Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Petitioner was born was born in El Salvador and was admitted to the United States as legal permanent resident in 1992. In 2006, Petitioner pled guilty to resisting an executive officer in violation of Cal. Penal Code 69. In 2007, the Immigration and Naturalization Service initiated removal proceedings against Petitioner. An immigration judge ultimately found that Petitioner's conviction was a categorical crime of violence, rendering Petitioner removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissed Petitioner's appeal. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Petitioner's petition for review, holding that because the record of Defendant's conviction may be incomplete, the case was remanded to the BIA to apply the modified categorical approach to the question of whether Defendant committed a crime of violence and whether he was removable.

Earnest Woods, a former inmate, sued the warden and appeals coordinator under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for deliberate indifference to his medical needs. First, the district court granted the warden's motion for summary judgment, concluding that Woods failed to connect him to the alleged deprivation of his constitutional rights. The court subsequently granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, but only as to one of the two grievances. After proceeding to trial on the remaining grievance, Woods obtained a jury verdict against the appeals coordinator. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's grant of the motion of summary judgment and the motion to dismiss, holding (1) Rand and Wyatt notices must be provided to pro se prisoner plaintiffs concurrently with motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment filed by defendants; and (2) the notice provided by the district court in this case, which preceded the filing of the motion for summary judgment by over a year and the motion to dismiss by more than two years, did not provide fair notice to Woods, a pro se prisoner plaintiff.

Howard Back filed this suit alleging that Secretary of Heath and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius violated her duties under the Medicare Act and the Due Process Clause by failing to provide an administrative process for beneficiaries of hospice care to appeal a hospice provider's refusal to provide a drug prescribed by their attending physician. The district court granted the Secretary's motion for judgment on the pleadings because Back had not exhausted his administrative remedies. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the district court's judgment and dismissed the appeal as moot, holding that although the government led Back to believe there was no appeal process, such a process did exist. Accordingly, no controversy existed and the appeal was moot.

Defendant appealed the sentence imposed following his guilty plea to being a deported alien found in the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326. In particular, Defendant challenged the district court's application of U.S. Sentencing Guidelines 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii), which imposes a 16-level enhancement where a defendant has previously committed a crime of violence. Defendant argued that the district court committed plain error by relying solely on the presentencing investigation report's (PSR) characterization of his prior conviction. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing, holding (1) the district court plainly erred in basing its sentencing on the PSR's characterization of Defendant's prior offense as a crime of violence; and (2) the imposition of a substantially greater sentence based on the enhancement for committing a prior crime of violence clearly affected Defendant's substantial rights and the fairness of the judicial proceedings.

Defendant was convicted of racketeering and violence in aid of a racketeering enterprise. Although Defendant was entitled to exercise ten peremptory challenges, he was unable to do so because of a "use it or lose it" voir dire practice followed by the district court. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions, holding (1) the district court's "use it or lose it" practice impermissibly deprived Defendant of two of the peremptory challenges to which he was entitled; but (2) under plain error review, reversal of Defendant's convictions was not warranted, as Defendant failed to demonstrate that the judicial proceedings were seriously affected by the district court's error.

After a jury trial, Defendant, a California state prisoner, was found guilty of two counts of robbery. The district court subsequently dismissed as untimely three claims in Defendant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Defendant appealed, arguing that his claims were timely because the prosecutor withheld evidence that a witness for the prosecution at his trial received lenient treatment in her own criminal cases in return for testifying against Defendant. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Defendant was not entitled to delayed commencement of the one-year statute of limitations under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act because the factual predicate of his claims could have been discovered had he exercised due diligence at his trial; and (2) Defendant was not entitled to equitable tolling because he did not exercise reasonable diligence, and no extraordinary circumstance prevented the timely filing of his claims.

In this criminal pre-trial matter, a magistrate judge recommended denying a motion to suppress, but the district judge reversed that determination because he was inclined to disbelieve the testimony of government officials but did so without holding a de novo evidentiary hearing to hear any live testimony. At issue on appeal was whether the government's right to a de novo hearing before a district judge when the district judge departs from credibility findings of a magistrate judge is identical to that of defendants, even though the government cannot directly invoke the protections of the Due Process Clause. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the district court, holding that a district court abuses its discretion when it reverses a magistrate judge's credibility determinations, made after receiving testimony that is live and favorable to the government, without viewing key demeanor evidence, except where the district judge finds the magistrate judge's credibility determinations had no legally sufficient evidentiary basis, so that, were they jury determinations, judgment as a matter of law would issue for the defendant.

Plaintiff Paul Braunstein, the owner and operator of an Arizona engineering and land surveying firm that previously performed work for the Arizona Department of Transportation, sought damages based on Arizona's use of an affirmative action program in its award of a 2005 transportation engineering contract. The district court concluded that Braunstein lacked standing to seek damages in this equal protection suit because he never demonstrated that the challenged affirmative action program affected him personally or impeded his ability to compete for subcontracting work. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) the district court correctly concluded that Braunstein lacked standing; but (2) the district court erred in awarding Defendants attorneys' fees and imposing sanctions against Braunstein's attorneys for unreasonably prolonging the proceedings.

Appellants, three individuals who participated in businesses that helped customers evade federal and state income taxes, were convicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States, mail fraud, false representation of a Social Security number, passport fraud, and failure to file income tax returns. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentences for all Appellants with the exception of one Appellant (Giordano)'s restitution order, which was vacated and remanded for recalculation, holding (1) Appellants' convictions did not violate the First Amendment, as Appellants did far more than advocate tax evasion and instead developed a vast enterprise that helped clients hide their income from federal and state tax authorities; (2) the indictment did not erroneously include misdemeanor crimes among the eighty-one objects of the felony conspiracy count; (3) the district court did not err in instructing the jury on the crime of failure to file income taxes; but (4) the district court failed to consider evidence that Giordano presented at sentencing.

Petitioner Andrew Mackey was convicted several crimes in California. Retained attorney Le Rue Grim represented Mackey in post-trial and post-conviction proceedings. Grim subsequently filed a timely petition in the United States district court asserting ineffective assistance of counsel. Respondent filed a response to the district court's order to show cause, but Grim did not file a traverse by the due date. Grim then withdrew from the case but failed to notify the court of his intention to withdraw. Consequently, Mackey was unaware that the district court denied his petition and did not have the opportunity to proceed pro se. Mackey then filed a motion to have the district court vacate its judgment and reopen the case. The court denied the motion, determining that it lacked discretion to vacate the judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b). The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the district court would possess the discretion to vacate and reenter the judgment in order to allow Mackey the opportunity to appeal if it were to find that Grim effectively abandoned Mackey, causing Mackey to fail to file a timely notice of appeal. Remanded for findings as to whether Grim's action or inaction constituted abandonment.