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9th u s circuit court of appeals
Palestinians Seek US Appeals Court Review of Biden Genocide Complicity Case
"The U.S. is providing the bombs for this genocide," said one plaintiff. "I have lost countless friends and neighbors... When will the courts uphold the law and stop the horror?"
Aug 30, 2024
Six weeks after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit filed by Palestinians, Palestinian Americans, and rights groups accusing senior Biden administration officials of complicity in Israel's Gaza genocide, plaintiffs in the case on Thursday asked the full federal appellate court to revisit their suit.
The plaintiffs' petition—which was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the law firm Van Der Hout LLP—requests an en banc rehearing of their case, in which U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are defendants. To win such a rehearing, a case must involve a matter of "exceptional importance" or be inconsistent with previous court rulings.
"With unconditional U.S. support, Israel has killed about 40,000 Palestinians, injured more than 90,000, forcibly displaced 2 million, and pushed large segments of Gaza into famine," CCR said in a statement. "Israel's actions, which followed numerous expressions of eliminationist intent by its leaders, have led many legal experts and scholars to conclude that it is committing genocide, the most serious human rights crime."
"With unconditional U.S. support, Israel has killed about 40,000 Palestinians, injured more than 90,000, forcibly displaced 2 million, and pushed large segments of Gaza into famine."
Plaintiff Ayman Nijim said: "Just this week, my brother's apartment building in Gaza was completely destroyed—the second time he lost his home, after our family house was obliterated in 2009. The U.S. is providing the bombs for this genocide. I have lost countless friends and neighbors, so many that I couldn't know where to start to grieve. When will the courts uphold the law and stop the horror?"
The lawsuit—originally filed in November in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland—sought to stop the Biden administration from aiding Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Billions of dollars worth of U.S.-supplied weapons have played a critical role in Israel's war and have been used in some of the deadliest Israel Defense Forces massacres of Palestinians.
While the court found that "the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law," it dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds in late January. The 9th Circuit subsequently granted an expedited appeal in the case, which was heard by the three-judge panel in June and dismissed the following month.
"For almost 11 months we have witnessed the intentional destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza made possible by these officials," CCR senior staff attorney Pam Spees said on Friday. "With this ruling, the panel has said our courts are too small to do the job they were assigned at the founding—to be a co-equal branch in our government and a check and balance on presidential power."
"If the 9th Circuit doesn't course-correct here, it will be giving this and future presidents license to violate the law at will in the realm of foreign relations," Spees added.
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'Stunning Abdication': Appeals Court Dismisses Biden Genocide Complicity Case
"We turned to the law to help stop the horror, and the court chose to do nothing," said one plaintiff in the case. "We are beyond disappointed."
Jul 16, 2024
Palestine defenders on Tuesday decried a U.S. federal appellate panel's dismissal of a case brought by Palestinians accusing senior Biden administration officials of failing to prevent and complicity in Israeli genocide in Gaza.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed a lower court's dismissal of the lawsuit against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, which was led by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of several Palestinian groups and individuals.
During a Tuesday interview on Democracy Now!, CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher—who represented plaintiffs in the case—said its dismissal "essentially gives the blank check to carry out any kind of conduct that the executive wants in times of genocide, in times of war."
Gallagher's interview followed a Monday statement in which she referred to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting the president "absolute immunity" for "official acts."
"On the heels of Trump v. United States, this stunning abdication of the court's role to serve as a check on the executive even in the face of its support for genocide should set off alarm bells for all," she said.
The lawsuit—originally filed in November in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland—sought to stop the Biden administration from aiding Israel's bombardment of Gaza. U.S. weapons have played a critical role in Israel's war, which Palestinian and international agencies say has killed, wounded, or left missing more than 137,500 Gazans.
While the court found that "the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law," it dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds in late January. The 9th Circuit subsequently granted an expedited appeal in the case, which was heard in June.
"This decision is mind-boggling and, frankly, scary," plaintiff Waeil Elbhassi said in a statement Monday. "It is just unfathomable, while we count our dead, witness the total obliteration of Gaza—aided by our own government."
"As the death toll keeps rising and we see nonstop images of carnage during this livestreamed genocide, the court washes its hands of our case," Elbhassi added. "We turned to the law to help stop the horror, and the court chose to do nothing. We are beyond disappointed. We have no choice but to continue to fight for our people. Our very existence is at stake."
Israel's conduct in Gaza—including alleged forced starvation that has fueled deadly famine in parts of the besieged strip—is under investigation by the International Court of Justice in a genocide case brought by South Africa.
Additionally, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan has applied for warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for crimes including extermination allegedly committed on and after October 7.
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'Unfathomably Cruel': Billionaire-Backed Justices Rule in Favor of Criminalizing Homelessness
"Maybe the right-wing justices could empathize with the most vulnerable Americans if they spent less time jet-setting on luxury vacations on their wealthy benefactors' dime," said one critic.
