants under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1962. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants conspired to pay inflated rent payments so that the properties sold to plaintiffs would appear far more valuable to third parties. The court held that the complaint did not meet the pleading standards by Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, and In re Century Aluminum Co. Securities Litigation. The court concluded that the complaint's factual allegations did not support a plausible inference that defendants had the required specific intent to defraud, nor do they tend to exclude the alternative explanation that the transactions at issue were merely a group of business deals gone bad during a deep recession. The court affirmed the dismissal of plaintiffs' RICO allegations and the dismissal of plaintiffs' allegations of RICO conspiracy. View "Eclectic Props. East v. The Marcus & Millichap Co." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's grant of the government's motion for authorization to medicate defendant involuntarily. Determining that the court had jurisdiction to review the district court's involuntary medication order under the collateral order doctrine, the court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in determining that defendant suffered from a mental illness. In regards to the governmental interest in involuntary medication, the district court must consider the potential for and anticipated length of future civil commitment in the event defendant is not medicated and the amount of time defendant had already been confined, versus the period of confinement that could reasonably be expected if defendant were restored to competency and convicted of the charged offense. The district court should also consider any other significant factors that could strengthen or weaken the governmental interests in prosecuting defendant, including the extent to which delaying the prosecution would jeopardize the government's position at trial. It is not clear from the record that the district court conducted this inquiry. A Sell order must identify the duration of time that involuntary treatment of the defendant may continue before the treating physicians are required to report back to the court on the defendant's mental condition and progress. In this case, the parties agreed that the district court's orders did not specify the time limitations. Accordingly, remand is necessary on this issue. Because remand is necessary, a new Sell inquiry is required because of the amount of time that has passed since the district court's order was entered. If the district court determines on remand that no alternative basis for forcibly medicating defendant is indicated, it should proceed to consider all four Sell factors anew. View "United States v. Brooks" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the BIA's order vacating the IJ's grant of asylum based on his well-founded fear of persecution as a member of a particular social group. The BIA concluded that petitioner's purported social group, individuals taking concrete steps to oppose gang membership and gang authority, lacked the requisite particularity and social visibility. The court then issued an en banc decision, Henriquez-Rivas v. Holder, holding that witnesses who testify against gang members may be cognizable as a particular social group for the purposes of asylum. The BIA then issued two published decisions clarifying its interpretation of the phrase "particular social group": Matter of W-G-R-, and Matter of M-E-V-G-. The court concluded that, in this instance, the BIA did not perform the required evidence-based inquiry as to whether the relevant society recognizes petitioner's proposed social group. The BIA failed to consider how Guatemalan society views the proposed group, and did not consider the society-specific evidence submitted by petitioner. Because it was not clear to the court from the record whether the evidence presented by petitioner was sufficient to meet the revised standard in W-G-R- and M-E-V-G-, the court remanded the petition to the BIA to consider petitioner's asylum claim in light of those decisions. Because petitioner's claims for withholding of deportation was denied solely on the basis of his failure to satisfy the burden required for asylum, that claim was also remanded. The court advised the BIA to consider the petition in light of Henriquez-Rivas, which addressed a group comparable to petitioner's proposed group and found it to be potentially cognizable. The court remanded petitioner's Convention Against Torture (CAT) claim to the BIA for reconsideration. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review and remanded for further consideration. View "Pirir-Boc v. Holder" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of illegal reentry in 2011. The district court imposed probation along with a stayed custodial sentence, exceeding its authority under 18 U.S.C. 3561(a)(3). Defendant was again convicted of illegal reentry in 2013. Defendant appealed the probation revocation proceedings, arguing that the district court in 2013 lacked jurisdiction because of the defect in the underlying 2011 sentence. The court concluded that the district court had jurisdiction to revoke probation. Because defendant never moved to correct the underlying sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255, he was in fact still serving a term of probation at the time of the new offense, so the district court in 2013 properly assumed jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. 3565(a). The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing a term of supervised release. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Castro-Verdugo" on Justia Law

