Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

After law enforcement officers arrested Defendant they obtained a warrant to search his home. The search of Defendant’s home resulted in the seizure of illegal drugs and firearms. Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion. On appeal, Defendant argued that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest him, and because the search warrant was based on information acquired as a result of his unlawful arrest, the warrant was invalid and the evidence discovered during the search must be suppressed. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s order denying Defendant’s suppression motion, holding (1) although Defendant’s arrest was supported by probable cause, the manner in which the officers made the arrest violated Payton v. New York; (2) evidence obtained as a result of Defendant’s unlawful arrest must be suppressed, and the remaining untainted evidence did not provide probable cause to issue a warrant; and (3) consequently, the entire warrant was invalid, and all evidence seized pursuant to it must be suppressed. View "United States v. Nora" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs allege that they hold land patents, issued by the federal government before Alaska entered the Union, giving title to certain Alaska streambeds. In 2010- 2011, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources determined that the waterways above these streambeds were navigable in 1959, the year Alaska was admitted to the Union, and remain navigable. Under the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, all land beneath such waterways belongs to the state, 43 U.S.C. 1311(a). Plaintiffs argue that Alaska’s determination that the waterways have been navigable since 1959 does not disturb the title to the land that was granted to them and that, under the Act, streambeds that had already been patented by the federal government were not granted to Alaska upon its statehood. The district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ declaratory judgment action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. Alaska has a sufficient interest in the lands to assert Eleventh Amendment immunity. Plaintiffs’ action was “close to the functional equivalent” of a quiet title action; the lands at issue are submerged lands beneath navigable waters, which have a “unique status in the law” insofar as “[s]tate ownership of them has been considered an essential attribute of sovereignty.”View "Lacano Invs., LLC v. Sullivan" on Justia Law

In 2009, a confidential informant told Anaheim police officer Stauber that Cruz was a gang member who sold methamphetamine and carried a gun. Stauber determined that Cruz had prior convictions including a felony involving a firearm. Later, the informant told Stauber where Cruz was, what his vehicle looked like, that he was armed and carried in his waistband, and that he had stated that “he was not going back to prison.” Stauber notified other officers, who converged on Cruz’s location. Officers noticed that Cruz’s vehicle had a broken tail light, executed a traffic stop, and surrounded him in a parking lot. Cruz attempted to escape, backing his SUV into a patrol car, but eventually stopped. The officers emerged with weapons drawn and shouted for Cruz to get on the ground as he was emerging from the vehicle. According to four officers, he ignored their commands and reached for his waistband. Fearing that he was reaching for a gun, five officers fired 20 shots. A bystander witnessed most of the event from the other side of Cruz’s vehicle, but didn’t see whether Cruz reached for his waistband. After they ceased firing, the officers approached to find Cruz’s body tangled in and hanging from his seatbelt. Cutting the body loose, they found no weapon, but a loaded nine-millimeter was later recovered from the passenger seat. Cruz’s relatives sued. The district court granted defendants summary judgment, finding that plaintiffs had not presented anything to contest the officers’ version of events. The Ninth Circuit reversed, except as to one officer, noting “curious and material factual discrepancies.” View "Cruz v. City of Anaheim" on Justia Law

In 1976, Gail Kennedy, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles ("UCLA"), led an archaeological field excavation project on the property of the Chancellor's official residence at the University of California-San Diego. During the excavation, the archaeological team discovered a double burial site and uncovered two human skeletons (the "La Jolla remains"). Scientists estimated the remains were between 8977 to 9603 years old, making them among the earliest known human remains from North or South America. The property on which the La Jolla remains were discovered was aboriginally occupied by members of the Kumeyaay Nation. Since their discovery, the University has maintained custody of the La Jolla remains, but they have been stored at multiple locations, including UCLA, the San Diego Museum of Man, the National Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian Institution. Central to the heart of this case was custody of the La Jolla remains. The Tribes and their representatives claimed the right to compel repatriation of the La Jolla remains to one of the Kumeyaay Nation's member tribes. Plaintiffs Timothy White, Robert Bettinger, and Margaret Schoeninger ("the Scientists"), professors in the University of California system, opposed repatriation because they wished to continue to study the La Jolla remains. The issue this case presented to the Ninth Circuit was whether the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act ("NAGPRA") abrogated tribal sovereign immunity and, if not, whether the district court properly dismissed this declaratory judgment action because the tribes and their representatives were indispensable parties under Fed. R. Civ. P. 19 and could not be joined in the action. The Court concluded that NAGPRA did not abrogate tribal sovereign immunity and that the affected tribes and their representatives were indispensable parties. Therefore, the Court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "White, et al v. University of California" on Justia Law

