California appellate court rules that defendants must be allowed to argue aggravating sentencing factors to a jury, reversing an upper-term firearm enhancement where the trial court denied closing argument on those factors.
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 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.
California’s Sixth District Court of Appeal upholds lifetime sex offender registration for offenders convicted of lewd acts with minors under Penal Code section 288(c)(1), rejecting an equal protection challenge comparing them to section 288(a) offenders who face shorter registration periods.
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 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 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 California Supreme Court holds that a non-killer accomplice with intent to kill is guilty of first-degree felony murder only if they aided the actual killer in the lethal act itself, not merely the underlying felony — reopening resentencing for many defendants previously denied.