Stevie Lamar Fields was convicted in California state court of heinous crimes, including murder, which he committed in the course of a three-week spree that he started just two weeks after completing a prison stretch for manslaughter. During the penalty phase of his trial, the jury foreman consulted a Bible, a dictionary, and other reference texts, made notes of points for and against the death penalty, then shared those notes with the jury. The foreman’s notes in favor of the death penalty included Biblical passages. Fields was sentenced to death. The District Court denied habeas relief on the conviction but granted it as to the death penalty. The Ninth Circuit’s…
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- Appellate Jurisdiction, Appellate Procedure, Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, Double Jeopardy, Federal Procedure
Expansive Congressional Authorization for Government Appeals in Criminal Cases
In U.S. v. Stanton, case. no. 06-10519 (9th Cir. August 31, 2007), Stanton was convicted by a U. S. Magistrate Judge in a bench trial. He appealed to the District Court, which reversed his conviction. The government appealed from the District Court order. Stanton makes a two-pronged challenge to the government’s right to appeal. First, he contends that jurisdiction is lacking because the government may appeal only where authorized by Congress and the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 USC §3731, does not explicitly authorize the government to appeal from a district court order reversing a conviction entered by a magistrate and ordering an entry of acquittal. Right on both counts, says…
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Jurisdiction over Church Property Issues
When does a Southern Baptist church cease to be a Southern Baptist church? I know that sounds like a set-up, but there’s no punchline here. It’s a serious question, and it was at the heart of a dispute decided by the a Monterey County Superior Court. In Central Coast Baptist Assn. v. First Baptist Church of Los Lomas, case no. H029958 (6th Dist. August 23, 2007), a reversionary clause in First Baptist’s constitution provided that its assets would pass to Central Coast, a voluntary association of Baptist churches, in the event of a “dissolution or winding up” of First Baptist or if it should “cease to be a Southern Baptist…
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The Reasonableness of Airport Screening: Consent, 9/11, and Terrorism
Here’s an interesting Fourth Amendment case from the Ninth Circuit today. In United States v. Aukai, case no. 04-10226 (August 10, 2007), an en banc panel of the Ninth holds that the administrative search at airport screening, including enhanced secondary screening, is reasonable with or without consent once the person attempts to access the secure area of the airport, even if he says he no longer wishes to board a plane. Aukai, after passing through the metal detector and having his personal effects screened without event as part of his entry to the secure area of the airport, was subjected to secondary screening because he had no ID. This screening…
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More on U.S. v. Larson
A few days ago, I blogged about the odd reasoning behind the en banc Ninth Circuit’s purported resolution in United States v. Larson of a 3-way intra-circuit split over the applicable standard of review in Confrontation Clause cases. Here’s some other blog coverage. While my post concentrated on the intra-circuit split, Split Circuits gives you coverage of the split among the federal circuits on the same issue. California Appellate Report comments on the odd 4-4-7 split vote of the en banc panel that results in one of the 4-judge opinions being the opinion of the court. Larson is Ninth Circuit Blog’s Case o’ the Week, where the federal defenders’ blog…
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Processing Irony in a Ninth Circuit Equal Protection Case
Circuit Judge Berzon hooked me with this opening paragraph of U.S. v. Trimble, case no. 06-30298 (May 30, 2007): The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. The United States produced its first automobile in 1877, and the first traffic ticket issued in 1904. This appeal to the Ninth Circuit was over a traffic ticket. Specifically, the penalty imposed for the violations as a result of the form of ticket used. Notwithstanding the minor nature of the offenses, the case implicates a major constitutional doctrine — equal protection. Trimble was ticketed on a military base. The officer who wrote Trimble’s ticket did so on a brand new form that imposed…
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Legal Blogosphere Reacts as Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on CDA Immunity for Online Services
Yesterday’s Ninth Circuit decision in Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com, LLC, case no. 04-56916 (May 15, 2007) has the digital legal world abuzz . . . as one should expect of the latest decision on the scope of immunity afforded to online services by the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”), 47 U.S.C. § 230(c). In this case, two municipal fair housing councils sued Roommates.com, an online clearinghouse for those seeking to obtain roommates or move in as one. They alleged that the website published discriminatory roommate preferences in violation of the Fair Housing Act and various state laws. The district court found Roommates immune under the CDA and granted summary judgment…
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California Joins Jurisdictions Holding that Injunction Against Speech Already Proven at Trial to be Defamatory is Constitutional
In a rather comprehensive analysis of the constitutional doctrine of prior restraint, the California Supreme Court holds in Balboa Island Village Inn, Inc. v. Lemen, case no. S127904 (April 26, 2007), that speech already proven at trial to be defamatory may be enjoined without running afoul of the First Amendment. Reaching back more than half a millennium to Blackstone’s commentaries as well as evaluating present-day commentaries and U. S. Supreme Court cases, the Balboa Island majority offers a primer on its view of the prior restraint doctrine. The majority draws the line between speech already adjudicated to be unprotected by the First Amendment and that which has not: “In determining…
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California Anti-SLAPP Statute Does Not Protect Acts in Furtherance of Free Exercise of Religion
When defendants were sued by their neighbors for nuisance arising from smoke and ash entering the neighbors’ properties from fires defendants regularly lit as part of religious rituals in their backyard, they filed a motion to dismiss under the anti-SLAPP statute (Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16). The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s denial of the motion, rejecting the defendant’s contention that section 425.16 was intended to protect acts associated with the free exercise of religion. Section 425.16 “did not import wholesale the protections of the First Amendment.” The statute mentions only two of the rights enumerated in the First Amendment — freedom of speech and the right…