Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant, a Mexican citizen and United States legal permanent resident, was arrested while attempting to sell five pounds of methamphetamine to a confidential informant. He was charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine—both offenses for which Defendant could be removed from the United States were he convicted. Defendant pleaded guilty to the conspiracy count. The Government then dismissed the possession with intent to distribute count. The district court denied on the merits Defendant’s first and second claims in the Section 2255 motion; it denied the third claim on the ground that Defendant, through his plea agreement, had waived his right to bring the claim in a post-conviction proceeding.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment on the first claim, affirmed the district court’s judgment on the second and third claims, and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on the first claim. The panel wrote that because the claim attacks whether Defendant had knowledge of the effect of his guilty plea, it was not waived by Defendant’s collateral-attack waiver. The panel held that the record does not conclusively establish that Defendant is entitled to no relief on his first claim and that it was therefore an abuse of discretion to deny the first claim without an evidentiary hearing.   Because the record does not contain any evidence showing that Defendant’s attorney rendered deficient performance under Strickland, the panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Defendant’s second claim without an evidentiary hearing as conclusively disproved by the record. View "USA V. COSME RODRIGUEZ" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of the murder of an Oregon Department of Corrections Director. However, since trial, another man has confessed to the killing and nearly all the witnesses who directly implicated Petitioner have recanted their testimony. Petitioner sought federal habeas relief making various claims including constitutional violations based on the trial court’s exclusion of the other man's confession. The constitutional claims are procedurally defaulted because Petitoner failed to raise them in state court as required.The Ninth Circuit held that Petitioner's procedural default is excused under the “actual innocence” exception set forth in Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298 (1995). The panel wrote that other man's detailed and compelling confessions, when considered with the recantations of nearly all the State’s key witnesses, are more than sufficient to satisfy Schlup’s standard, as it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted Petitioner in light of the new evidence.Reaching the merits of Petitioner's claim, the Ninth Circuit found that the trial court violated his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by excluding evidence of the confessor's guilt. View "FRANK GABLE V. MAX WILLIAMS" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed from the district court’s denial of his habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. Section 2254, challenging his conviction and death sentence imposed in California state court. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial.   The California Supreme Court, whose opinion on direct review is the last reasoned decision on this issue, concluded that both the prosecutor’s questioning of the challenged jurors and the excusals were proper. Applying the deferential review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) to the last reasoned state court decision, the panel held that the California Supreme Court’s conclusion was neither an unreasonable factual determination nor contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent.   In the second claim certified by the district court, Petitioner contended that his trial counsel were ineffective because the excusals were based upon counsel’s failure to investigate, adequately object, and/or rehabilitate the prospective jurors. On this issue, the California Supreme Court’s denial of Petitioner second state petition is the last reasoned decision. The panel took this opportunity to make explicit what has to this point been implicit: the California Supreme Court’s summary denial is a decision on the merits and thus entitled to AEDPA deference. The panel held that Petitioner failed to overcome the presumption that defense counsel’s conduct fell within the wide range of professional assistance, and failed to show how trial counsel’s failure to object or try to rehabilitate some of the jurors prejudiced him. View "SERGIO OCHOA V. RONALD DAVIS" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession with intent to distribute ecstasy after Government officers discovered large quantities of illegal drugs in two packages falsely labeled as containing documents from a German law firm. Defendant unsuccessfully challenged the admissibility of the evidence in a pre-trial motion to suppress. The Ninth Circuit held that, even if the evidence was seized in violation of Defendant's constitutional rights, admission was justified under the independent source doctrine. The court also rejected Defendant's challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence. View "USA V. TONY SAELEE" on Justia Law

Defendants were indicted on many charges related to their participation in the Canta Ranas gang in Whittier, California. Defendants were ultimately convicted on RICO conspiracy. On appeal, Defendants raise multiple challenges to the admissibility of the government's expert witness's testimony.The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant's convictions, finding that the district court had broad latitude when determining reliability and that, in this case, the district court did not commit an abuse of discretion in failing to hold a hearing. The district court erred in failing to put its credibility findings on the record; however, any error was harmless. View "USA V. ENRIQUE HOLGUIN" on Justia Law

