Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries
Articles Posted in U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
Orange County Dept. of Educ. v. California Dept. of Educ., et al
A.S., a California minor, filed a request for a special education due process hearing where he was eligible for special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq., as an emotionally disturbed child. At issue was which California agency was responsible for funding a special education student's placement in an out-of-state residential treatment facility. The court requested the California Supreme Court exercise its discretion and decide the following certified question, "Whether under California law the school district responsible for the costs of a special education student's education while the student is placed at an out-of-state residential treatment facility is the district in which the student's de facto parent, who is authorized to make educational decisions on behalf of the student, resides."
Leavitt v. Arave
The state appealed the district court's grant of a conditional writ of habeas corpus where defendant was charged with murder. At issue was whether petitioner's lawyer rendered ineffective assistance of counsel while trying to have him acquitted of the death penalty. The court reversed and held that petitioner had not made out his claim that his counsel's assistance was constitutionally deficient and even if he had, the gruesome nature of the crime, coupled with the relatively weak additional evidence that might have been revealed, led the court to conclude that any ineffectiveness was not prejudicial.
Leonardo v. Crawford
Petitioner filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal district court alleging that his prolonged detention was unlawful. At issue was whether petitioner's bond hearing, provided under Casas-Castrillon v. Department of Homeland Security, violated due process. The court clarified that once an alien received a Casas bond hearing before an immigration judge ("IJ"), he could appeal the IJ's decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"). If the alien was dissatisfied with the BIA's decision, he could then file a habeas petition in the district court challenging his continued detention. The district court's decision on the habeas petition could then be appealed to this court. Therefore, the court remanded to the district court with instructions to dismiss petitioner's petition without prejudice where he did not exhaust administrative remedies before pursuing habeas relief.
Veterans for Common Sense, et al v. James Peake, et al
Plaintiffs, two non-profit organizations, sought injunctive and declaratory relief to remedy the delays in the provision of mental health care and adjudication of service-connected death and disability compensation claims by the Department of Veterans Affairs ("VA"). At issue was whether these delays violated veterans' due process rights to receive the care and benefits they were guaranteed by statute for harms and injuries sustained while serving our country. While the court affirmed the district court's ruling, with respect to various claims for specific forms of relief under the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. 500 et. seq., that the APA prevented the court from granting veterans the statutory relief they sought, the court reversed the district court's ruling on plaintiffs' constitutional claims and held that the VA's failure to provide adequate procedures for veterans facing prejudicial delays in the delivery of mental health care violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The court further held that the district court erred in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to review plaintiffs' due process challenge to delays and procedural deficiencies in the compensation claims adjudication system and that it erroneously denied plaintiffs' the relief to which they were entitled under the Due Process Clause.
USA v. Michael Tsosie
Defendant appealed a restitution order directing him to pay the victim's mother to cover costs that she incurred in making a series of trips between her home and the victim's boarding school 150 miles away after defendant pleaded guilty to one count of abusive sexual contact and was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment. At issue was whether the mother's travel expenses were "incurred by the victim" and subject to restitution under the applicable statute. Also at issue was whether the restitution award was issued in violation of the procedural and evidentiary requirements of 18 U.S.C. 3664. The court initially held that defendant's waiver of appeal was ineffective as to the restitution order and so would consider his challenges to that order on the merits. The court then held that the mother's travel expenses could have been "incurred by the victim" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 2248(b)(3) where the mother could have made trips in her capacity as a loved family member but she incurred the costs of the trips in her capacity as legal guardian, on behalf of her daughter. The court also held that the district court's restitution order violated the requirements of section 3664 where the district court set forth no explanation of its reasoning and where a spreadsheet was an inadequate evidentiary basis to support the restitution award.
