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

Petitioner, a state prisoner, appealed the denial of a motion to stay and abey his habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court denied petitioner's motion for a stay and abeyance on the sole ground that he did not establish good cause for his failure to exhaust - the first prong of the Rhines v. Weber test. The court held that the Rhines standard based on ineffective assistance of counsel was not any more demanding than the cause standard articulated in Martinez v Ryan. Because the district court applied an erroneous legal standard in concluding that petitioner failed to meet the Rhines good cause standard, the district court abused its discretion in denying a stay and abeyance. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Blake v. Baker" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit in California state court under the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA), Cal. Lab. Code 2698-2699.5, and then removed to district court. The issue presented on appeal was whether the district court had subject matter jurisdiction over the removed action. In Urbino v. Orkin Services, the court held that potential PAGA penalties against an employer may not be aggregated to meet the minimum amount in controversy requirement of 28 U.S.C. 1332(a). The remaining issue was whether a district court may instead exercise original jurisdiction over a PAGA action under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), 1453, 1711-15. The court held that PAGA was not sufficiently similar to Rule 23 to establish the original jurisdiction of a federal court under CAFA. Accordingly, the district court could not exercise jurisdiction over this removed PAGA action under CAFA. And because, in light of Urbino, there was no federal subject matter jurisdiction under section 1332(a), plaintiff's motion to remand should have been granted. The court reversed and remanded with instructions to grant the motion. View "Baumann v. Chase Investment Services" on Justia Law

The district court invalidated a biological opinion (BiOp) by the FWS concluding that the Central Valley and State Water Projects jeopardized the continued existence of the delta smelt, a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that the district court overstepped its bounds by not limiting itself to court-appointed experts. The court concluded that the 2008 BiOp's reliance on raw salvage figures to set the upper and lower OMR (Old and Middle Rivers) flow limits was not arbitrary and capricious; the 2008 BiOp's determination of X2 (the point in the Bay-Delta at which the salinity is less than two parts per thousand) was not arbitrary and capricious; the BiOp's incidental take statements was now flawed; the record supported the BiOp's conclusions regarding the indirect effects of project operations; and the FWS was not required to support the "non-jeopardy" elements of the reasonable and prudent alternatives. The court agreed with the district court's analysis that Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife did not require the FWS to segregate discretionary from non-discretionary actions when it considered the environmental baseline; reclamation did not violate the ESA by accepting the 2008 BiOp; under these circumstances, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., did not require the FWS to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) in conjunction with the issuance of the BiOp; and Reclamation's provisional adoption and implementation of the BiOp triggered its obligation to comply with NEPA. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "San Luis v. Jewell" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making a false statement on a loan application. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's imposition of a 16-level increase to defendant's base offense level based on that court's calculation that the banks suffered a loss of over a million dollars. The court held that, in a mortgage fraud case, loss under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b) is calculated in two steps. First, calculating actual or intended loss allowed for a reasonable foreseeability analysis although the actual loss generally consisted of the entire principal of the fraudulently obtained loan. Second, crediting against the actual or intended loss the value of any collateral recovered or recoverable, did not permit a foreseeability analysis. Rather, the value of the collateral was credited against the amount of the loss calculated at the first step, whether or not the value of the collateral was foreseeable. The court affirmed the sentence because the district court followed this rule in calculating the loss attributable to defendant as $1,033,500. View "United States v. Morris" on Justia Law

