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

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision of the district court, which upheld the Commissioner of Social Security's denial of a claimant's application for supplemental security income. The claimant argued that the Social Security Administration's 2017 revised regulations for evaluating medical opinions were partially invalid because they did not provide a reasoned explanation for permitting an administrative law judge to avoid articulating how he or she accounts for the "examining relationship" or "specialization" factors under the Social Security Act or the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). The court found that the Commissioner's decision to promulgate the 2017 medical evidence regulations fell within his wide latitude to make rules and regulations, particularly those governing the nature and extent of the proofs and evidence to establish the right to benefits. The court also joined the Eleventh Circuit in holding that the regulations were valid under the APA, as the agency's response to public comment and reasoned explanation for the regulatory changes established that the regulations were not arbitrary or capricious. View "CROSS V. O'MALLEY" on Justia Law

In this case, Zachary Silbersher, a relator, filed a qui tam action under the False Claims Act against Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. and others. Silbersher alleged that Valeant fraudulently obtained patents related to a drug and asserted these patents to stifle competition from generic drugmakers. He also claimed that Valeant defrauded the federal government by charging an artificially inflated price for the drug while falsely certifying that its price was fair and reasonable.The district court dismissed Silbersher’s action under the False Claims Act’s public disclosure bar, ruling that his allegations had already been publicly disclosed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the decision of the district court.The Court of Appeals held that an inter partes patent review proceeding, in which the Patent and Trademark Office invalidated one of Valeant's patents, did not qualify as a public disclosure under the False Claims Act because the government was not a party to that proceeding, and its primary function was not investigative. The Court of Appeals also held that the allegations in Silbersher's qui tam action were not "substantially the same" as the information that had been publicly disclosed. None of the qualifying public disclosures made a direct claim that Valeant committed fraud, nor did they disclose a combination of facts sufficient to permit a reasonable inference of fraud. Therefore, the public disclosure bar did not apply. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "SILBERSHER V. VALEANT PHARMACEUTICALS INT'L" on Justia Law

In the case reviewed, Mario Gonzalez-Godinez was convicted for attempted illegal entry under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(a) after being found near a border fence and admitting to being a Mexican citizen without documentation. After his arrest, a Border Patrol agent read him his Miranda rights as well as his immigration-related administrative rights. Gonzalez waived both sets of rights and then confessed to having been smuggled across the border. Gonzalez argued on appeal that the Miranda warning was inadequate and his conviction should be vacated under the corpus delicti doctrine. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected both arguments.Firstly, the court ruled that the Miranda warning was not inadequate despite also warning Gonzalez that the post-arrest interview may be his only chance to seek asylum. While these two warnings may have posed difficult decisions for Gonzalez, the court found them to be neither contradictory nor confusing. The court held that the government did not need to provide further clarification to the Miranda warning.Secondly, the court held that the corpus delicti doctrine, which requires some evidence to support a confession, did not require vacating Gonzalez's conviction. The court found that sufficient evidence supported Gonzalez’s confession, as he had twice admitted to being a Mexican citizen and his behavior at the border supported his confession. Thus, the court affirmed Gonzalez’s conviction. View "USA V. GONZALEZ-GODINEZ" on Justia Law

The plaintiff, a survivor of childhood sex trafficking, filed a class action suit against a group of foreign and domestic corporations, alleging that they violated federal and California laws by distributing videos of her sexual abuse on the internet. The defendants included the owners and operators of two pornography websites based in the Czech Republic. The plaintiff argued that the court had personal jurisdiction over the foreign defendants under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), which allows for jurisdiction over a foreign defendant if the claim arises under federal law, the defendant is not subject to jurisdiction in any state's courts, and exercising jurisdiction is consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws. The district court dismissed the case, ruling that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the foreign defendants.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed in part and vacated in part the district court's dismissal. The court found that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case that the Czech website operators had purposefully directed their websites at the United States. The court also held that the plaintiff's claims arose from the defendants' forum-related activities, and that the defendants failed to show that the exercise of personal jurisdiction would be unreasonable. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the action against the Czech defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction.The court also vacated the district court's dismissal of nine additional foreign defendants. The district court had dismissed these defendants solely on the grounds that there was no personal jurisdiction over the Czech defendants. The appellate court instructed the district court to address on remand whether personal jurisdiction could be asserted against these additional defendants. View "DOE V. WEBGROUP CZECH REPUBLIC, A.S." on Justia Law

