Andrew Jay Kleinfeld

The case involved the federal government's appeal of a 30-month sentence imposed on Jose Leal-Vega after his guilty plea to illegal reentry following deportation under 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The district court had applied only a four-level sentencing enhancement instead of the 16-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 for a prior 1999 California conviction under Health & Safety Code § 11351 for possession of a controlled substance for sale. The Ninth Circuit held that § 11351 does not categorically qualify as a "drug trafficking offense" because it covers substances broader than those listed in the federal Controlled Substances Act. However, applying the modified categorical approach, the court found that Leal-Vega's conviction record specified tar heroin, which is covered by federal law, making the 16-level enhancement applicable, and remanded for resentencing.

immigrationcriminal law

The case involved Galo Alejandro Ordonez, who after his 1994 drug conviction sought return of personal property seized by the government during his 1993 arrest under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g). Some items were returned, but others were lost or destroyed, leading Ordonez to request money damages as equitable relief. The district court dismissed the claim, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that sovereign immunity barred monetary awards because Rule 41(g) provides no express waiver of immunity and does not independently authorize damages. The court reasoned that even though the government's loss of property left the plaintiff without a remedy, equitable considerations alone cannot override the requirement for a clear congressional waiver of immunity. Jurisdiction was based on 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and the decision relied on precedent interpreting similar rules as not waiving immunity.

criminal lawpropertyprocedurefederal power

The case involved Huping Zhou, a former UCLA Health System research assistant, who accessed patient medical records without authorization after his employment was terminated. The government charged him under HIPAA's criminal provision, 42 U.S.C. § 1320d-6(a)(2), for knowingly obtaining individually identifiable health information in violation of the statute. Zhou moved to dismiss the information, arguing it failed to allege that he knew his conduct was illegal, but the district court denied the motion, and Zhou entered a conditional guilty plea. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the plain language of the statute requires only that the defendant knowingly obtained the health information and did so in violation of HIPAA, without needing proof that the defendant knew the act was unlawful. The court rejected arguments based on other criminal statutes, civil penalty provisions, and the rule of lenity, finding the text unambiguous.

criminal lawhealthcare

Janet Wood, a single City of San Diego retiree, sued the City under Title VII alleging that its surviving spouse pension benefit option discriminates on the basis of sex because the City pays more in aggregate benefits to married retirees (who are disproportionately male) than to single retirees like her, who receive only a refund or increased monthly payment. The district court dismissed her disparate treatment and disparate impact claims. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the disparate treatment claim failed for lack of any allegation of intentional discrimination and that the disparate impact claim failed as a matter of law under Supreme Court precedent in City of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power v. Manhart, which rejected similar challenges to gender-neutral pension structures as based on factors other than sex under the Equal Pay Act and Bennett Amendment. The court noted that Wood had Article III standing but that this did not salvage the claim.

civil rightslabor & employmentprocedure

The case involved Paul Edwards, an additional cardholder on a Wells Fargo Visa account opened by Hamid Maghamfar, who disputed several merchant charges under $1,000 and sought resolution from the bank under the Fair Credit Billing Act (part of the Truth in Lending Act) and Regulation Z. Wells Fargo initially handled the disputes but later stopped responding to Edwards directly, instead contacting only the Maghamfars as the account obligors, leading Edwards to sue for damages. The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Wells Fargo, holding that the bank's billing dispute resolution duties apply only to the primary obligor on the account, not to additional authorized cardholders who are not liable for payment. The court reasoned that the statute refers to obligations owed to obligors, and Regulation Z's references to periodic statements, withholding payment, and collection efforts would be nonsensical if applied to non-obligor users, even though they might know details of the transactions.

business & regulatory

This case involved tax-exempt labor unions that filed their required informational returns late with the IRS, resulting in penalties calculated by a statutory formula based on delay length and gross receipts. The unions sought relief through administrative hearings and court appeals, arguing reasonable cause for the delays or that the penalties should be reduced, but the IRS rejected these claims. The district court found no reasonable cause yet reduced the penalties as a matter of discretion, leading to an IRS appeal. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the relevant tax statutes provide no authority for courts to discretionarily reduce penalties in the absence of reasonable cause, leaving only the full statutory amount or none at all. The court affirmed the denial of costs to the unions and remanded for affirmation of the original penalties.

taxeslabor & employment

The case involved Felix Solorio Valdovinos's appeal from the denial of his habeas petition challenging his conviction for first-degree murder based on eyewitness testimony. The Ninth Circuit determined that the prosecution had withheld material information about prior photo lineups in which witnesses failed to identify or were uncertain about Valdovinos, violating Brady v. Maryland by depriving the defense of potentially exculpatory evidence that could have altered the trial outcome. The court reversed the district court's denial in part and remanded with instructions to issue a writ of habeas corpus unless California elects to retry Valdovinos. It separately upheld the rejection of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim under Strickland v. Washington due to lack of prejudice from counsel's failure to object to contradictory testimony.

