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

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions and sentences for racketeering, drug trafficking conspiracy, and related offenses involving the Puente-13 street gang. The panel held that the district court's jury instruction for determining drug quantities under 21 U.S.C. 841(b) was not reversible error, even though the jury was not required to find that the drug quantities related to violations that were part of a jointly undertaken criminal activity; the district court did not err in denying a defendant's request for an instruction on multiple conspiracies where the evidence did not show that defendant was involved only in a separate, unrelated conspiracy; and the district court did not err in concluding that defendants had state convictions that were prior to the conviction in this case for purposes of the section 841(b) mandatory minimum. View "United States v. Torres" on Justia Law

Verizon cellular and data subscribers filed a putative class action against Turn, a middle-man for Internet-based advertisements, challenging the company's use of "zombie" cookies. The Ninth Circuit granted a petition for writ of mandamus and vacated the district court's order granting Turn's motion to stay the action and compel arbitration. Applying Bauman v. U. S. Dist. Court, 557 F.2d 650, 654–55 (9th Cir. 1977), the panel held that the majority of the Bauman factors weigh heavily in favor of granting the writ where direct appeal was unavailable; prejudice was not correctable on appeal; and the district court committed clear error by applying New York's equitable estoppel doctrine, rather than California's, and by failing to apply California law correctly. View "Henson v. USDC" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of Disability Insurance Benefits and Supplemental Security Income, holding that plaintiff's contention that the ALJ made two errors at step two of its analysis of disability claims had no merit; all impairments were taken into account both times; any alleged error was harmless and could not be the basis for remand; using the shorthand "personality disorder" did not indicate any error in the ALJ's determination of plaintiff's residual functioning capacity (RFC); Dr. Kenderdine's partial reliance on plaintiff's self-reported symptoms was not a reason to reject his opinion; conflict in the record corroborated the rejection of Dr. Toews' testimony as a basis for rejecting Dr. Kenderdine's opinion; the ALJ did not err in rejecting Dr. Schechter's opinion; plaintiff's complaint that the ALJ only considered Dr. Fisher's opinion in the third section of a submitted form and ignored the first section lacked merit; any error in excluding three jobs identified by the vocational expert (VE) was harmless; but, the vast discrepancy between the VE's job numbers and those tendered by plaintiff, presumably from the same source, was simply too striking to be ignored. Therefore, this inconsistency in the record must be addressed by the ALJ on remand. View "Buck v. Berryhill" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment for plaintiff in an action filed under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and state law alleging that a police officer used excessive force when she shot plaintiff. Plaintiff was shot in the back during the officer's response to a 911 call and plaintiff was rendered a paraplegic. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the officer's motion for a new trial, because the evidence presented at trial provided a reasonable basis to support the jury's verdict; the district court did not abuse its discretion by failing to give to the jury special interrogatories, a deadly force instruction, or an instruction regarding officer tactics; the district court has broad discretion in the formulation of jury instructions, and the instructions adequately covered the issues presented, correctly stated the law, and were not misleading; and the panel did not reach the officer's argument relating to qualified immunity because she failed to preserve the defense for appeal. View "Lam v. City of San Jose" on Justia Law

21 U.S.C. 881(a)(6) does not authorize forfeiture based on mere intent to facilitate drug transactions without proof of some act to effectuate that intent. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's civil forfeiture judgment under section 881(a)(6) from claimant. The panel held that the district court's instructions to the jury on the facilitation theory were plain error because they permitted forfeiture even if the claimant never took any step to use the money to facilitate drug transactions. The court remanded to the district court for a new trial. View "United States v. Guerrero" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought to adjust his immigration status to that of a lawful permanent resident, but in order to do so, he needed to prove that at least one of the two visa petitions he filed prior to 2001 was approvable when filed, even though both were ultimately denied. USCIS rejected plaintiff's application to adjust his status because the petitions were denied on their merits and because there was no allegation that the petitions were denied on the basis of circumstances that changed between the time when they were filed and the time when they were adjudicated. The panel affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to USCIS, holding that the district court correctly concluded that USCIS was permitted to treat prior merits-based denials of plaintiff's visa petitions as dispositive proof that the petitions were not approvable when filed. View "Hsiao v. Hazuda" on Justia Law

Petitioner claimed that he was categorically exempt from the death penalty because he was intellectually disabled pursuant to Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). The Nevada Supreme Court rejected petitioner's claim of intellectual disability on the merits. The district court then deferred to its determination under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254. The Ninth Circuit did not decide whether petitioner was intellectually disabled, nor whether the Nevada Supreme Court made a reasonable or an unreasonable determination of fact when it concluded that he is not. Instead, panel decided only that the district court erred in its analysis under AEDPA, and thus the panel remanded for reconsideration in light of Bromfield v. Cain, 135 S. Ct. 2269 (2015), and in light of a doctor's report concluding that petitioner was intellectually disabled. The panel affirmed the district court's order holding that petitioner's Hurst-based Rule 60(b) motion was disguised as an unauthorized second or successive habeas petition. Finally, the panel held that Hurst did not apply retroactively and thus denied petitioner's application for leave to file a second or successive habeas petition. View "Ybarra v. Filson" on Justia Law

11 U.S.C. 106(a)(1)'s abrogation of sovereign immunity "with respect to" 18 U.S.C. 544(b)(1) extends to the derivative “applicable law.” In this case, the Trustee invoked Idaho's Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (UFTA) as the "applicable law" to bring an 11 U.S.C. 544(b)(1) adversary action to avoid $17 million in tax payments that debtor fraudulently transferred to the IRS. The panel held that the government could not rely on sovereign immunity to prevent the avoidance of the tax payments at issue. The panel addressed the Trustee's cross-appeal in a concurrently filed memorandum disposition. View "In re DBSI, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who has been deaf since birth and uses American Sign Language (ASL) as his primary language, filed suit against the State and County, alleging violations of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101–12213, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 42 U.S.C. 701–796I, negligence, and false arrest. Plaintiff alleged that defendants did not provide him with an ASL interpreter at his arraignment on criminal charges, and that the County did not provide him with an ASL interpreter and other auxiliary aids in order for plaintiff to effectively communicate while he was in pretrial detainment and under pretrial supervision. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the State; affirmed the district court's conclusion that plaintiff lacked standing to pursue his claims for injunctive relief; reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the County on plaintiff's ADA and Section 504 claims for compensatory damages; and remanded for further proceedings. View "Updike v. Multnomah County" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of plaintiff in an action filed under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. 901 et seq. The panel held that the district court properly instructed the jury that the vessel owner owed a duty to plaintiff as a longshoreman to turn over the ship and its equipment in a reasonably safe condition, which necessarily required the vessel owner to take reasonable steps to inspect the ship and equipment before turnover; the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing plaintiff's key scientific expert to describe his theory of electrical injury because the district court adequately assessed the reliability of his theory and fulfilled its gatekeeping function under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579; and there was no error in admitting the medical experts' testimony. View "Murray v. Southern Route Maritime SA" on Justia Law