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

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 federal habeas corpus petition based upon the Supreme Court's decision in Skilling v. United States, which narrowed the scope of the honest services fraud theory. Defendant,a former attorney and trustee of private trusts, pleaded guilty to honest services fraud. The government conceded that defendant was actually innocent of honest services fraud in light of Skilling, which confined the reach of the offense to cases of bribes and kickbacks. The court vacated the district court's dismissal of defendant's honest services fraud claim where no evidence suggested that defendant either engaged in bribery or received kickbacks. View "United States v. Avery" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed a class action challenging the constitutionality of Arizona's Proposition 100. Proposition 100 commands that Arizona state courts could not set bail for serious felony offenses as prescribed by the legislature if the person charged has entered or remained in the United States illegally and if the proof was evident or the presumption great as to the charge. After reviewing the record, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment and partial dismissal, concluding that plaintiffs have not raised triable issues of fact as to whether Proposition 100 and its implementing procedures violated the substantive and procedural due process guarantees of the United State's Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, the Excessive Bail Clause of the Eighth Amendment, and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, nor whether the Proposition 100 laws were preempted by federal immigration law. The court concluded that the Arizona Legislature and Arizona voters passed the Proposition 100 laws to further the state's legitimate and compelling interest in seeing that those accused of serious state-law crimes were brought to trial. View "Lopez-Valenzuela v. County of Maricopa" on Justia Law

Defendant, charged with two counts of Transmission of Threatening Interstate Communications and Transmission of Threatening Communication by U.S. Mail, appealed the district court's order finding him incompetent to stand trial. The court held that a defendant had a constitutional and statutory right to testify at his pretrial competency hearing; only the defendant, not counsel, could waive the constitutional right to testify; the district court had an obligation to admonish a defendant that his disruptive conduct could result in his removal from the courtroom and waiver of his right to testify; and the denial of defendant's right to testify was not harmless because the court did not know to what defendant may have testified. Accordingly, the court vacated the order and remanded for a new competency hearing. View "United States v. Gillenwater, II" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to possession of child pornography. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion to suppress. The court concluded, under the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule, that the search in this case was executed in objectively reasonable reliance on the search warrant. Because the court found sufficient ambiguity in the court's precedent, despite United States v. Weber, to confer a grant of qualified immunity in Dougherty v. City of Corvina in 2011, the court was foreclosed from holding that Weber rendered good faith reliance on the warrant in this case impossible in 2010; and defendant's remaining arguments were unavailing. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Needham" on Justia Law

Petitioners appealed separate decisions denying their 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas petitions, alleging that their convictions were secured in violation of Batson v. Kentucky. At issue was whether a state court violated a defendant's constitutional rights by denying a Batson motion based on a prosecutor's credible explanation that he or she made an honest mistake in exercising a peremptory challenge to dismiss the wrong juror. The court concluded that it was not objectively unreasonable for the California Court of Appeal to affirm the trial court's Batson ruling on the ground that an honest mistake was not evidence of racial bias. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of habeas corpus relief. View "Aleman v. Uribe" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued defendants alleging that they had failed to adequately evaluate the effects of the Mudflow Vegetation Management Project on the Northern Spotted Owl's critical habitat, in violation of section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1536(a)(2). On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's denial of its motion for a preliminary injunction. The court affirmed the judgment, concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it determined that plaintiff failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits as to its ESA claim that defendants arbitrarily or capriciously approved the Mudflow Project. Plaintiff's challenge was premised on a misunderstanding of regulatory terms, an unsupported reading of a duty to consider cumulative effects under section 7(a)(2), and selected portions of the record taken out of context. View "Conservation Congress v. U.S. Forest Serv." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, individually and on behalf of his son, filed suit against the Hawaii Department of Education, alleging violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400(d). The district court found that the Department did not deny the son a free appropriate public education (FAPE) by holding an annual individualized education program (IEP) meeting without the participation of the parent. Plaintiff did not attend the meeting even though he actively sought to reschedule it in order to participate. The court concluded, however, that the Department denied the son a FAPE by denying plaintiff the opportunity to participate and plaintiff was entitled to reimbursement if he could establish that the private school placement was proper under the Act. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Doug C., et al. v. State of Hawaii Dep't of Educ." on Justia Law

Appellants brought quiet title actions challenging tax liens filed by the IRS against certain commercial and residential properties. Appellants held legal title to these properties. The liens arose from assessments against taxpayers based on the IRS's claim that appellants held the relevant properties as nominees of taxpayers on the assessment dates. On appeal, appellants argued that California did not recognize nominee ownership. The court held, however, that California law did recognize a nominee theory of property ownership; the district court did not err in concluding that appellants held title to the McCall and Fourth properties as nominees of taxpayers; and the district court rejected appellants' joinder claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19(a) where appellants have not established that the absent entities at issue were necessary parties under Rule 19(a) and the district court properly resolved appellants' ownership interests in the McCall and Fourth properties in their absence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Fourth Investment LP v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence stemming from his plea of guilty to one count of being a previously deported alien found in the United States. Defendant claimed that the government implicitly breached the plea agreement by describing his prior convictions and including inflammatory language in its sentencing memorandum. The court concluded that, even if a breach of the plea agreement occurred, defendant had not established that this alleged breach amounted to plain error. Accordingly, the court did not reach the issue of whether the arguments contained in the government's sentencing memorandum constituted a breach of the plea agreement and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Gonzalez-Aguilar" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging violations of his constitutional rights after prison officials discovered a letter plaintiff wrote to his fellow inmates calling on them to work together in support of his class action lawsuit against prison administrators. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's adverse partial summary judgment order on his First Amendment claims. Pursuant to the Accord and Satisfaction, the parties agreed to withdraw all post-trial motions. Defendants also agreed to pay plaintiff punitive damages, plus costs and attorney's fees, and to expunge all records of the disciplinary charges. The Accord and Satisfaction encompassed the district court's prior summary judgment ruling on plaintiff's First Amendment claims. Accordingly, the court concluded that plaintiff's appeal was rendered moot by the parties' settlement agreement and dismissed the appeal. View "Jones v. McDaniel, et al." on Justia Law