9th Circuit Court

After reading your editorial regarding a bill I'm co-sponsoring to split the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (June 23), I've come to one of two conclusions: Either your editorial writers don't care about the legal hardships caused Montanans and the Northwest by the 9th Circuit, or they can't see the forest for the trees. Twice in the past I have supported legislation to split the 9th Circuit, but it was not given fair consideration. In order to better the chances of the bill, I have invoked the Senate privilege of placing holds on all nominees to the court until the bill passes.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the government acted correctly when it ordered a Northern California oyster farm to close to clear the way for the first marine wilderness on the West Coast. The 2-1 decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals deals a blow to the years-long effort by a Marin County oyster farmer to extend his federal lease in Point Reyes National Seashore. Then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar refused to grant the extension in November, citing terms of an agreement the former owners of the farm signed 40 years ago as Congress moved toward creating the marine wilderness.

Senate Democrats rejected on Tuesday a Republican demand that next week's scheduled confirmation hearing on Goodwin Liu's nomination to a federal appeals court be postponed, setting up an all-out partisan battle over the Berkeley law professor. Senate Republicans, who complain that Liu had originally failed to respond adequately to numerous questions on a Judiciary Committee questionnaire, pledged to continue pressing for a new hearing date. Liu, President Obama's choice for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, had been expected to testify March 24. But in the aftermath of the March 21 healthcare vote, Senate Republicans forced a postponement by invoking a little-used procedural rule disallowing any committee hearings more than two hours after the start of a Senate session.

SAN FRANCISCO - In a reversal of past decisions, a federal appeals court decided Wednesday that California police officers may be protected by the 1st Amendment when they report corruption and misconduct within their departments. An 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived a lawsuit by Angelo Dahlia, a former Burbank police detective, who said he was punished for telling the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department about alleged brutality in the Burbank Police Department.

Re "No Pal of the Environment" (editorial, March 23), on William G. Myers III, nominee for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals: Having worked with Myers for a number of years, please let me tell you why he should serve on the 9th Circuit. The 9th Circuit covers the West, and Myers would fill an Idaho seat recently vacated by an Idaho judge. Though no federal judge should represent anyone or anything but federal law, to the extent the 9th Circuit currently represents anything other than embarrassment -- declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, for instance, and summary reversals -- it represents President Clinton, who appointed 14 of its active 26 judges.

In the usually decorous environs of a full federal appeals court hearing, 11 black-robed judges Tuesday provoked surprised laughter as they debated whether an activist's Nazi salute to the mayor of Santa Cruz was an act of free speech or a disruption of public order. "It's OK to give the finger to a police officer," Judge Stephen Reinhardt noted helpfully, citing a previous ruling within the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge M. Margaret McKeown asked the Santa Cruz city attorney if boisterous positive expressions — mugging gleefully and pumping two thumbs up — at City Council meetings would also violate the rules of order.

Court-ordered mediation has failed to settle a lawsuit over delayed and denied care for wounded veterans so the case now goes to a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel, the court reported Tuesday. Two veterans groups brought suit in 2007, alleging systemic failures in the Department of Veterans Affairs' processing of disability claims. They noted that 3,000 veterans die each year while their appeals are pending, and 18 veterans commit suicide each day on average, many suspected to be acts of despair by those with untreated post-traumatic stress disorder.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering, for the third time, the case of a California murderer who was sentenced to die in 1982 for the brutal killing of a young woman. Twenty years ago, the California Supreme Court affirmed a death sentence for Fernando Belmontes, but since then his case has bounced back and forth in the federal courts. Three times in this decade, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned his death sentence as flawed. The case is the latest skirmish in the long-running war between California prosecutors and the 9th Circuit over the death penalty -- and it helps explains the oddity of capital punishment in California.

Melvin Brunetti, a federal appeals court judge for the last 24 years whose opinions included upholding anti-hate crime legislation, broader Pentagon scrutiny of homosexuals' security clearances and the death penalty for Robert Alton Harris, has died. He was 75. Brunetti died Friday at his home in Reno after a long battle with cancer, his family told the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, to which he had been appointed by President Reagan in 1985. He had been on senior status with the appeals court since 1999, a semi-retirement in which a judge is replaced on the active roster but continues to handle a reduced caseload.