After plaintiff, who was twenty-seven years old at the time, was excluded from the presidential primary ballot under California law, she filed suit under the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Twentieth Amendment. The district court dismissed the case with prejudice. The court concluded that the case was not moot because it was "capable of repetition, yet evading review." The court concluded that age requirements, like residency requirements and term limits, are neutral candidacy qualifications which the State had the right to impose; any burden on plaintiff's speech and association rights were minimal; and the burden was justified by California's asserted interest in protecting the integrity of the election process and avoiding voter confusion. The court rejected plaintiff's Equal Protection claim; because including ineligible candidates on the ballot could easily cause voter confusion, treating ineligible candidates differently from eligible ones was rationally related to the state's interest in maintaining the integrity of the election process; and the Secretary did not violate the Equal Protection Clause by excluding from the ballot candidates who are indisputably ineligible to serve, while listing those with a colorable claim of eligibility. Even if the Twentieth Amendment gave rise to a private right of action, nothing in the Twentieth Amendment states or implies that Congress has the exclusive authority to exclude a candidate with a known ineligibility from the presidential ballot. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Lindsay v. Bowen" on Justia Law

Using a methodology known as "stable isotope analysis," an expert hired by the city determined that the most likely dominant source of the perchlorate found in the city's groundwater was sodium nitrate that had been used as fertilizer. The city sued SQM, the company that imported sodium nitrate into the United States. Before trial, the district court held an evidentiary hearing under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and excluded the city's expert. The court reversed the district court's exclusion of the expert's testimony. The district court should not have made credibility determinations that were reserved for the jury; the Federal Rules of Evidence did not require an endorsement from the EPA approving the expert's results and the district court's conclusion to the contrary was an abuse of discretion; the district court erroneously ruled that the expert's methodologies have not been and cannot be tested; and the district court's resolution of the reference database was an abuse of discretion and sufficient grounds for reversal where the matter was for the jury to decide. The court affirmed the district court's denial of SQM's motion for summary judgment where SQM failed to show that there was no genuine factual dispute as to whether the city's claims were barred by the economic loss rule or by the applicable statute of limitations. View "City of Pomona v. SQM" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's dismissal of his second federal habeas petition, arguing that because the district court dismissed his first petition without first providing him an opportunity to amend the petition, he was entitled to equitable tolling from the date the district court dismissed his first petition until the filing of his second petition. The court reversed and remanded, holding that equitable tolling rendered the "failure to instruct" claim raised in the second petition timely. On remand, the district court must determine if any other claims raised by the second petition were exhausted at the time the district court erroneously dismissed his first petition, relate back to any properly exhausted claim, or are otherwise entitled to equitable tolling. View "Butler v. Long" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought federal habeas relief on the basis that the district court improperly instructed the jury on self-defense in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. The jury instruction should have read: "An honest but unreasonable belief in the necessity for self-defense" but the Nevada Supreme Court used "an honest but reasonable belief." The error reduced the State's burden for convicting petitioner of murder instead of voluntary manslaughter. The instruction was facially erroneous in regard to the kind of provocation for manslaughter. The court concluded that the error was not harmless. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's denial of the petition for writ of habeas corpus and remanded with instructions. View "Dixon v. Williams, Sr., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, currently incarcerated at SRCI, filed suit pro se under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that prison officials violated his due process rights by housing him in the Intensive Management Unit (IMU) for twenty-seven months without periodic, meaningful review of his status. The court concluded that plaintiff's conditions of confinement in the IMU implicated a protected liberty interest under any plausible baseline. Nonetheless, the court concluded that plaintiff's claims against the Oregon Department of Corrections and his damages claims against the individual defendants in their official capacities were barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Plaintiff's remaining damages claims were barred by qualified immunity. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiff's claim for declaratory relief because the record showed that plaintiff had been released from the IMU and there was no evidence that he was likely to again be subject to the challenged conditions. View "Brown v. Oregon Dept. of Corr." on Justia Law