9th Circuit Court

9th Circuit overturns judge who deemed California’s death-penalty system ‘dysfunctional’

A federal appeals court has overturned a federal judge’s finding that “systemic delay and dysfunction” in California’s process of reviewing capital sentences had made the death penalty unconstitutionally arbitrary. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against inmate Ernest DeWayne Jones because he sought to apply a…

Nov 13, 2015 9:17 AM CST

9th Circuit hotline addresses mental decline in aging federal judges

Colleagues who are worried about mental decline in federal judges in the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can call a hotline to get advice on how to deal with the problem. The hotline is one of several steps taken by the 9th Circuit to address the problem…

Nov 9, 2015 8:13 AM CST

9th Circuit: Child porn evidence doesn’t have to be tossed, though NCIS violated federal law

An en banc federal appeals court has ruled that U.S. Navy investigators violated federal law when they provided evidence in a civilian child pornography case, though the decision won’t benefit the defendant. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to toss the evidence against Michael Dreyer of…

Nov 5, 2015 11:31 AM CST

Lawyer charged in marijuana operation case says state and federal laws ban prosecution

Arrested last year at his Denver law office, a Colorado attorney facing federal charges in connection with an alleged illegal marijuana operation says he shouldn’t be prosecuted. That’s because state law permits him to do what he did and a federal budget amendment bans the use of federal funds to…

Nov 3, 2015 1:55 PM CST

9th Circuit panel vacates death row inmate’s conviction because of biased jury selection

An appellate court has tossed aside a 29-year-old guilty verdict and death sentence against an African-American inmate due to racial bias. The Sacramento Bee reported on Monday that a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has upheld a lower court ruling vacating…

Oct 27, 2015 12:30 PM CDT

9th Circuit OKs doubling of prison term for defendant who laughed at sentencing

Laughter after he was sentenced to a year in federal prison for a probation violation cost a California defendant another year behind bars. When U.S. District Judge Lawrence O’Neill challenged Ramon Ochoa’s demeanor he insisted he hadn’t been laughing at the sentence and apologized. But the Fresno judge, who’d just…

Oct 23, 2015 7:00 AM CDT

Amazon’s display of competitor brands doesn’t violate trademark, 9th Circuit says in reversal

Amazon.com doesn’t infringe trademark rights when it displays competing brands of wristwatches in response to a query for a brand it doesn’t carry, a federal appeals court has ruled. The decision (PDF) on Wednesday by a panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses its earlier…

Oct 22, 2015 10:08 AM CDT

Yoga poses are about healing, and not copyrightable, says 9th Circuit

A series of 26 poses, which yogi Bikram Choudhury claims to have created and refers to as “the sequence,” is an “unprotectable idea” which cannot be copyrighted, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday. The court found that Choudhury’s breathing exercises are also not subject to…

Oct 9, 2015 2:30 PM CDT

Antitrust law applies to NCAA, but payments to college athletes may be banned, 9th Circuit rules

A federal appeals court has reversed an injunction that allowed schools to pay college athletes up to $5,000 per year in deferred compensation, saying the lower court decision was based on “threadbare evidence.” The decision (PDF) on Wednesday by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses an…

Sep 30, 2015 11:13 AM CDT

9th Circuit rejects Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s attempt to remove judge in racial profiling case

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dealt another loss to Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, the Arizona Republic reported this week. The decision came in the civil contempt hearings against Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, for defying court orders in a seven-year-old racial profiling…

Sep 17, 2015 2:13 PM CDT

Copyright holders must consider fair use before sending takedown notices, 9th Circuit says

It’s been eight years since Stephanie Lenz posted the video of her infant son dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” onto YouTube that started her long-running conflict with Universal Music Corp., the holder of Prince’s copyrights. According to Reuters, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday…

Sep 14, 2015 5:20 PM CDT

Once-convicted lawyer turns tables on feds, seeks $215K for defense fees in $52M mortgage-fraud case

Convicted two years ago in a $52 million mortgage-fraud scheme, a New Orleans lawyer won a reversal of his conviction in July from a federal appeals court. Now David Mark hopes to get reimbursement from the government of some $215,000 in attorney’s fees and costs, due to alleged wrongdoing by…

Sep 14, 2015 2:30 PM CDT

Trial court should not have dismissed law student’s disability complaint, 9th Circuit says

A federal appeals court Thursday revived a man’s disability claim against the University of Idaho concerning his treatment as a law student there. The trial court should not have summarily denied James Shirley’s pro se motion to file a second amended complaint in a so-called screening dismissal, the San Francisco-based…

Sep 11, 2015 1:38 PM CDT

Appeals court rules against anti-Muslim group seeking bus ads with false terrorist-reward claims

An anti-Muslim group isn’t entitled to a preliminary injunction that would allow it to post its terrorist-reward ads on buses in the Seattle area, a federal appeals court has ruled. The American Freedom Defense Initiative is unlikely to succeed in its First Amendment case because its ads falsely claim the…

Aug 14, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Mastermind gets 15 years in ‘mind-boggling’ scheme to fleece Vegas HOAs of millions

Bringing to a close the largest known public corruption case in Southern Nevada, a federal judge on Thursday sentenced a former construction company boss portrayed by prosecutors as its mastermind to 15½ years in prison. The case, which brought down multiple attorneys among a total of nearly 40 defendants, involved…

Aug 7, 2015 11:37 AM CDT