Republicans have finally had their shot at Goodwin Liu, the UC Berkeley professor nominated to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Liu is still standing. In a mostly superficial and scripted hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Liu's critics raised only one substantial issue to buttress their case that he is outside the mainstream, and Liu refuted it. In what we hope wasn't a preview of hearings for President Obama's next Supreme Court nominee, the proceedings plumbed irrelevancies such as Liu's tardiness in submitting some articles and speeches, his dearth of trial experience and his past criticism of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Republicans recycled familiar rhetoric about "judicial activism" and the need for judges to "interpret the statutes and Constitution as written," as if the meaning of those documents was always self-evident.

SACRAMENTO -- The timing couldn't be better for Abby Maurer's parents, who were visiting California from Guatemala for her brother's wedding. When they heard about the Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage, they hoped to witness Maurer's wedding to her partner of six years, Kim Kearsing, as well. But they doubted the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals would lift the stay so fast. Then they saw the news Friday, and Maurer, 30, quickly picked up the phone. "I called my parents and said, 'FYI, we might be getting married in an hour.'" They all assembled at the Sacramento County clerk's office, which was staying open until 7 p.m., two hours later than usual.

After the Supreme Court opened the way for gay marriages to resume in California, how soon can gay couples wed? Here are six big questions about what happens next.  When will gay marriages resume in California? The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on Proposition 8 will go into effect in 25 days -- which is Sunday, July 21. If normal procedures are followed, at that time the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco will be able to lift its stay on the original 2010 decision by U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker declaring Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional.  "The normal process is for this court to wait to be notified of the judgment by the clerk of the Supreme Court.

SAN FRANCISCO - An Arizona law that denies immigrants who are in the country without legal permission the right to post bail for a wide array of felonies won approval Tuesday from a divided federal appeals court. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided 2 to 1 to uphold Arizona's Proposition 100, a 2006 ballot measure that voters approved 78% to 22% as a state constitutional amendment to create bail exceptions for immigrants who lack authorization. Two immigrants who were denied bail under the law challenged it in a class-action lawsuit.

SAN FRANCISCO - Two Anaheim police officers said they pulled over a van at 2 a.m. after noticing it weaving in its own lane. The officers suspected the driver had illegal drugs. When the driver failed to obey police commands, a struggle ensued. One officer hit the driver on the arm with his flashlight and punched him in the face and head. The other officer hit the driver on the back of his head with a flashlight. When the driver began to accelerate with an officer inside the van, that officer shot the driver in the head, killing him. A divided federal appeals court decided Monday that the officers did not use excessive force in the 2009 incident.

A federal appeals court Monday reduced a former South Gate official's corruption convictions. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out former Treasurer Albert T. Robles' convictions for public corruption and money laundering but let stand five counts of bribery. Robles, who was accused of plundering the small, working-class city, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2006 for illegal conduct involving city contracts. The 9th Circuit ruling could trigger a reduction of his sentence, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or even possibly a retrial.

The fate of a new California law that would prohibit doctors and therapists from trying to change a minor's sexual orientation depends in part on rulings in other cases in which the government tried to restrict physicians' communications with their patients. Will the law be viewed as similar to a federal policy that prevented doctors from recommending marijuana to their patients? If so, the law perishes. Or is California's ban on so-called conversion therapy akin to a regulation upheld by the Supreme Court that required doctors to tell patients about the possibly detrimental effects of abortion?

President Obama will nominate UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, The Times has learned. Liu carries credentials that some conservatives love to hate -- including a leadership position in a progressive legal group and a record of opposing the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. But he has conservative admirers too. Liu has supported school choice as a solution to...

The Pledge of Allegiance to "one nation under God" doesn't violate a citizen's right to be free of state-mandated religion, a divided federal appeals court ruled Thursday in reversing one of its most controversial decisions. In a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said no federal law requires students to recite the pledge or the religious reference in it. The 9th Circuit had ruled in 2002 in a case brought by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the wording violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution's 1st Amendment, which prohibits the enactment of any law or official policy in support of a religion.

Los Angeles and other cities are barred by the U.S. Constitution from randomly seizing and destroying property homeless people temporarily leave unattended on city streets, a federal appeals court decided Wednesday. Upholding a court order against Los Angeles, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, 2-1, that the personal possessions the homeless leave for a short time on city sidewalks may be taken only if the possessions pose an immediate threat to public safety or health or constitute criminal evidence.

A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit against the manufacturer of Tasers, ruling the company had no duty to warn that repeated jolts from the stun guns could trigger death. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed unanimously that Arizona-based Taser International had no reason to advise police agencies in 2004 that the stun guns could cause metabolic acidosis, a condition in which lactic acid, produced during physical exertion, accumulates more quickly than the body can expel it. The condition raises the risk of a heart attack.