Petitioner George Wharton appealed the district court's denial of habeas relief. Police officers arrested Petitioner after finding the body of his live-in girlfriend stuffed in a barrel in their kitchen. Petitioner admitted killing her but claimed at trial that he had been provoked into the killing and, therefore, was guilty only of second-degree murder. The jury disagreed and convicted him of first-degree murder. In this habeas proceeding, Petitioner argued that his due process rights were violated when jurors saw him shackled and that his trial lawyer provided ineffective assistance. The Ninth Circuit found no reversible error and affirmed: although some jurors occasionally saw Petitioner in shackles while being transported through the halls of the courthouse, those sporadic sightings outside the courtroom did not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. The district court also correctly held that Petitioner's trial lawyer chose a constitutionally permissible guilt-phase strategy of forgoing certain defenses for fear of opening the door to the jury's learning about Petitioner's significant criminal history, which included a prior murder and rape. View "Wharton v. Martel" on Justia Law

Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA") agents and Long Beach Police Department ("LBPD") officers obtained warrants for wiretaps on two phones in the Summer of 2006. Officers intercepted communications pursuant to the wiretap, which led them to conclude that defendant was arranging a drug deal. Based on information initially obtained through the wiretaps, LBPD officers placed defendant under surveillance and eventually arrested defendant for felony drug possession. At intake, the officers strip searched defendant in the jail's strip search room. Five officers observed the strip search. The officers instructed defendant to remove his clothing and face the far wall of the room as they watched him. Defendant was instructed to bend over, spread his buttocks, and cough, but according to one of the observers, defendant instead moved his hand toward his right buttock. Instructed to repeat the procedure, defendant made a quick movement to his buttocks area with his hand and appeared "to be forcing or forcibly pushing an item inward." Defendant appealed his conviction for drug distribution and possession with intent to distribute, raising a number of issues on appeal, but the Ninth Circuit found only one had merit: that the forcible removal of drugs from defendant's rectum by officers without medical training or a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The Court concluded that the evidence obtained "from this brutal and physically invasive search" should have been suppressed. Therefore, the Court vacated defendant's conviction in part, vacated his sentence, and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. View "United States v. Fowlkes" on Justia Law

Yongguo Lai, a native and citizen of China, appealed a Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decision dismissing Lai's appeal of an immigration judge's (IJ) decision denying his application for asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The BIA relied on the IJ's finding that Lai's claim of persecution and torture on account of his Christian religion was not credible. The IJ based her ruling, in relevant part, on Lai's testimony during cross-examination that contained information the IJ found to be missing from and inconsistent with Lai's initial written application and direct testimony, and uncorroborated in one respect. Upon review, the Ninth Circuit concluded the BIA's adverse credibility determination was not supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded the case to the BIA for further proceedings. View "Lai v. Holder" on Justia Law

ISKCON appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), manager Stephen Yee, and the LAX police chief, on ISKCON's claim that section 23.27(c) of the Los Angeles Administrative Code - which bans continuous or repetitive solicitation for the immediate receipt of funds at LAX, a nonpublic forum - violated the First Amendment. Major international airports have a legitimate interest in controlling pedestrian congestion and reducing the risk of fraud and duress attendant to repetitive, in-person solicitation for the immediate receipt of funds. The court held that the ordinance acts as a reasonable restriction on protected speech under the First Amendment because it was limited in nature and leaves open alternative channels for ISKCON to raise money. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "ISKCON v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed from the district court's dismissal of their 42 U.S.C. 1983 complaint alleging that defendants violated plaintiffs' First Amendment right to freedom of religion by forcing them to provide direct staff support to a developmentally disabled client who wished to attend Jehovah's Witness services. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' complaint against Defendant Matsushita because plaintiffs failed to allege specific facts against Matsushita other than to identify her title; the district court's holding that defendants' interpretation of the Lanterman Act, Cal. Welf. & Ins. Code 4500-4906, and its regulations, did not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments; and the district court's denial of leave to amend because of futility of amendment. The court adopted the district court's well-reasoned and comprehensive disposition. View "Williams v. State of California" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and her union appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment on their First Amendment retaliation claims. Defendants cross-appealed a later order denying them attorneys' fees. The court remanded so that the district court could evaluate on a more detailed basis the incidents that it dismissed collectively as "petty workplace gripes" where there was evidence suggesting that some of these actions were taken as part of a more general campaign and hence might in context have greater materiality than when viewed in isolation. The court concluded that plaintiffs carried their burden of production sufficient to survive summary judgment as to the three involuntary transfers at issue. Plaintiffs presented a genuine factual dispute as to whether an internal investigation was retaliatory. Further, the district court erred in determining that defendant County was not subject to Monell liability. Defendants' cross-appeal is moot. The court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Thomas v. County of Riverside" on Justia Law