The Ninth Circuit denies en banc rehearing in a Nevada death-penalty habeas case, leaving in place a panel decision allowing the petitioner to invoke Martinez v. Ryan to revive long-defaulted trial-ineffective-assistance claims, over a forceful dissent from nine judges.
The Ninth Circuit affirms the denial of a Mexican spouse’s visa application, holding that after Department of State v. Muñoz a U.S. citizen spouse can still invoke the Mandel exception based on her First Amendment right to receive information, but that the consular officer’s reason-to-believe determination provides a facially legitimate and bona fide basis for denial.
The Ninth Circuit reverses a federal habeas grant in a California death-penalty case, holding that under AEDPA’s doubly deferential standard the California Supreme Court reasonably rejected the petitioner’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, including those based on cumulative prejudice.
The Ninth Circuit holds that the NVRA’s public inspection provision requires states to disclose records about their voter list maintenance activities but not the underlying statewide voter rolls themselves, affirming dismissal of an election-integrity nonprofit’s NVRA suit against Hawaii.
The Ninth Circuit affirms dismissal of Rohingya plaintiffs’ claims that Facebook’s design enabled the spread of anti-Rohingya content in Myanmar, holding that Section 230 immunity bars the suit, with three judges concurring to urge en banc reconsideration of the court’s Section 230 doctrine.
The Ninth Circuit grants a stay pending appeal of an Arizona district court injunction that had struck the word ‘operation’ from the state’s birth-certificate-amendment statute, leaving Arizona’s surgical-verification requirement in place while the merits appeal proceeds.
The Ninth Circuit affirms denial of an I-130 spousal petition under the marriage fraud bar, holding that the bar applies to attempts to enter sham marriages even without follow-on benefits applications and that USCIS need not produce the ex-spouse for cross-examination.
The Ninth Circuit stays a Portland district court injunction barring federal officers from using tear gas to disperse demonstrators outside an ICE facility, holding that nearby apartment residents likely have no substantive-due-process right to be free from incidental chemical exposure.
The Ninth Circuit stays a sweeping district court injunction that had restricted federal officers’ use of non-lethal crowd-control munitions and ordered ICE agent uniforms redesigned, holding the underlying First Amendment retaliation theory unlikely to succeed and the relief overbroad and improperly class-wide.
The Ninth Circuit reverses the dismissal of the County of San Bernardino’s coverage suit against ICSOP for cleanup costs at the Chino Airport, holding that the policies’ aggregate limits provision is ambiguous and does not cap property-damage coverage.