criminal lawprocedure

In Teclezghi v. Holder, the petitioner sought asylum based on religious persecution but later moved to reopen her case, arguing that her prior attorneys provided ineffective assistance by failing to inquire about or raise a claim based on female genital mutilation, a practice affecting nearly 90 percent of women in her home country of Eritrea and recognized as persecution. The immigration judge and Board of Immigration Appeals denied relief, the Ninth Circuit panel dismissed the petition for review, and the full court considered whether to rehear the matter en banc after a dissent argued that the attorneys' omission fell below competence standards and warranted equitable tolling of the filing deadline. The court denied the petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc because the en banc call did not receive a majority of votes from active judges. The core reasoning centered on the procedural requirements under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 35 and the panel's prior conclusion that counsel had not performed incompetently by not proactively exploring the client's personal medical history absent any mention from the client.

immigrationprocedure

The case involved Amr Mohsen's appeal of his convictions by a jury on charges including conspiracy, multiple counts of perjury, subornation of perjury, mail fraud, obstruction of justice, contempt, witness tampering, and solicitation to commit arson, which arose from conduct during a patent dispute. The Ninth Circuit affirmed all convictions. It rejected challenges to the jury instructions on perjury and fraud elements, the denial of severance for certain counts, the prosecutor's closing argument as a constructive amendment of the indictment, the handling of a jury note requesting the indictment, and other claims regarding evidence, ineffective assistance, sentencing enhancements, and spillover prejudice, finding no plain error, abuse of discretion, or structural error under the applicable standards of review.

criminal lawprocedure

This case concerns a petition for a writ of mandamus in a consolidated securities fraud class action against NVIDIA Corporation under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA). Petitioner Roberto Cohen, appointed as co-lead plaintiff alongside another group, sought to vacate the district court's appointment of Girard Gibbs LLP as co-lead counsel (chosen by the other group) and to require appointment of his selected firm, Kahn Gauthier Swick, LLC. The Ninth Circuit granted the petition in part, ordering the district court to vacate the appointment of Girard Gibbs. The court reasoned that the PSLRA grants the lead plaintiff the right to select and retain class counsel, subject only to court approval for adequacy, and that the district court lacked authority to appoint different counsel based on its own assessment of qualifications when the lead plaintiff's choice was adequate.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

This case involved an insurance coverage dispute under directors and officers liability policies purchased by Visitalk, which later filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Visitalk, as debtor in possession, sued its former officers and directors for breaches of fiduciary duty involving alleged misuse of corporate funds, and assigned those claims to a creditors' trust; the insurers denied coverage based on the policies' insured versus insured exclusion, which bars claims brought by or on behalf of the company against its own directors and officers except in limited circumstances like independent shareholder derivative actions. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the exclusion applied because the claims originated from the company itself and the assignment to the trust did not render them independent of the insured entity. The court also addressed related attorneys' fees issues under Arizona law, concluding they were not recoverable against the trust in this context.

business & regulatory

The case concerned a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition filed by Stewart Jay Warren, who submitted a list of creditors but omitted the additional financial information required by 11 U.S.C. § 521(a)(1) and never filed it within the 45-day period specified in § 521(i)(1). The bankruptcy court waived the filing obligation after the deadline had passed, citing the statutory phrase allowing it to "order otherwise," but the district court held that dismissal of the case was mandatory once the deadline expired. The Ninth Circuit reversed, concluding that the bankruptcy court retained discretion to enter a waiver order after the 45-day period because the statute contains no explicit temporal restriction on that authority. The court therefore remanded for further proceedings without requiring automatic dismissal.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved Jon Eric Holley's petition for a writ of habeas corpus after his state conviction on multiple felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14, along with related charges of child endangerment and terrorist threats arising from an incident where he babysat two children. Holley argued that the trial court violated his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by excluding impeachment evidence and limiting cross-examination of the alleged victim regarding her prior statements, and that admission of evidence about his possession of sexually explicit materials, weapons, and prior battery of a girlfriend denied him due process. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of the petition and remanded for issuance of the writ, holding that the admission of irrelevant pornographic magazines and a matchbook cover created a substantial risk of unfair prejudice that rendered the trial fundamentally unfair under the Due Process Clause. The court further noted that the evidence had no permissible probative value linking it to the charged conduct and likely influenced the jury's verdict.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

