Case Name: Jay Diaz SANTOS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF GUAM; People of Guam, Defendants-Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2018-02-14
Citations: 711 F. App'x 419
Docket Number: No. 15-16854
Parties: Jay Diaz SANTOS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF GUAM; People of Guam, Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: Before: O’SCANNLAIN, CLIFTON, and IKUTA, Circuit Judges.
Reporter: West's Federal Appendix
Volume: 711
Pages: 419–420

Head Matter:
Jay Diaz SANTOS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF GUAM; People of Guam, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 15-16854
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Submitted February 12, 2018 Honolulu, Hawaii
Filed February 14, 2018
Howard Gustaf Trapp, Attorney, Howard Trapp Incorporated, Hagatna, GU, for Plaintiff-Appellant
Sophia Santos Diaz, Judiciary of Guam, Guam Judicial Center Building, Hagatna, GU, for Defendant-Appellee, Superior Court of Guam
Marianne Woloschuk, Assistant Attorney General, AGGU — Office of the Attorney General of Guam, Tamuning, GU, for Defendant-Appellee People of Guam
Before: O’SCANNLAIN, CLIFTON, and IKUTA, Circuit Judges.
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

Opinion:
MEMORANDUM
Jay Diaz Santos appeals the district court's dismissal of his suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The facts of this case are known to the parties, and we do not repeat them here. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
The district court found that Santos was "essentially seeking appellate review of the Superior Court of Guam's decision" to deny his motion to suppress'in a criminal case. Therefore, the district court ruled, it was barred from exercising jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See Rooker v. Fid. Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923); D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 476, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983). On appeal, Santos argues that even if Rooker-Feldman would bar the district court from reviewing the Superior Court's probable cause determination, it does not bar the district court from issuing an order for the Superior Court to decide in the first instance whether there was probable cause for a search warrant. The People of Guam seemingly agree with Santos, suggesting that Rooker-Feldman only applies to final state court judgments and so would not apply in the case of Santos's ongoing criminal prosecution.
Both are mistaken. "The [Rooker-Feld-man] doctrine bars a district court from exercising jurisdiction not only over an action explicitly styled as a direct appeal, but also over the 'de facto equivalent' of such an appeal." Cooper v. Ramos, 704 F.3d 772, 777 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting Noel v. Hall, 341 F.3d 1148, 1155 (9th Cir. 2003)). "To determine whether an action functions as a de facto appeal, we pay close attention to the relief sought by the federal-court plaintiff," and a suit is a "forbidden de facto appeal under Rooker-Feld-man when the plaintiff in federal district court complains of a legal wrong allegedly committed by the state court, and seeks relief from the judgment of that court." Id. at 777-78 (internal quotation marks omitted). We have expressly ruled that the doctrine applies- not' only to final judgments, but also to "interlocutory state court decisions." Doe & Assocs. Law Offices v. Napolitano, 252 F.3d 1026, 1030 (9th Cir. 2001).
Here, Santos is unhappy with the Superior Court's pre-trial decision that it would not reevaluate the probable cause determination of the judge who issued the search warrant. Santos sought and was denied interlocutory review of that decision by the Supreme Court of Guam. He then turned to the federal district court, seeking precisely the appellate relief denied him in the Guam courts. There is no way to construe his suit but as an attempted appeal of the Superior Court's decision, and the district court was therefore correct that the Rook-er-Feldman doctrine barred it from exercising jurisdiction.
AFFIRMED.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
. The Superior Court of Guam and the People of Guam filed a Joint Motion for Judicial Notice, asking us to take notice of the docket sheet in Santos's criminal case to support their argument that the district court should have dismissed the case under the Younger abstention doctrine. Because we affirm the judgment of the district court based on Rook-er-Feldman, which is unaffected by the procedural status of the Guam prosecution, the motion is DENIED as moot.