Petitioner argued that application of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. Section 2254(d), is unconstitutionally retroactive—i.e., that the relevant event to which AEDPA’s legal consequences attached is the automatic appeal of his capital sentence in state court, which occurred before AEDPA’s effective date.   In a per curiam opinion addressing all issues except penalty phase prejudice, and a separate majority opinion addressing penalty phase prejudice, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment denying Petitioner’s habeas corpus petition challenging his California conviction and death sentence for murder.   The panel wrote that the California Supreme Court’s conclusion on direct appeal that Michaels did not unambiguously invoke either his right to counsel or his right to silence with respect to all questioning is fully supported by the record. The California Supreme Court did recognize that Petitioner selectively invoked his right not to answer a specific question as protected by Miranda, but the California Supreme Court neither determined precisely what question Petitioner had declared off-limits nor whether the ensuing interrogation impermissibly violated Petitioner's invocation of his right to silence with regard to the subject covered by that question. The panel held that the California Supreme Court’s decision to ignore a defendant's unambiguous and unequivocal selective invocation of his right to silence as to an area of inquiry during a custodial interrogation, requiring instead that the refusal be repeated in response to each question regarding the subject matter as to which the right was earlier invoked, was contrary to the law clearly established by Miranda and its progeny. View "KURT MICHAELS V. RON DAVIS, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted on terrorism-related charges for his central role in a conspiracy to travel to Afghanistan and engage in armed conflict against American soldiers. He was originally sentenced to 300 months in prison, but had to be resentenced after the Ninth Circuit reversed two of his convictions. The district court resentenced him, again imposing a 300-month sentence. Defendant challenged his resentence on multiple grounds, 1.) the district court erred in applying an enhancement to his sentence after finding that he was an “organizer” or “leader” of the criminal conspiracy pursuant to the United States Sentencing Guidelines, 2.) the district court’s decision to impose an additional terrorism enhancement under the Guidelines was inadequately justified.The Ninth Circuit rejected Defendant's challenges, affirming his sentence. The court explained that the district court reasonably concluded that Defendant had the necessary influence and ability to coordinate the behavior of others so as to achieve a desired criminal result, meaning that he was an “organizer” within the meaning of § 3B1.1(c). View "USA V. SOHIEL KABIR" on Justia Law

Defendants used fake driver’s licenses and a false tissue procurement company as cover to infiltrate conferences that Planned Parenthood hosted or attended. Using the same strategy, defendants also arranged and attended lunch meetings with Planned Parenthood and visited Planned Parenthood health clinics. During these conferences, meetings, and visits, defendants secretly recorded Planned Parenthood staff without their consent. After secretly recording for roughly a year-and-a-half, Defendants released on the internet edited videos of the secretly recorded conversations. After a jury trial, the district court entered judgment in favor of Planned Parenthood and awarded it statutory, compensatory, and punitive damages as well as limited injunctive relief.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s judgment, after a jury trial, in favor of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., and other plaintiffs on claims of trespass, fraud, conspiracy, breach of contracts, unlawful and fraudulent business practices, violating civil RICO, and violating various federal and state wiretapping laws. Affirming in part, the panel held that the compensatory damages were not precluded by the First Amendment. The panel held that under Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663 (1991), and Animal Legal Def. Fund v. Wasden, 878 F.3d 1184 (9th Cir. 2018), facially constitutional statutes apply to everyone, including journalists. The panel reversed the jury’s verdict on the claim under the Federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 2511(2)(d), and vacated the related statutory damages for violating this statute. View "PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION, ET AL V. CENTER FOR MEDICAL PROGRESS, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendant kidnapped Jane Doe, then age 12 years old, and drove her from California to Nevada knowing that she would engage in prostitution. The defendant entered into a written plea agreement pursuant to which, in exchange for the government’s promise to drop five serious criminal charges, he would plead guilty to two lesser crimes (interstate travel in aid of unlawful activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1952(a)(3)(A)) and would pay Doe restitution.   The panel granted Jane Doe’s petition for a writ of mandamus pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 3771(d)(3), a provision of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, in a case in which the district court concluded that it lacked statutory authority to order Defendant to pay restitution to Jane Doe. The panel published the opinion to reiterate what this court held in two cases decided three decades ago: 18 U.S.C. Section 3663(a)(3) grants statutory authority to district courts to award restitution whenever a defendant agrees in a plea agreement to pay restitution. The panel instructed the district court to address, in the first instance, Defendant’s evidentiary challenges and other arguments concerning the appropriate amount of restitution View "JANE DOE V. USDC-NVL" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession of crack cocaine and a gun in 2007. He was sentenced to 107 months of incarceration. In a violation of parole hearing, the district court sentenced Defendant to consecutive 24-month sentences after finding he violated the conditions of his supervised release by possessing two guns and ammunition.On appeal, Defendant argued that 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3583(g)’s requirement that a judge impose a term of imprisonment based on conduct that constitutes a federal crime violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments and that his violations should therefore have been determined beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury. He also challenged his sentences on Double Jeopardy grounds.The Ninth Circuit affirmed, explaining that Sec. 3583(g) is more like “ordinary revocation” than “punishment for a new offense,” and that Defendant’s argument is not supported by Justice Breyer’s controlling concurring opinion in United States v. Haymond, 139 S. Ct. 2369 (2019). Defendant's Double Jeopardy challenges similarly failed because 1.) He possessed more than one weapon and 2.) The violations related to separate counts in the indictment. View "USA V. JAMES RICHARDS" on Justia Law