In Cousins v. Lockyer, a former California inmate sued state officials including the Attorney General, the CDCR director, and a prison warden under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law, claiming he was wrongfully held for 19 months after an appellate court invalidated the penal code section under which he had been convicted and sentenced. The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the federal claims, holding that the Attorney General was protected by absolute prosecutorial immunity for actions within the scope of his prosecutorial duties and that the other defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because any constitutional right at issue was not clearly established. The court reversed and remanded the state-law claims, including false imprisonment, concluding that they were not barred by state statutory immunities and that federal qualified immunity does not apply to state causes of action.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

In this case, a bankruptcy trustee sought to avoid a debtor's pre-petition disclaimer of an inheritance from a revocable trust under Arizona law as a fraudulent conveyance under 11 U.S.C. § 548. The court held that the disclaimer did not qualify as a "transfer ... of an interest of the debtor in property" and affirmed the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel's refusal to avoid it. The core reasoning was that the Bankruptcy Code leaves the definition of property interests to state law under Butner v. United States, and Arizona law treats a valid disclaimer as preventing the interest from ever vesting in the beneficiary. The court distinguished Drye v. United States as applying to federal tax liens rather than bankruptcy avoidance actions.

propertyprocedure

The case involved Miguel Angel Ramirez, who was convicted after a jury trial of two counts of assault with intent to commit murder and two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, all occurring on the Tohono O’Odham Indian Reservation in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 113 and 1152. Ramirez appealed, arguing that the district court lacked jurisdiction because the government failed to prove the victims were Indians, that the court should have required a special verdict form on his self-defense claim, that the court gave inadequate responses to a jury question on specific intent, and that the prosecutor improperly forced him to comment on other witnesses’ veracity during cross-examination. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the government sufficiently established the victims’ Indian status under § 1152, that the district court adequately explained its decisions on the verdict form and jury instructions while preserving the government’s burden, and that any prosecutorial error did not rise to plain error causing prejudice or a miscarriage of justice.

criminal lawfederal powerprocedure

The case involved defendant Hoffman, who was convicted of cocaine possession under 21 U.S.C. § 844(a) and sentenced to the statutory maximum of one year in prison followed by one year of supervised release under 18 U.S.C. § 3583. He moved to dismiss a petition alleging violations of supervised release conditions, arguing that any resulting additional prison time would exceed the one-year maximum sentence. The court denied the motion, holding that the statutes permit revocation of supervised release to result in serving up to the full supervised release term in prison after the initial imprisonment. The reasoning was that supervised release must follow a prison term, the maximum supervised release term is one year, and revocation allows serving all or part of it in prison, as shown by the fact that even the shortest possible initial sentence (one day) plus a full year of revoked supervised release would exceed one year, making the defendant's limiting interpretation impossible without rendering parts of the statutes meaningless.

criminal law

This case involved a salvage operation where the owners and crew of the fishing vessel Sea Star rescued the derelict tug Gordon Gill in hazardous conditions near the Aleutian Islands in February 1987. The plaintiffs sought a salvage award from the Canadian owner of the tug. The court awarded $224,265, comprising expenses and a salvage award divided between owners and crew, after finding that the elements of a valid salvage claim were met, including maritime peril, voluntary action, and success in saving the vessel, while considering factors such as the dangers faced, the value of the vessels, and the efforts expended. The court rejected an additional claim for liability salvage.

property

The case involved a dispute over an alleged promise to renew a bank note, originally filed in state court against Alaska National Bank; after the bank entered receivership, the FDIC as receiver removed the action to federal court roughly three and a half months later. The court denied the plaintiffs' motion to remand, holding that the removal petition was timely under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b). The core reasoning was that the 30-day removal period begins only when the case becomes removable and the defendant receives notice via an amended pleading, motion, order, or similar paper; here, the FDIC did not become a party until the state court issued its substitution order under Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 25(c), which occurred within the 30-day window, and earlier events such as the receivership appointment or counsel substitutions did not make the controversy appear removable on the record.

procedurefederal power

This case involved Native villages in Alaska and two individuals seeking to force the state to recognize tribal court adoption decrees and issue amended birth certificates under the Indian Child Welfare Act, despite the tribes not having followed statutory procedures to reassume jurisdiction. The plaintiffs argued that inherent tribal sovereignty provided a basis for concurrent jurisdiction that would entitle the decrees to full faith and credit. The court determined that Alaska, as a Public Law 280 state, requires tribes to complete the Interior Department reassumption process for exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction over child custody matters, and no residual concurrent jurisdiction survives without compliance. The Eleventh Amendment barred retrospective claims, but the request for injunctive relief was denied because the statutory requirements had not been met. Summary judgment was granted to the defendants.

civil rightsfederal powerfamily law