The Ninth Circuit holds that abandonment recognized by a Mexican court constitutes a ‘legal separation’ for derivative citizenship under former 8 U.S.C. section 1432, granting a petition for review and finding the petitioner derived U.S. citizenship from his naturalized mother.
The Ninth Circuit denies qualified immunity to two former SFPD inspectors accused of fabricating evidence that led to Joaquin Ciria’s 32-year wrongful imprisonment, holding that the right not to be charged based on deliberately fabricated evidence was clearly established by 1990.
In a companion to the published Ciria v. Gerrans opinion, the Ninth Circuit grants qualified immunity on the wrongfully imprisoned man’s son’s familial association claim, finding the specific right was not clearly established in 1990 — even though the father’s own fabrication-of-ev
The Ninth Circuit reversed dismissal of a civil RICO action against tribal officials, holding that officials sued in their individual capacities for money damages are not protected by tribal sovereign immunity and the tribe was not a required party.
Ninth Circuit affirms firearms convictions, holding that silencers are optional accessories outside the Second Amendment’s plain text and that the NFA’s registration requirements are a constitutional shall-issue licensing regime.
Ninth Circuit holds that a court must rule on the merits of a pending anti-SLAPP motion—and the defendant’s right to statutory fees—even after the plaintiff voluntarily dismisses the lawsuit.
The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reverses a district court that ended a $1.1 million civil forfeiture case as a discovery sanction, holding that the claimant established standing and gave the government enough information to investigate his ownership claim.
The Ninth Circuit reverses the denial of qualified immunity for a Gardena jail officer whose detainee committed suicide, finding that inconsistent information about the detainee’s suicide risk did not put the officer on clear constitutional notice—over a vigorous dissent.
The Ninth Circuit reverses summary judgment for prison officials who denied a California prisoner prescription transitional lenses based on a blanket policy rather than individualized medical judgment, finding triable Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference issues.
The Ninth Circuit held that federal agencies likely violated the First Amendment by terminating University of California research grants based on recipients’ perceived viewpoints on DEI and environmental justice, while ruling that a separate class of grant termination challenges falls outside
The Ninth Circuit held that hash-value matches between a suspect’s files and known child pornography can establish probable cause for a search warrant without agents first downloading and visually confirming the files.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of motel owners’ constitutional challenge to Los Angeles’s revocation of their use permit after the city declared the property a public nuisance linked to prostitution and criminal activity.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed denial of “Shrimp Boy” Chow’s habeas petition, finding his defense team’s strategic decisions did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel despite acknowledged shortcomings in trial performance.
The Ninth Circuit held that courts may not include departures when calculating the amended guideline range in sentence reduction proceedings under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), making defendants whose original sentences fell below the amended range ineligible for reductions.
The Ninth Circuit holds that Younger abstention does not apply to a class action by LA County foster youth challenging systemic failures in housing, mental health, and services, because ongoing dependency proceedings are designed to protect children—not prosecute parents.
The Ninth Circuit held that a public university violated a professor’s First Amendment rights by investigating and reprimanding him for inserting a counter-statement to a recommended land acknowledgment in his syllabus.
The Ninth Circuit held that Loper Bright’s elimination of Chevron deference does not undermine AEDPA’s deferential standard in habeas cases, reversing a district court’s grant of relief to a California death-row inmate.
The Ninth Circuit holds that when a racially biased juror is discovered and removed before a verdict is accepted, courts must apply the Remmer framework’s heavy presumption of prejudice—and reverses a tax-fraud conviction because the government could not rebut that presumption.
The Ninth Circuit holds that DHS is not constitutionally required to translate the entirety of a Notice to Appear — including the obligation to update one’s address with the immigration court — into the alien’s native language.
The Ninth Circuit holds that federal kidnapping under 18 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1) can be committed by deception alone, but vacates the murder-kidnapping conviction because the trial judge improperly coerced a unanimous verdict from a deadlocked jury.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of habeas relief for a California death row inmate, finding that the trial judge’s informal and at times inappropriate comments during trial did not demonstrate bias or render the proceedings fundamentally unfair.
The Ninth Circuit applies the Groff undue-hardship test and affirms summary judgment for a regional healthcare system that denied COVID-19 vaccination religious exemptions to nine clinical employees during the Delta-variant surge.
The Ninth Circuit publishes that the state-created danger doctrine reaches only bodily-integrity harm, not lost profits — but reverses dismissal of state-law nuisance claims to let businesses pursue equitable tolling under American Pipe.
The Ninth Circuit issues an amended opinion granting a Rhines stay-and-abey for an Arizona death-row petitioner’s IAC-at-sentencing claim, and remands his Atkins intellectual-disability claim for the district court to address in the first instance.