Eastern District of California Blog

Chief Judge Warns Of Impending EDCA Judicial Shortage

A Fresno-area federal judge has sounded the alarm about U.S. Eastern District Court vacancies that could lead to a “an impending, acute and judicial catastrophe.”

Presiding Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill sent a letter on Friday to the White House and Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, warning about impending retirements on the court with the highest caseload in the nation for more than two decades.

Fresno Bee, 10/21/19; see also Huffington Post, 10/21/19

 

Two Recent Fresno Jury Verdicts

On May 9, 2019, a Fresno jury found the defendant guilty of six counts of methamphetamine and sex trafficking offenses in United States v. Chavez, No. 1:17-CR-0198-LJO.

On May 7, 2019, a Fresno jury found one defendant guilty of attempting to kill an Atwater correctional officer and another defendant guilty of assault on a correctional officer in United States v. Mota, No. 1:18-CR-0035-LJO.  Four other defendants pled guilty to aggravated assault in the case.

EDCA Court Won't Unseal Details About DOJ's Efforts To Uncrypt Facebook Calls

Details about the government’s failed effort to wiretap encrypted calls made over Facebook’s Messenger app must remain secret, a federal court judge ruled.

U.S. Chief District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill, ruling from federal court in Fresno, California, issued Monday a five-page order denying motions filed by groups seeking access to sealed documents involving an unsuccessful bid quietly mounted by the Justice Department last year to eavesdrop on Facebook Messenger calls related to an investigation of the MS-13 criminal gang.

“The materials at issue in this case concern techniques that, if disclosed publicly, would compromise law enforcement efforts in many, if not all, future wiretap investigations,” wrote Judge O’Neill, an appointee of former President George W. Bush.

The judge’s order addressed separate but similar motions to unseal files last year after Reuters first reported the Justice Department sought to force Facebook to help investigators wiretap certain calls conducted over the social network’s Messenger app.

Washington Times, 2/13/19

Chief Judge To Leave Federal Bench, Warns of EDCA Judge Shortage

According to gvwire, 10/8/18,

Judge Lawrence O’Neill is leaving the federal bench in 16 months. He’s circled the date on his calendar: Jan. 31, 2020.

But he’s concerned hyper-partisanship will delay his replacement and cause such crippling judicial gridlock that some suspects will have to go free.

Serving as the chief district judge for the Eastern District of California since 2016 (and on the federal bench since 1999), O’Neill told a Maddy Institute luncheon crowd last week of an impending crisis.

“We’re in trouble in the eastern district,” he said.

Judicial Shortage

The judge notes that there are only six district judges on staff (as well as 21 judges in other categories). Each has a load at any given time of 900 cases, more than twice the national average. The district stretches from the California-Oregon border, south through Kern County, with courts in Fresno, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Redding, and Yosemite National Park.

O’Neill isn’t the only judge planning to leave the federal bench. U.S. District Judge Morrison England (based in Sacramento) plans to retire next year.

Civil cases, especially involving water, would be in jeopardy, according to O’Neill. Criminal suspects could go free because there is just not enough time or space to try them at the federal court.

A June 2018 open letter, by O’Neill and eight other judges, warned that the lack of new judges and increased caseload “will result in an inescapable consequence of being wholly unable to handle civil matters.”

Battle Over ADA Claims Involving Fresno Restaurant in EDCA Court

The August 8 Fresno Bee has an interesting article over an American with Disabilities Act (ADA) battle involving Zlfred's restaurant in Fresno.  While the initial action in Fresno County has been dismissed, the parties are still litigating the restaurant's racketeering countersuit in Fresno federal court. 

Ninth Circuit Reinstates Kings County Jail Wrongful Death Suit

A federal appellate court has reinstated a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of an inmate who was killed by his co-defendant and cellmate inside the Kings County Jail five years ago.

Judge Lawrence O’Neill dismissed the federal civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Fresno in February 2015.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, however, ruled this month that O’Neill erred: “In California, prison officials owe detainees a duty to protect them from foreseeable harm.”

And under California law, “a jailer may be held partially liable even if the harm was primarily due to the detainees’ own negligence,” the ruling says.

The lawsuit centers on the April 2012 killing of John Cotta, 30, of Tulare. In June 2013, Heath Derrick Parnell pleaded guilty to murdering Cotta inside a jail cell that the two men shared.

Fresno Bee, 4/11/17

EDCA Court Blocks Cal Law That Allows Public Officials To Demand Their Private Info Be Taken Down From Internet

Gun owners' rights advocates are free to publish the home addresses and telephone numbers of California state lawmakers who voted for firearms restrictions, a federal judge decided Monday.

It is the second time in a week that judges decided that California lawmakers went too far in protecting the private information of public figures.

U.S. Chief District Judge Lawrence O'Neill of Fresno issued a preliminary injunction Monday blocking a state law that lets public officials demand that their private information be removed from the internet if they fear for their safety or the safety of their families.

O'Neill ruled that the state law is too broad and violates the advocates' free speech rights. Publishing the lawmakers' personal information "is a form of political protest," he said in a 38-page opinion.

Sac Bee, 2/27/17.  Here is Judge O'Neill's ruling from the Washington Post.  For more background, see Dan Morain's opinion on the ruling and the blogger who published the addresses of 40 state legislators who voted in favor of legislation requiring people who buy bullets to go through brief background checks first.

Ninth Circuit Reverses EDCA Court's Summary Judgment On Prisoner's Excessive Force Claim

In Shepard v. Bass, No. 13-15032 (9th Cir. July 23, 2015), the Ninth Circuit reversed the Fresno district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the officer on a prisoner's claim that the officer used excessive force, including pepper spray, because the prisoner argued with the officer after a prison rules violation hearing. 

EDCA Court Denies Fresno Police Summary Judgment On False Arrest and Excessive Force Claims Of 15-Year-Old Hoover High School Student

A woman can pursue punitive damages for an incident in which Fresno police officers allegedly manhandled her and arrested her for loitering at a popular after-school hangout when she was 15, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence O'Neill found that it remains to be seen whether the officers acted maliciously toward Idalia Morgutia-Johnson, so she can continue to seek punitive damages.

Johnson was a 15-year-old student at Hoover High School when the incident occurred on Aug. 24, 2010. That day, she and a group of Hoover students were at Big Mama's, a restaurant near the high school.

Courthouse News, 4/28/15

EDCA Court Rejects Second Amendment Challenge to $19 Gun Fee

A $19 fee on every gun sale in California to fund a firearm enforcement program run by the state Department of Justice is constitutional, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence O'Neill ruled Monday that the fee falls outside of the scope of the Second Amendment.

Courthouse News, 3/4/15