In this case, the defendant, Myron Motley, was convicted and sentenced for his involvement in a conspiracy to distribute controlled substances—oxycodone and hydrocodone. Motley appealed his conviction, arguing that the evidence obtained from two GPS tracking warrants and a wiretap warrant was obtained illegally.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision to deny Motley's motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the GPS tracking warrants. The court held that Motley had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his opioid prescription records maintained in Nevada's Prescription Monitoring Program database due to the government's long-standing and pervasive regulation of opioids. Therefore, the Fourth Amendment challenge to the GPS tracking warrants failed.Additionally, the court affirmed the lower court's determination that the wiretap warrant was supported by probable cause and was necessary. The court found that the affidavit supporting the wiretap warrant application contained sufficient evidence establishing probable cause that Motley was engaged in a conspiracy to illegally distribute prescription opioids. The affidavit also contained enough information for the court to reasonably conclude that a wiretap was necessary to identify the full scope of the conspiracy.The court dismissed Motley's counterarguments, stating that the government's need for a wiretap was not negated simply because it managed to obtain some evidence of a conspiracy without a wiretap. The court explained that the government has a powerful interest in identifying all conspirators and the full scope of the conspiracy. For these reasons, the court affirmed the lower court's decisions. View "USA V. MOTLEY" on Justia Law

In this case, Robert Sproat was convicted on ten counts of securities fraud. On appeal, Sproat argued that the district court improperly coerced the jurors into reaching a unanimous guilty verdict by instructing them to return the next day after they had reported an impasse in their deliberations.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction, rejecting Sproat's argument. The court held that merely instructing a jury that reported an impasse to return the next day is not unconstitutionally coercive. The court found that the district court's instruction to return did not amount to an Allen charge, an instruction encouraging jurors to reach a unanimous verdict. The court explained that no such encouragement was explicit or implicit in the district court's instruction.The court also observed that the district court had not asked the jury to identify the nature of its impasse or the vote count before excusing them for the evening, and that any theoretical risk of coercion was cured by the partial Allen instruction the district court gave the following day, emphasizing the jurors' freedom to maintain their honest beliefs and their ability to be excused if they could not overcome their impasse. The court concluded that the district court's instruction to return the next day and the partial Allen instruction the following day did not coerce the jurors into reaching a unanimous guilty verdict. View "USA V. SPROAT" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard the case of Ashley Rodriguez, a transgender woman who is a native and citizen of Mexico. The court reviewed the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that denied her motion to remand her removal proceedings to the Immigration Judge (IJ) for the consideration of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).The court found that the BIA abused its discretion by failing to adequately address Rodriguez’s arguments in support of her motion to remand. Rodriguez had argued that she had good cause for missing the filing deadline for her application for asylum and other relief due to her homelessness and inability to access her personal documents during the relevant period. Her medical conditions and criminal history, which were relevant to her asylum application, were also unavailable for the same reasons.The court held that the BIA should have considered whether Rodriguez’s evidence was material and not reasonably available to her at the time of the final filing deadline. The court also held that the BIA had failed to properly evaluate whether Rodriguez had established good cause for missing the filing deadline.Thus, the court granted Rodriguez’s petition for review and remanded the case to the BIA to properly consider the merits of her motion. View "ALCAREZ-RODRIGUEZ V. GARLAND" on Justia Law

In a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Victor Rodriguez-Hernandez, a native and citizen of Mexico, was seeking review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The BIA had dismissed his appeal of the denial of his applications for cancellation of removal, asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) by an Immigration Judge (IJ). The court determined that Rodriguez-Hernandez's harassment conviction, under the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) § 9A.46.020(1), was categorically a crime of violence aggravated felony. This made him ineligible for discretionary relief from removal. The court also found that substantial evidence supported the denial of relief under the CAT. The court concluded that Rodriguez-Hernandez did not establish that it was more likely than not that he would be tortured with the consent or acquiescence of a public official. The court therefore denied his petition for review. View "RODRIGUEZ-HERNANDEZ V. GARLAND" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the drug-trafficking and money-laundering convictions of Benjamin Galecki and Charles Burton Ritchie for their distribution of "spice," a synthetic cannabinoid product. The defendants were found guilty of manufacturing and distributing spice through their company, Zencense Incenseworks, LLC. The drug-trafficking charges were based on the premise that the cannabinoid used, XLR-11, was treated as a controlled substance because it was an "analogue" of a listed substance. The court rejected the defendants' arguments that their convictions should be set aside due to Fourth Amendment violations, insufficient evidence, and vagueness of the Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act of 1986. However, the court reversed their mail and wire fraud convictions due to insufficient evidence. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "USA V. GALECKI" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the conviction of former congressman Jeffrey Fortenberry for making false statements during an investigation into illegal campaign contributions. Fortenberry was interviewed by federal agents in his Nebraska home and his lawyer's office in Washington D.C., who were based in Los Angeles, California, where the alleged illegal contribution activity occurred. He was charged in California, tried, and convicted there. Fortenberry argued that the district court incorrectly denied his motion to dismiss the case because venue was improper in the Central District of California. The district court held that a violation of making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2) occurs not only where the false statement is made, but also where it has an effect on a federal investigation. The Ninth Circuit rejected this interpretation, holding that such an effects-based test for venue in a § 1001 offense has no support in the Constitution, the text of the statute, or historical practice. The court held that the false statement offense is complete when the statement is made, and it does not depend on subsequent events or circumstances, or whether the recipient of the false statement was in fact affected by it in any way. The court reversed Fortenberry's conviction without prejudice to retrial in a proper venue. View "USA V. FORTENBERRY" on Justia Law