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

Petitioner, convicted of first-degree murder, petitioned for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court concluded that the prosecution's failure to disclose that the police dog had a history of mistaken identifications violated Brady v. Maryland, and the California Court of Appeal's decision to the contrary was an unreasonable application of Brady. Accordingly, the court granted the petition and reversed the district court's judgment on the Brady claim. View "Aguilar v. Woodford" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of money laundering, bank fraud, loan fraud, and conspiracy to commit loan and bank fraud. On appeal, defendant challenged his convictions, which stemmed from a Los Angeles-based scheme to defraud mortgage lenders. The court affirmed, concluding that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's convictions and, therefore, the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion for acquittal. View "United States v. Grasso" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to illegal reentry after a prior deportation and subsequently appealed the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the prior deportation order was fundamentally unfair. The court concluded that defendant had shown that he exhausted his administrative remedies by appealing the IJ's adverse ruling to the BIA. Defendant failed, however, to show that an error or obstacle related to his deportation proceedings improperly deprived him of the opportunity for judicial review. Because 8 U.S.C. 1326(d)(1), (d)(2), and (d)(3) must all be satisfied either directly or constructively, the court affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss and his conviction without addressing the merits of his argument. View "United States v. Gonzalez-Villalobos" on Justia Law

These five appeals concerned seepage over several decades of a toxic dry cleaning chemical into the ground under a Las Vegas shopping center. The court concluded that the application of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. 9601 et seq., to soil and groundwater contamination in Nevada did not offend the Commerce Clause; Maryland Square had not shown that it qualified for an exception to CERCLA liability, and it was clearly responsible for reimbursement under Nevada state law; NDEP was entitled to summary judgment against the operator, SBIC, on the CERCLA and state law claims; the district court did not decide the issue raised by Maryland Square's motion for reconsideration, so remand was required to determine whether Maryland Square had Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq., liability for exposing the contamination to the elements; SBIC was liable to the previous owners under the indemnification provisions of the 1968 and 1982 leases; and the district court erred in holding Melvin Shapiro liable on his personal guaranty because the guaranty operated only prospectively and there was no evidence of spills occurring after he signed the guaranty. View "Voggenthaler v. Maryland Square" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from a dispute between the parties over license agreements which allowed Myriad access to Oracle's Java programming language. On appeal, Myriad challenged the district court's partial denial of its motion to compel arbitration. The court concluded that the incorporation of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) arbitration rules into the parties' commercial contract constituted clear and unmistakable evidence that the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Oracle America, Inc. v. Myriad Group A.G." on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, appealed the denial of his federal habeas petition. Because the existence or absence of mitigating circumstances directly affected whether petitioner was death eligible under Arizona law, petitioner had a right to have a jury decide those facts under Ring v. Arizona. Applying the harmless error test, the court concluded that, in this instance, the absence of a jury at the sentencing stage had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on petitioner's sentence of death. Therefore, the court granted the habeas petition. Because the court reversed the denial of relief on the Ring claim, the court need not reach the claims concerning petitioner's competence to waive the presentation of mitigating evidence. The court otherwise affirmed and remanded with instructions to grant the petition unless the state court conducts a new sentencing hearing within a reasonable period of time. View "Murdaugh v. Ryan" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the denial of benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. 901-950, for injuries he sustained after falling off a dock while attempting to urinate while intoxicated. The court concluded that an injury "occasioned solely by" intoxication means that the legal cause of the injury was intoxication, regardless of the surface material of the landing on which the intoxicated person fell; the court rejected petitioner's broad definition of the term "injury;" the Board did not err in concluding that substantial evidence supported the ALJ's conclusions; there was no error in the Board's conclusion that petitioner's employer did not have to "rule out" all other possible causes of injury in order to rebut the presumption under section 920(c); and the Board correctly concluded that the ALJ's decision to deny disability benefits, based on the record as a whole, was proper. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Schwirse v. Director, OWCP" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Indonesia who is a Christian and of Chinese descent, petitioned for review of the denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Because the BIA treated petitioner as credible, the court concluded that there was no basis to exclude from consideration petitioner's testimony that the staff of a public hospital deliberately delayed administering medical treatment to her three-month-old daughter on account of petitioner's race and religion. This evidence was directly relevant to whether petitioner suffered past persecution and may also be relevant to whether she had shown an individualized likelihood of future persecution. Accordingly, on remand, the BIA must reconsider petitioner's request for withholding of removal giving full weight to the evidence concerning the baby's death. The court addressed the remaining claims, granting the petition for review in part, denying it in part, dismissing it in part, and remanding for further proceedings. View "Sumolang v. Holder" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to illegal reentry under an agreement providing that the government could withdraw in the event that the presentence report reflected a prior conviction of a crime of violence. At issue was whether defendant's prior Arizona conviction for resisting arrest was a crime of violence that authorized a sixteen-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2. The court held that defendant's prior conviction for resisting arrest in violation of Ariz. Rev. Stat. 13-2508(A)(1) was not categorically a crime of violence within the meaning of federal law, and that the court's decision in Estrada-Rodriquez v. Mukasey, to the extent it suggested otherwise, was superseded by controlling, intervening authority. Under Descamps v. United States, remand for application of the modified categorical approach was not appropriate in this instance where Ariz. Rev. Stat. 13-2508(A)(1) was not a divisible statute with alternative elements. Accordingly, the court vacated defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Flores-Cordero" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted for unlawfully attempting to procure citizenship and making false statements in a passport application. Defendant was sentenced to 51 months in custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) followed by three years of supervised release. At issue was whether a term of supervised release was automatically tolled during a period of state custody without a judicial tolling order. The court held that the district court had jurisdiction to revoke defendant's supervised release where his period of state custody tolled his term of supervised release. Defendant's supervision was properly revoked since the district court issued a bench warrant within the period of the tolled supervised release term. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Ahmadzai" on Justia Law