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

Petitioner filed a habeas petition under 8 U.S.C. 1252(e)(2), challenging the procedures leading to his expedited removal order. The district court dismissed the petition based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction.The Ninth Circuit reversed and held that, although section 1252(e)(2) does not authorize jurisdiction over the claims in the petition, the Suspension Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, 9, cl. 2, requires that petitioner have a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate that he was being held pursuant to the erroneous application or interpretation of relevant law. The panel held that section 1252(e)(2) did not provide that meaningful opportunity and thus the provision violated the Suspension Clause as applied to petitioner. In this case, there were meager procedural protections afforded by the administrative scheme governing credible fear determinations, and these meager procedural protections were compounded by the fact that section 1252(e)(2) prevented any judicial review of whether DHS complied with the procedures in an individual case, or applied the correct legal standards. The panel further declined to interpret section 1252(e)(2) to avoid the serious Suspension Clause problems engendered by the statute. View "Thuraissigiam v. USDHS" on Justia Law

After Antonio Gilton was charged with four counts related to the murder of Calvin Sneed, Gilton moved to suppress his historical cell-site location information. The district court granted the motion to suppress, concluding that the warrant was so deficient in indicia of probable cause that no officer could have relied on the warrant in good faith.The Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court that the warrant authorizing the seizure of Gilton's location data was not supported by probable cause, but held that the deficiencies were not so stark as to render the officers' reliance on the warrant "entirely unreasonable." In this case, although the warrant was not supported by probable cause, the officers relied on good faith on the warrant they obtained. In light of the prevailing belief in 2012 that CSLI data was not protected by the Fourth Amendment, the panel held that there was no "willful" or "grossly negligent" error here where the officers nevertheless took the precautionary step of seeking a warrant and provided ample factual background by which the magistrate could reach his own determination of the existence of probable cause. Accordingly, the panel reversed the district court's judgment. View "United States v. Elmore" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the Board's decision upholding the ALJ's decision striking, as untimely, a petition for payment of a claimant's attorneys' fees under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act. The panel held that the ALJ properly used the excusable neglect standard in evaluating the circumstances for the untimely fee petition, and applied the four-factor test in Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership, 507 U.S. 378 (1993), to find that there was no excusable neglect in this case. View "Iopa v. Saltchuk-Young Brothers, Ltd." on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of habeas corpus relief to petitioner, who was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. Petitioner argued that the Arizona Supreme Court unconstitutionally affirmed his death sentence by failing to consider mitigating evidence of his longstanding alcohol and substance abuse.The panel held that the Arizona Supreme Court's decision was contrary to clearly established Supreme Court precedent. The panel held that the Arizona Supreme Court violated Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982), by impermissibly requiring that petitioner establish a causal connection between his longstanding substance abuse and the murder before considering and weighing the evidence as a nonstatutory mitigating factor. Because the error was not harmless, the panel reversed the district court's judgment with respect to petitioner's death sentence. View "Spreitz v. Ryan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, individually and on behalf of others similarly situated, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and Guam law, alleging procedural due process and equal protection violations in connection with plaintiff's attempts to be compensated for ancestral land taken by the government of Guam for the operation of A.B. Won Pat International Airport. As a preliminary matter, the Ninth Circuit held that the GIAA Defendants were not a proper party in this appeal and must be dismissed, because the GIAA was not named in either count that was at issue in this appeal.On the merits, the panel held that none of the Guam Public Laws raised by plaintiff, individually, read together, or read together with Chapter 80 of the Guam Code Annotated, gave rise to a protected property interest for purposes of a due process analysis. In regard to plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claims, the panel held that the classifications established in the Chapter 80 statutory scheme survived rational basis review. In this case, the Guam legislature's Chapter 80 statutory scheme focused on the additional issues presented by the claims of the In-Use Class and related rationally to legislative facts considered at the time to be true. View "Crawford v. Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport Authority, Guam" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's denial of petitioner's pro se 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition based on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC). The panel held that petitioner need only show that his IAC claims were substantial in order to excuse the procedural default of the claims under Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012). Furthermore, because the district court failed to conduct a Martinez analysis, it did not make any findings on the issue. In this case, the panel could not conclude on the record that petitioner's IAC claims were meritless under the deficient performance prong of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S.C. 668 (1984). Therefore, the panel remanded for the district court to conduct an analysis of the substantiality of the IAC claims. View "Rodney v. Filson" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, three Muslim residents of California, filed a putative class action against Government Defendants and Agent Defendants, alleging that the FBI paid a confidential informant to conduct a covert surveillance program that gathered information about Muslims based solely on their religious identity. Plaintiffs argued that the investigation involved unlawful searches and anti-Muslim discrimination, in violation of eleven constitutional and statutory causes of action.The Ninth Circuit held that some of the claims dismissed on state secrets grounds should not have been dismissed outright. Rather, the district court should have reviewed any state secrets evidence necessary for a determination of whether the alleged surveillance was unlawful following the secrecy protective procedure in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The panel held that the Fourth Amendment injunctive relief claim against the official-capacity defendants should not have been dismissed, because expungement relief was available under the Constitution to remedy the alleged constitutional violations. The panel declined to address whether plaintiffs' Bivens claim remained available after the Supreme Court's decision in Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843 (2017), and thus remanded for the district court to determine whether a Bivens remedy was appropriate for any Fourth Amendment claim against the Agent Defendants. The panel addressed defendants' remaining claims supporting the dismissal of plaintiffs' claims and held that some of plaintiffs' allegations stated a claim while others did not. Accordingly, the panel affirmed in part and reversed in part, remanding for further proceedings. View "Fazaga v. FBI" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Tri Marine in Washington state court, seeking to recover additional expenses for a knee injury he experienced as a deck hand on one of Tri Marine's vessels. Tri Marine then removed the case to federal court and moved to confirm an order issued by an arbitrator in the Philippines as a foreign arbitral award. The district court denied plaintiff's motion to remand, confirmed the order, and dismissed the action.The Ninth Circuit held that the parties' free-floating settlement agreement and order did not transform into an arbitral award simply because the parties convened with an arbitrator. The panel evaluated the award by looking to its essence and found several unique aspects of these proceedings that lead it to concluded that the order was not an arbitral award. In this case, there was no outstanding dispute to arbitrate by the time plaintiff and Tri Marine sat down with the arbitrator as the parties had already reached a settlement; the purported arbitration in no way followed the parties' prior agreements to arbitrate; and the procedure here deviated completely from typical Philippine procedures. The panel reversed in part and vacated in part, remanding for the district court to assess jurisdiction under the Convention Act and venue, as well as any defenses. View "Castro v. Tri Marine Fish Co." on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the BIA's decision dismissing her appeal of the IJ's denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The Ninth Circuit granted the petition in part and remanded for reconsideration of petitioner's claims. The panel held that the IJ did not deny petitioner her due process rights to counsel and an unbiased factfinder. In this case, petitioner had reasonable time to locate an attorney and was provided several continuances so she could do so. Although the IJ was rude and harsh with petitioner, petitioner failed to show that the harshness or rudeness prejudiced her.In regard to petitioner's asylum and withholding of removal claims, the Board erred as a matter of law in its analysis and application of the "firm resettlement" rule. In regard to petitioner's claim for relief under the CAT, substantial evidence did not support the Board's determination that petitioner could safely relocate in another area of Cameroon. View "Arrey v. Barr" on Justia Law

Bio-Rad and its CEO appealed a jury verdict in favor of the company's former general counsel finding that defendants violated the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the Dodd-Frank Act, and California public policy by terminating general counsel's employment in retaliation. General counsel produced an internal report that he believed Bio-Rad had engaged in serious and prolonged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in China.The Ninth Circuit vacated in part and held that the district court erred by instructing the jury that statutory provisions of the FCPA constitute rules or regulations of the SEC for purposes of whether general counsel engaged in protected activity under section 806 of the SOX. However, the panel rejected Bio-Rad's argument that no properly instructed jury could return a SOX verdict in favor of general counsel. The panel held that the district court's SOX instructional error was harmless and affirmed as to the California public policy claim. The panel remanded for further consideration. View "Wadler v. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc." on Justia Law