9th Circuit Court of Appeals coming to Idaho Falls

IDAHO FALLS — For the first time in history, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will be holding a special sitting in Idaho Falls to hear two criminal cases. The nation’s 13 circuit courts of appeals are the highest federal courts in the land after the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The 9th Circuit is the largest circuit court in the country,” said Judge Ryan Nelson in an interview with EastIdahoNews.com. “It’s a really unique opportunity where three judges — it’ll be a three-judge panel — from the 9th Circuit will be in Idaho Falls.”

The public, students and legal officials are invited to attend the hour-long special sitting at 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 18 in the Centennial Courtroom at the Bonneville County Courthouse.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals covers nine states and two U.S. territories — including Idaho, Alaska, California, Arizona, Montana, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The court consists of 29 active judges who “hear appeals of decisions in cases that have been decided by U.S. district courts,” its website states.

Nelson is the only active judge on the court from Idaho, succeeding Judge Randy Smith of Pocatello. He is also the first judge to serve on the court with chambers in Idaho Falls.

He was nominated to serve on the court by President Donald Trump and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Oct. 11, 2018.

“This is a great opportunity for the public to familiarize themselves with what is basically the most important court in the West,” Nelson said. “For most litigants in federal court in the West, this will be the last court of resort for them, unless they’re able to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Most of the court’s cases are heard in San Francisco, Pasadena, Portland or Seattle.

However, five to 10 times a year, the court will hold special sittings at locations around the circuit, typically at law schools, said Bill Cracraft, communication specialist for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in an e-mail on Tuesday.

Previous sittings have been held in Boise, Pocatello and Moscow.

The judges will be hearing arguments for two criminal cases from Idaho at the Bonneville County Courthouse, according to its calendar:

• Johnson v. Gentry – “An Idaho prisoner appeals the denial of her habeas corpus petition challenging her life sentences for two counts of first-degree murder.”
• USA v. Alizadah Nawai – “Appeal from conviction for attempted coercion and enticement, sexual exploitation of a minor child and transfer of obscene matter to a minor.”

“Those are a couple of big criminal cases, and that will be interesting,” Nelson said. “We don’t get a ton of criminal cases where you have a life sentence imposed, so these are obviously important cases for the court and important cases for the parties involved.”

Nelson has served on the court for nearly six years. Before his appointment, he was the general counsel for Melaleuca. He has extensive legal experience in the federal government, working in the White House and the Department of Justice.

He served as “special counsel for Supreme Court nominations to the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the deputy assistant attorney general of the Environmental and Natural Resources Division and as the deputy general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget,” according to the Federalist Society.

Nelson graduated from Idaho Falls High School in 1991, Brigham Young University with a B.A. in English in 1996 and J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University in 1999. He clerked for Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Senate Legal Counsel Tom Griffith during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, and Judges Richard Mosk and Charles Brower with the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague.

He is the second Idaho Falls High School graduate to serve as a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The first was Thomas Nelson, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 and served until 2004.

The appellate process

For each appeal, the judges and their law clerks review the case, research, review the district court’s opinion and formulate an opinion, he said.

“By the time you come into argument, there’s been a lot of preparation that’s done by each of the judges on that case,” Nelson said.

The court’s decisions set precedence for the entire circuit.

“So when we decide a case, if we issued a published opinion, that published opinion is binding on all future 9th Circuit panels, and it’s also binding on all of the district court judges in all of the nine states throughout the circuit,” Nelson explained.

The court decides approximately 12,000 cases every year, he said. Out of those, only 10 to 15 will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Everyone has an automatic right of appeal to the 9th Circuit, but after the 9th Circuit, the only appeal you get is to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Nelson said.

The Supreme Court reviews around 60 cases a year from appellate throughout the nation.

Nelson said that is why Congress requires three judges serve on a panel to review each case brought on appeal to the circuit court.

“It’s just an extra layer of protection to make sure that those cases get a significant review,” Nelson said. “It’s worth noting that for 99.9% of the cases that we hear in the 9th Circuit, this will be the last opportunity they have to have their case heard.”