Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

This appeal under 42 U.S.C. 1983 challenged Arizona's execution protocol, adopted as Order 710 of the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) on January 25, 2012. Plaintiffs, death row inmates in Arizona, claimed that ADC's execution protocol violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Towery and Moormann, two of the named plaintiffs with impending execution dates, moved the district court for a preliminary injunction against ADC's use of its current lethal injection protocol. The district court denied the preliminary injunction, and Towery and Moormann appealed. On the basis of the protocol approved in Dickens v. Brewer, as well as the State's undertakings as to the upcoming executions, the court affirmed the denial of the preliminary injunction, albeit on different grounds than the district court's denial.

Petitioner was convicted in 1985 of the first-degree murder of his adoptive mother and was sentenced to death. Petitioner subsequently applied for a stay of execution and permission to file a second or successive habeas petition in federal district court. Petitioner claimed that both of his lawyers in state court failed to raise a colorable claim such that either one or both effectively "abandoned" him. Petitioner also claimed that he was now mentally retarded and could not be executed for that reason. The court held that, assuming Maples v. Thomas applied retroactively, petitioner could not make a prima facie showing that his postconviction counsel abandoned him within the meaning of Maples. Moreover, the court actually considered the merits of essentially the same claim in petitioner's first federal habeas petition. Even if petitioner could conclusively show that he was currently mentally retarded, the court held that the Arizona Supreme Court's decision was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, the court denied petitioner's request to file a second habeas petition and his motion to recall the mandate. The court affirmed the district court's denial of the Rule 60(b) motion. The court found that petitioner had failed to show a strong likelihood of relief on the merits and so denied his motion for a stay of execution.

Defendant was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1992. Defendant subsequently filed a motion for relief from judgment seeking the opportunity to litigate the Eddings-Tennard issue as a new claim. Defendant argued that he should be permitted to pursue that claim, notwithstanding the statutory bar on second or successive habeas petitions, because his counsel had abandoned him by failing to present the claim in his amended petition. The district court denied the motion. The court need not decide whether abandonment by counsel could serve as an exception to the bar on second or successive petitions because, like the district court, the court concluded that defendant was not abandoned. Counsel did not engage in "egregious" professional misconduct or leave defendant "without any functioning attorney of record." Accordingly, the court need not decide whether defendant's attorney was negligent in failing to raise a colorable Eddings-Tennard claim. Therefore, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion.

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's denial of their motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of the 2004 Amendment to California's DNA and Forensic Identification Data Base and Data Bank Act of 1998 (DNA Act), Cal. Penal Code 296(a)(2)(C), which required law enforcement officers to collect DNA samples from all adults arrested for felonies. Plaintiffs contended that the 2004 Amendment violated their Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. The court assessed the constitutionality of the 2004 Amendment by considering the totality of the circumstances, balancing the arrestees' privacy interest against the Government's need for the DNA samples. After weighing such factors, the court concluded that the Government's compelling interests far outweighed arrestees' privacy concerns and therefore held that the 2004 Amendment did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

This appeal arose in the context of a civil forfeiture action instituted by the government after it seized $133,420 found in claimant's car. The currency was seized from claimant's car as proceeds traceable to controlled substances offenses. Claimant asserted that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to the government after determining that claimant lacked standing. The court affirmed the judgment because the district court did not err in striking claimant's interrogatory response claiming ownership of the property and because the remaining evidence was inadequate to establish that claimant had standing.

Petitioner was convicted of first degree murder when she was 16 years old for her part in the murder of her boyfriend. Petitioner appealed the district court's dismissal of three claims in her federal habeas petition as untimely under the one-year statute of limitations set forth in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1). Because the court applied the AEDPA statute of limitations on a claim-by-claim basis, and because petitioner's three claims challenging a state administrative agency's order were filed nearly 18 months after the statute of limitations expired, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal.

This case stemmed from a dispute that arose after a 20 year lease program ended in which Polar Star owned 300 units of family housing located on Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. Polar Star leased the units back to the Air Force but the parties could not agree on the purchase price or the amount of rent payable for an additional year on the lease. The United States first sent notice of a one-year renewal of the lease, then filed a protective eminent domain action to condemn a five-month leasehold in the houses. Polar Star subsequently appealed a number of the district court's rulings. The court held that the district court correctly decided that the government's notice of renewal successfully renewed the Project Lease for one year; the district court's finding that the expiration date of the Ground Lease was the error, and therefore the lease ran for 23 years, was not clearly erroneous; the district court correctly determined that it lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the amount of rent due from the Government to Polar Star on the renewal; Polar Star did not file an action in district court, so the only matter before the court was the Government's condemnation action; the district court correctly determined that the condemnation action should be dismissed; Polar Star's entitlement to rent beyond what the Government paid was not asserted on a claim or counterclaim in the district court; and plaintiffs may be entitled to pursue a claim in the Court of Federal Claims. Accordingly, the district court's judgment of dismissal was affirmed.

Plaintiff, a photojournalist, contended that viewing restrictions at a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) horse roundup violated her First Amendment right to observe government activities. The district court denied plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding that most of the relief sought was moot because the roundup ended in October 2010. Alternatively, the district court concluded that plaintiff was unlikely to succeed on the merits because the restrictions did not violate the First Amendment. The court held that, because the preliminary injunction motion sought unrestricted access to future horse roundups, and not just the one that took place in 2010, the case was was not moot. With regards to plaintiff's First Amendment claim, the district court erred by failing to apply the well-established qualified right of access balancing test set forth in Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court. Accordingly, the court remanded the case to the district court to consider in the first instance whether the public had a First Amendment right of access to horse gathers, and if so, whether the viewing restrictions were narrowly tailored to serve the government's overriding interests.

Petitioner, who is serving a sentence in Nevada State Prison, appealed the dismissal of his claims against prison officials under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that they violated several of his constitutional rights. The court held that petitioner failed to state an Eighth Amendment claim against Correctional Officer Sean LaGier and failed to state a First Amendment retaliation claim against Correctional Officer Joseph Rodriquez, but plaintiff's First Amendment retaliation claims against Associate Warden Mary Carter and Correctional Officers Rosa Rodriguez, Sean LaGier, and Danilo Santos required further consideration. The district court should not have dismissed petitioner's state-law claims with prejudice. Therefore, the court affirmed in part and remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant appealed from a restitution order imposed by the district court after a jury convicted her of various crimes associated with her involvement in a fraudulent real estate investment scheme. The court held that the district court failed to provide an adequate explanation of its reasoning in calculating the amount of restitution owed to two of the victims and, therefore, vacated that portion of the restitution order. The court remanded for recalculation and explanation of the award pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A.