Jun 28, 2024
"SCOTUS just criminalized homelessness."
So said numerous legal experts and advocates for the unhoused Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority ruled that local governments can enforce bans on sleeping outdoors, regardless of whether municipalities are able to offer them shelter space.
In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the justices ruled in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson that officials can criminalize sleeping and camping on public property including parks, even when housing options are unavailable or unaffordable.
"We are disappointed that a majority of the court has decided that our Constitution allows a city to punish its homeless residents simply for sleeping outside with a blanket to survive the cold when there is nowhere else for them to go," said Ed Johnson, director of litigation at the Oregon Law Center, which represented unhoused Grants Pass residents in the case.
The decision overturned a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found bans on outdoor sleeping violated the 8th Amendment's proscription of cruel and unusual punishment.
"Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority. "A handful of federal judges cannot begin to 'match' the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding 'how best to handle' a pressing social question like homelessness."
Gorsuch suggested that unhoused people could invoke "necessity... insanity, diminished-capacity, and duress defenses" when they are prosecuted for poverty-related offenses.
In a dissent calling the criminalization of unhoused people "unconscionable and unconstitutional," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that "sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime."
"For some people, sleeping outside is their only option," she noted.
Sotomayor continued:
Homelessness is a reality for too many Americans. On any given night, over half a million people across the country lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. Many do not have access to shelters and are left to sleep in cars, sidewalks, parks, and other public places. They experience homelessness due to complex and interconnected issues, including crippling debt and stagnant wages; domestic and sexual abuse; physical and psychiatric disabilities; and rising housing costs coupled with declining affordable housing options.
"It is possible to acknowledge and balance the issues facing local governments, the humanity and dignity of homeless people, and our constitutional principles," Sotomayor asserted. "Instead, the majority focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local governments and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested."
"The Constitution provides a baseline of rights for all Americans rich and poor, housed and unhoused," Sotomayor added. "This court must safeguard those rights even when, and perhaps especially when, doing so is uncomfortable or unpopular."
Attorney Theane Evangelis, who represented Grants Pass in the case, cheered the decision, arguing that the 9th Circuit ruling had "tied the hands of local governments."
Some leaders in places where the homelessness crisis is most acute welcomed Friday's ruling, including Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who filed an amicus brief in the case, and London Breed, the Democratic mayor of San Francisco, which also filed an amicus brief.
"Gorsuch extensively cites San Francisco's amicus in the decision,"
noted Raya Steier, a San Francisco-based attorney who led the successful campaign to pass a local ballot measure taxing the wealthy to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for Covid rent relief and affordable housing. "Congratulations London Breed and David Chiu, this is now your legacy."
Economic justice advocates said rising inequality and housing costs have played a key role in driving the U.S. unhoused population to a record 650,000. If all the unhoused people in the country came together to form a city, it would be the nation's 23rd-largest—ahead of Las Vegas, Boston, Detroit, and Portland, Oregon—based on 2020 Census figures.
"We are in the midst of a crisis where housing is unaffordable for millions of Americans. Millions of us are just one paycheck away from losing our homes," New York-based Center for Popular Democracy Action said in a statement. "Today, the Supreme Court has made the morally bankrupt decision to allow people experiencing homelessness to be persecuted and punished just for existing, while denying them shelter and safety as a human right."
"For those who are unhoused, this will mean fines, tickets, and even incarceration for a vulnerable community already abandoned by city and state authorities," the group added.
Referring to the high court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, many social media users said that "corporations are people" but "the homeless are not."
Others pointed to the millions of dollars worth of gifts and other perks—many of them undisclosed—lavished upon Supreme Court members, especially far-right Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, by right-wing billionaires, some with business before the court.
"Today's decision shows how little the MAGA supermajority cares about struggling Americans," said Tracy Adair, communications manager at Stand Up America, a New York-based pro-democracy group. "It is unfathomably cruel to punish unhoused individuals for existing on public property when they have nowhere else to go."
"Maybe the right-wing justices could empathize with the most vulnerable Americans if they spent less time jet-setting on luxury vacations on their wealthy benefactors' dime," Adair added.
Advocates for the unhoused stressed that the solution to homelessness is housing, not criminalization.
"Cities should not punish people for being poor," said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, a housing justice and human rights group serving San Francisco. "The solution is, and has always been, safe and affordable housing."
In response to the ruling, the National Homelessness Law Center is calling on the Biden administration to invest at least $356 billion next year to fund universal rental assistance, upgraded public housing, a national housing trust fund, eviction and homelessness prevention programs, and voluntary supportive and emergency services.
"America is the richest country in the world. We can afford to ensure that everybody has a roof over their heads, a warm bed, and a door to lock," the group sad. "Our neighbors living outside cannot wait any longer."
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