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

Petitioner, born in Mexico, appealed the denial of her request for withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court issued the opinion to clarify that DHS could seek to terminate a prior grant of withholding of removal in conjunction with removal proceedings as long as DHS met its burden of demonstrating the grounds for doing so. The court held that two separate proceedings were not required under 8 C.F.R. 1208.24(f). The court concluded that: (1) DHS could file a Notice of Appeal when an alien was subject to an extant withholding of removal; (2) there need not be a separate hearing on the termination of the withholding; (3) the government had the burden of demonstrating by the preponderance of the evidence the grounds for the termination of withholding; (4) the government met its burden by submitting official state records of petitioner's state convictions; and (5) petitioner had not shown a denial of procedural due process because her proceedings were not fundamentally unfair and further proceedings would not have changed the outcome. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Gutierrez v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

The government appealed the district court's order granting defendant's motion to suppress and the order denying the government's motion for reconsideration. Defendant had given a border patrol agent permission to "look in" or "search" the two cell phones he had with him but the agent did not ask him whether he would also consent to the agent's answering any incoming calls. Nonetheless, when one of the phones range while the agent was conducting his search, the agent answered it, passing himself off as defendant. By answering the call, the agent obtained information leading to defendant's arrest and felony charges of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens. The court rejected the government's claims that defendant did not have standing; in this instance, the agent's answering of the phone exceeded the scope of the consent that he obtained and, thus, violated defendant's Fourth Amendment right; the agent's impersonation of the intended recipient constituted a meaningful difference in the method and scope of the search in contrast to merely pushing a button in order to view a text message; consent to search a cell phone was insufficient to allow an agent to answer that phone, rather, specific consent to answer was necessary; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for reconsideration. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment as to both orders. View "United States v. Lopez-Cruz" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death, appealed the denial of his petitions for post-conviction relief based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The court concluded that most of the new evidence was cumulative and minimally significant; that non-cumulative evidence including allegations of sexual abuse, cerebral dysfunction and fetal alcohol syndrome were unsubstantiated by petitioner; most of the remaining evidence was speculative and came nowhere close to showing deficient performance; and the remaining evidence was minimally relevant at best. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Schurz v. Schriro" on Justia Law

This case arose out of the handcuffing and removal from school of then eleven-year-old C.B. by Sonora Police officers. The district court rendered a verdict ostensibly in favor of defendants, but the district court concluded that the verdict was incomplete and inconsistent and directed them to re-deliberate. On appeal, the court concluded that the unscripted supplemental jury instructions, together with the problematic verdict form, gave the jury the misimpression that its initial answers to Questions 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 were internally inconsistent and needed to be revised. The court also concluded that Officers McIntosh and Prock were entitled to qualified immunity with regard to plaintiff's claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 because the law was, and still is, not "clearly established" that handcuffing and driving a juvenile from school to a relative's place of business implicated Fourth Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court vacated the verdict and judgments, remanding for further proceedings. The district court was instructed to enter judgment as a matter of law in favor of individual defendants McIntosh and Prock as to the 1983 claims. The court did not address whether defendants were entitled to an offset of the amount paid in settlement by the school district and one of the school's teachers. View "C. B. v. City of Sonora, et al." on Justia Law

The Conservancy alleged that the United States was improperly diverting water from Icicle Creek, a tributary of the Wenatchee River, to the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery and otherwise violating Washington state law. The court dismissed the action, concluding that the Conservancy lacked prudential standing to bring its claim that the Hatchery operation violated the Washington water code, and that the court lacked jurisdiction to consider the Conservancy's other claims because they either did not challenge final agency action or rested on provisions of Washington law that were not incorporated into federal reclamation law. View "Wild Fish Conservancy v. Jewell" on Justia Law

This case concerned the California Franchise Tax Board's wish to assess $13 million in unpaid income taxes on the individual partners of a general partnership that owned the property at issue, the Wilshire Courtyard. At issue on appeal was whether the bankruptcy court had jurisdiction to reopen the bankruptcy proceeding where the partnership was reorganized into a limited liability company. The court concluded that the bankruptcy court had neither "arising under" nor "arising in" subject matter jurisdiction over the present dispute; the bankruptcy court did, however, have "related to" jurisdiction over the present dispute; and bankruptcy court jurisdiction did not violate the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. 1341. Accordingly, the court reversed the bankruptcy appellate panel's judgment and remanded for further proceedings. View "In re: Wilshire Courtyard" on Justia Law

The SEC brought a civil enforcement action against numerous defendants allegedly involved in a scheme to sell unregistered securities of CMKM. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the SEC, ruling that Global, Helen Bagley, and Brian Dvorak participated in an unregistered distribution of securities in violation of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U.S.C. 77e. The court concluded that a material issue of fact remained regarding whether Global and Bagley were necessary participants and substantial factors in the distribution of CMKM securities sufficient to impose liability under Section 5. Accordingly, the court reversed the grant of summary judgment as to Global and Bagley, remanding for further proceedings. The court affirmed the magistrate judge's denial of Dvorak's motion to stay and the district court's disgorgement order as to Dvorak. View "SEC v. CMKM Diamonds, Inc." on Justia Law

After plaintiff was disciplined for serving process on defendant, a prison official, plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging unconstitutional retaliation. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendant. The court concluded that plaintiff's acknowledgment that the disciplinary report was not issued because of his other litigation activities compelled the conclusion that defendant was entitled to summary judgment on the retaliation claim to the extent it was based on prior lawsuits. The court also concluded that plaintiff did not engage in protected conduct when he served process on another inmate's behalf; the court rejected defendant's access-to-courts arguments; and concluded that the First Amendment did not protect plaintiff's attempted service of process on defendant because of the general incompatibility between prison and free association and because there was no evidence of expressive association. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Blaisdell v. Frappiea" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Google under the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. 2511, after the antennas and software installed in Google's Street View cars collected basic identifying information transmitted by Wi-Fi networks, as well as gathered and stored "payload data" that was sent and received over unencrypted Wi-Fi connections. On appeal, Google challenged the district court's denial of its motion to dismiss based on the Wiretap Act's exemption for electronic communication that was readily accessible to the general public. The court held that the phrase "radio communication" in section 2510(16) excluded payload data transmitted over a Wi-Fi network. Consequently, the definition of "readily accessible to the general public [] with respect to a radio communication" in section 2510(16) did not apply to the exemption for an "electronic communication" that was "readily accessible to the general public" under section 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(g)(i). The court also held that payload data transmitted over an unencrypted Wi-Fi network was not "readily accessible to the general public" under the ordinary meaning of the phrase as it was used in section 2511(2)(g)(i). Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Joffe v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of second degree burglary, challenged the district court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that it was untimely. The court held, however, that petitioner was entitled to equitable tolling on the ground that he relied on the assigned magistrate judge's order extending the filing deadline beyond the statutory limit. The court also held that petitioner sufficiently alleged that he was precluded from filing his habeas petition within the time period provided in the magistrate judge's order to warrant further development of the record. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment of the district court, remanding for further proceedings. View "Sossa v. Diaz" on Justia Law