Ronald Velasquez v. Francisco Jacquez
Petitioner, convicted of first degree murder, filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Central District of California more than three years after his conviction for first-degree murder became final and five days after the California Supreme Court denied his final state habeas petition. At issue was whether the one-year statute of limitations for filing a federal habeas corpus petition pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1), was tolled during petitioner's delays between his state-court petitions for collateral review. The court held that petitioner's state petitions were untimely and that he was not entitled to statutory tolling under AEDPA where he showed no adequate justification for the eighty- and ninety-one day filing delays and there was no indication from the California courts to the contrary. The court also held that the district court did not err in denying petitioner's request for equitable tolling where he failed to demonstrate extraordinary circumstances that warranted tolling of AEDPA's one year deadline.
James Harrison v. Douglas Gillespie
Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder in the guilt phase of his trial but the jury deadlocked over his sentence in the penalty phase of his case. At issue was whether the trial court violated petitioner's constitutional right to be free from double jeopardy where the trial court failed to ask the jury if it had unanimously rejected the death penalty, and instead was deadlocked over a lesser sentence, before discharging the jury. The court held that the trial judge did not abuse her discretion or subject petitioner to double jeopardy by declining to poll the jury where the jurors were clearly deadlocked, appeared frustrated after lengthy proceedings, could have been inclined to treat preliminary compromise as a final verdict, and never indicated that they had reached a final finding acquitting petitioner. The court also held that in the retrial of the penalty phase the Double Jeopardy Clause did not preclude the state from including the death penalty as a sentencing option.
Freedom From Religion Foundati, et al v. Michael Rodgers, et al
Plaintiffs sued the Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in their official capacities under 28 U.S.C. 2201, alleging that the so-called "parsonage exemption" violated the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. Plaintiffs also sued the Executive Office of the California Franchise Tax Board in his official capacity under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that California's parsonage exemption violated the Establishment Clause of both the United States and California Constitutions. Six days after plaintiffs filed their complaint, a minister of the gospel in the Sacramento area, who regularly claimed both the federal and state parsonage exemptions, moved to intervene as a defendant. At issue was whether an individual who claimed certain federal and state tax exemptions could intervene in an unrelated action challenging the constitutionality of those exemptions. The court held that the minister was not entitled to intervene as of right where the federal defendants adequately represented the minister's interest. The court also clarified that the independent jurisdictional grounds requirement did not apply to proposed intervenors in federal-question cases when the proposed intervenor was not raising new claims. Therefore, the court also held that the minister was not required to make any further showing that his intervention was supported by independent jurisdictional grounds where the district court's denial of permissive intervention was not an appropriate exercise in discretion because the district court did not apply the correct legal rule. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded that portion of the district court's order so that the district court could reassess the request for permissive intervention.
USA v. Rolando Sanchez
Defendant appealed his conviction for possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8) where defendant was indicted and convicted for possession of a firearm while he was subjected to a Tucson City Court order directing him to have no contact with his former girlfriend and her family. At issue was whether the district court properly denied defendant's motion for acquittal where the no-contact order did not satisfy the requirements of section 922(g)(8). The court held that the district court erred when it denied defendant's motion for acquittal where, even viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the government, the charge failed as a matter of law when it failed to contain explicit terms substantially similar in meaning to the language of section 992(g)(8)(C)(ii).
John Garcia v. County of Merced, et al
Defendants appealed a denial of qualified immunity from plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 Fourth Amendment claims against them where plaintiff's claims arose out of his arrest on suspicion of smuggling methamphetamine into the Merced County Jail and out of a subsequent search of plaintiff's law office. At issue was whether defendants qualified for immunity for arresting plaintiff after receiving information about the drug smuggling from a jailhouse informant. The court held that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity where they did not violate plaintiff's constitutional rights when, after developing probable cause to arrest plaintiff, they forthrightly applied to the same judge, acting as a neutral magistrate, for a search warrant; where they executed the warrant under the supervision of a court-appointed master to ensure the integrity of plaintiff's law office and his client's files; and where defendants did not "knowingly violate the law" and they were not "plainly incompetent."