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

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of receiving child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(2). On appeal, defendant argued that his act of "showing" child pornography did not qualify as "distribution" under the sentencing guidelines. The court declined to address this argument, concluding that defendant's act of permitting the child victim to print copies of child pornography stored on his computer independently qualified as "distribution." The court also concluded that penile plethysmograph testing was not warranted given the lack of requisite findings by the district court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Roybal" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation seeking to recover a masterpiece French impressionist painting by Camille Pissarro that was allegedly taken from their ancestors by the Nazi regime. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's grant of the Foundation's motion to dismiss the complaint without leave to amend. Amended California Code of Civil Procedure 338(c)(3) provides for a six-year statute of limitations period for the recovery of fine art against a museum, gallery, auctioneer, or dealer. The court found that the district court erred in concluding that section 338 intruded on foreign affairs and concluded that the district court erred in striking section 338 down as unconstitutional on the basis of field preemption. The court concluded that the district court correctly held that the Foundation's due process challenge could not be resolved on the Foundation's motion to dismiss. The court further concluded that the Foundation failed to demonstrate that section 338(c)(3) burdened its rights to free speech and, therefore, section 338(c)(3) did not violate the Foundation's First Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed their convictions for various criminal tax offenses arising from their use of gold and silver coins to pay wages and thus avoid the reporting of payroll and income taxes. The court affirmed the district court's denial of Defendant Kahre's motion to suppress evidence seized from the properties at issue; the court held that the district court correctly determined that gold and silver coins used to pay wages were properly assessed at their fair market value and that defendants had sufficient notice that their conduct was illegal under the tax laws; the district court properly denied defendants' motion to disqualify the prosecutor because defendants failed to present clear and convincing evidence of an impermissible conflict of interest or of prejudice; the court rejected defendants' evidentiary arguments; defendants were not entitled to a new trial based on the district court's comments or conduct; and Kahre's below-guidelines sentence imposed for the extensive illegal payroll scheme with its associated tax loss, was comparable to sentences for similar crimes, and was reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Kahre" on Justia Law

UPS appealed the district court's award of attorney fees to plaintiff. At issue was whether the district court abused its discretion in awarding plaintiff $697,971.80 where the jury awarded her only $27,280 after finding that UPS had discriminated against her on the basis of her gender. The court affirmed in part and vacated in part, remanding to the district court to reconsider an award of fees for paralegal work on behalf of plaintiff and to determine, in the first instance, whether any hearsay exception applied to the paralegal's declaration regarding fees for paralegal work in this case, and to determine an award to plaintiff for reasonable attorney fees and costs incurred in defending this appeal. View "Muniz v. UPS" on Justia Law

The Tribes filed suit in Tribal Court against plaintiff and his builders alleging that they violated the Tribes' land use policies by building a residence on Tribal land. Plaintiff filed suit in federal court against the Tribes seeking a declaration that the tribal court lacked jurisdiction and an injunction barring further tribal court proceedings against him. The Tribes moved to dismiss, arguing that plaintiff was required to exhaust tribal remedies before bringing suit in federal court. The district court granted the Tribes' motion to dismiss and denied plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction. Because plaintiff was an owner of non-Indian fee land, the Tribes' efforts to regulate him were "presumptively invalid." The Tribes failed to show that at least one of two limited exceptions described in Montana v. United States applied. Because the Tribes plainly lacked the authority to regulate plaintiff's construction of a single-family house on on-Indian fee land, the district court erred in concluding that exhaustion was required. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings. View "Evans v. Shoshone-Bannock LUPC" on Justia Law

Petronas is a major oil and gas company located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and GoDaddy is the world's largest domain name registrar. After a third party registered the domain names "petronastower.net" and "petronastowers.net" and then used GoDaddy's domain name forwarding service to direct the disputed domain names to an adult entertainment web site, Petronas filed suit against GoDaddy alleging contributory cybersquatting under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(d). The district court granted summary judgment in favor of GoDaddy. The court affirmed, holding that the Act did not include a cause of action for contributory cybersquatting because: (1) the plain text of the Act did not apply to the conduct that would be actionable under such a theory; (2) Congress did not intend to implicitly include common law doctrines applicable to trademark infringement because the Act created a new cause of action that was distinct from traditional trademark remedies; and (3) allowing suits against registrars for contributory cybersquatting would not advance the goals of the statute. View "Petronas v. GoDaddy.com" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine under 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(A)(ii) and possession of a firearm in furtherance of the conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1)(A)(i). Defendant argued that the government's conduct was outrageous, insofar as the government collaborated with an informant with a criminal history. The court concluded that the fact that the informant had engaged in past crimes did not raise due process concerns about the government's use of him as a confidential informant in its investigation. Nor did the nature of the informant's past crimes render the government's conduct outrageous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Hullaby" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court denied two of petitioner's claims as procedurally defaulted. At issue was whether Martinez v. Ryan applied to the failure to raise not only a claim of trial-counsel ineffective assistance of counsel, but also a claim of appellate-counsel ineffective assistance of counsel. Concluding that it did, the court remanded to allow the district court to determine in the first instance whether petitioner's state-court procedural default should be excused under Martinez. View "Nguyen v. Curry" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Bulgarian citizen, sought review of the BIA's decision affirming the IJ's adverse credibility finding and denial of petitioner's applications for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court concluded that the BIA did not abuse its discretion in denying petitioner's motion to remand where he did not provide any evidence supporting his motion nor did he even explain why he believed that 8 U.S.C. 208.6 had been violated; the IJ acted within his discretion when he admitted a letter summarizing a State Department investigation into evidence and relied on it to find that the subpoenas petitioner submitted were fraudulent; the adverse credibility finding based on the fraudulent subpoenas was supported by substantial evidence; because petitioner's claim was based on his mistreatment by the Bulgarian police, the fact that the subpoenas were fraudulent goes to the heart of his claim of persecution; petitioner's testimony was not credible and he did not present other evidence that met his burden to show that it was more likely than not that he would be tortured if sent back to Bulgaria; and, therefore, the court denied the petition for review. View "Angov v. Holder" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the City of Eugene, the Police Department (EPD), and others, alleging that they violated his First Amendment rights when they removed him from his position on the EPD K-9 team in retaliation for repeatedly airing concerns about work-related safety issues to his supervisors. The court concluded that the evidence presented to the jury did not reasonably permit the conclusion that plaintiff established a retaliation claim where, as here, a public employee reports departmental-safety concerns to his or her supervisors pursuant to a duty to do so, that employee did not speak as a private citizen and was not entitled to First Amendment protection. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's denial of defendants' motion for judgment as a matter of law and held that defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. View "Hagen v. City of Eugene, et al." on Justia Law