Defendant challenged the district court's jurisdiction to revoke a term of supervised release after the term had expired. The court concluded that the period from the date defendant's supervised release term ended in May 2009, until the date of his final revocation hearing and sentencing was "reasonably necessary" for the adjudication of the violation of his 2003 supervised release conditions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Morales-Isabarra" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the Counties, alleging violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, violation of the Bane Act, Cal. Civ. 52.1; and common law false imprisonment. Plaintiff was erroneously arrested pursuant to a 1985 warrant, released, and then erroneously arrested again pursuant to a 1989 warrant and detained for a month. Plaintiff shared the same first and last name as the true subject of the warrant and police mistakenly believed that plaintiff was that person both times he was arrested. The district court granted the Counties' motions for summary judgment on all claims and denied plaintiff's motion for reconsideration. The court concluded that the 1989 warrant satisfied the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment because it contained both the subject's name and a detailed physical description; that plaintiff was erroneously arrested based on the 1985 warrant simply did not affect whether the warrant itself satisfied the particularity requirement; and even if the Fourth Amendment did not require Los Angeles County to include more detailed information in the 1989 warrant in order to avoid the risk of repeated misidentification, defendant failed to show that the county had a policy or custom of failing to do so. The court also concluded that the officers' belief that plaintiff was the true subject of the warrant was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment; plaintiff's detention did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and, in regards to plaintiff's state law claims, because the employees relevant to this case would be able to invoke statutory immunities to avoid liability, the Counties could as well. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants. View "Rivera v. County of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of China, sought review of the denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The IJ found that petitioner's testimony was not credible where her demeanor undermined her credibility and her testimony was extremely superficial and could have easily been memorized. The IJ also concluded that petitioner's testimony was unpersuasive and not supported by reasonably obtainable corroborating evidence. Because the IJ's well-supported demeanor findings were entitled to special deference and the IJ appropriately considered the record as a whole and the totality of the circumstances, the court was not compelled to conclude that petitioner was credible. Therefore, the court deferred to the IJ's adverse credibility determination, and gave no weight to petitioner's testimony. The remaining evidence in the record did not compel the court to overturn the IJ's determination. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Huang v. Holder" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the Commissioner's disallowance of a $30 million deduction on the Estate's tax return for a lawsuit pending at the time of Gertrude Saunders' death (the Stonehill Claim). The court concluded that the Stonehill Claim was disputed at the date of the decedent's death, and its estimated value as of that date was not ascertainable with reasonable certainty. Therefore, the tax court properly disallowed the Estate's deduction, but correctly allowed a deduction in the amount paid to settle the Stonehill Claim after the decedent's death. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Estate of Saunders v. CIR" on Justia Law

Defendant, a native of Cambodia and a tax preparer in the United States, was the president of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF), an organization formed for the purpose of removing Prime Minister Hun Sen from power and becoming the controlling party in Cambodia. After CFF committed a series of small-scale attacks on Cambodian establishments, defendant participated in a CFF plan to attack government buildings protected by government forces in Phnom Phenh (Operation Volcano). In this appeal, defendant challenged his convictions for conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country in violation of 18 U.S.C. 956(a), conspiracy to damage or destroy property in a foreign country in violation of 18 U.S.C. 956(b), and expedition against a friendly nation in violation of 18 U.S.C. 960. The court concluded that section 956(a), enacted as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 110 Stat. 1214, 1294-95, was not ambiguous, and therefore, defendant was correctly convicted under the statute; there was sufficient evidence for a factfinder to conclude that defendant had the intent to commit murder; the district court did not plainly err in its jury instruction when it defined "at peace" as the absence of "war" or "military conflict," and thereby required "military conflict" to end the state of "peace" for the purposes of sections 956(b) and 960; the district court's failure to instruct the jury to find an overt act that occurred within the five-year limitations period did not affect defendant's substantial rights; the district court did not commit error in sentencing defendant to life in prison; and defendant's sentence was not substantively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's convictions and sentence. View "United States v. Chhun" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the BIA's decision to vacate the withholding of removal relief granted to him by the IJ. The BIA concluded that petitioner was not eligible for withholding of removal because his conviction for transportation of methamphetamine constituted a particularly serious crime. The court concluded that it had jurisdiction over the petition for review because petitioner raised a legal challenge to the BIA's ruling - whether the BIA engaged in impermissible factfinding. Here, the BIA completely accepted the factual findings made by the IJ and petitioner did not point to any fact found by the IJ that was ignored by the BIA or any fact found by the BIA that was not found by the IJ. The BIA specifically and explicitly stated that it applied the clear error standard and applied the Matter of Frentescu factors to the facts found by the IJ. Accordingly, the court concluded that the BIA did not engage in impermissible factfinding. View "Perez-Palafox v. Holder" on Justia Law