Court Opinion

ID: 9890169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-12 17:01:33.371449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:05:39.388823
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

      UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

AROLDO ALBERTO RODRIGUEZ                 No. 20-16245
DIAZ,
                                     D.C. No. 4:20-cv-
         Petitioner-Appellee,          01806-YGR

 v.
                                           ORDER
MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney
General; CHAD F. WOLF; DAVID
JENNINGS; WENDELL
ANDERSON,

         Respondents-Appellants.

                Filed October 12, 2023

  Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw, Daniel A. Bress, and
          Patrick J. Bumatay, Circuit Judges.

                       Order;
               Statement by Judge Paez
2                  RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND

                          SUMMARY *

                          Immigration

    The panel denied a petition for panel rehearing, and
denied on behalf of the court a petition for rehearing en banc,
in a case in which the panel: (1) reversed a judgment of the
district court granting Rodriguez Diaz’s habeas petition
challenging his continued immigration detention under 8
U.S.C. § 1226(a) after an initial bond hearing; and (2) held
that due process does not require the agency to provide a
second bond hearing at which the government bears the
burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence.
    In a statement respecting the denial of rehearing en banc,
Judge Paez, joined by Judges Murguia, Wardlaw, Gould,
Berzon, Koh, Sung, Sanchez, H.A. Thomas, Mendoza, and
Desai, wrote that the panel opinion conflicts with Singh v.
Holder, 638 F.3d 1196 (9th Cir. 2011). Judge Paez
explained that the panel majority distinguished Singh on the
basis of the statutory authorization for the immigrant’s
detention—a distinction on which Singh’s constitutional
holding does not depend. Judge Paez also wrote that the
panel applied the traditional balancing test of Mathews v.
Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), in a manner that conflicts the
court’s reasoning in Singh, and fails to account for the high
risk of procedural error and the importance of a strong
individual liberty interest. Pointing to the panel majority’s
express statement that its opinion would not foreclose all as-
applied challenges to 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a)’s procedures,

*
 This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
                 RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND                  3

Judge Paez wrote that district courts should continue to
engage in an individualized analysis of what process the
Constitution requires for each petitioning noncitizen.

                          ORDER

    Judge Wardlaw voted to grant the petition for panel
rehearing and rehearing en banc. Judge Bress and Judge
Bumatay voted to deny the petition for panel rehearing and
rehearing en banc. The full court was advised of the petition
for rehearing en banc. A judge requested a vote on whether
to rehear the matter en banc. The matter failed to receive a
majority of the votes of the nonrecused active judges in favor
of en banc consideration. Fed. R. App. P. 35(a).       The
petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc, Dkt. 104,
is DENIED.

PAEZ, Circuit Judge, with whom MURGUIA, Chief Judge,
and WARDLAW, GOULD, BERZON, KOH, SUNG,
SANCHEZ, H.A. THOMAS, MENDOZA, and DESAI,
Circuit Judges, join, respecting the denial of rehearing en
banc:

    I respectfully disagree with the court’s refusal to
reconsider the panel opinion en banc.
    “Freedom from imprisonment—from government
custody, detention, or other forms of physical restraint—lies
at the heart of the liberty that [the Due Process] Clause
protects.” Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 690 (2001). In
this case, the majority opinion reversed the district court’s
4                RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND

ruling that the Due Process Clause entitled Rodriguez Diaz,
who had been detained for over a year, to a bond hearing at
which the government must justify his continued detention
by clear and convincing evidence.
    The opinion conflicts with Singh v. Holder, 638 F.3d
1196 (9th Cir. 2011), in which our court concluded that
noncitizens whose detention becomes prolonged are
constitutionally entitled to such a bond hearing. The panel
majority distinguished Singh on the basis of the statutory
authorization for the immigrant’s detention—a distinction
on which Singh’s constitutional holding does not depend.
    The panel then applied the traditional balancing test of
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), in a manner that
both conflicts with our court’s reasoning in Singh and, as the
dissent astutely observes, “fails to account for the high risk
of procedural error and the importance of Rodriguez Diaz’s
strong individual liberty interest.” Rodriguez Diaz v.
Garland, 53 F.4th 1189, 1219 (9th Cir. 2022) (Wardlaw, J.,
dissenting). Under the panel majority’s Mathews analysis,
the government’s interest increases with the length of
detention, while the individual’s liberty interest does not,
raising the question of how a due process challenge to
prolonged detention might succeed. The panel majority
nonetheless insists that this case should not be read to
foreclose habeas relief for noncitizens whose detention
under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(a) becomes prolonged. Id. at 1213–
14.
                               I.
    The panel majority in this case impermissibly departs
from our court’s binding application of core due process
principles to prolonged detention under § 1226(a). Singh
                 RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND                 5

requires certain procedural protections to allay the due
process concerns that attend prolonged detention:

       [W]here prolonged detention is permissible,
       “due process requires adequate procedural
       protections to ensure that the government’s
       asserted     justification     for     physical
       confinement outweighs the individual’s
       constitutionally protected interest in avoiding
       physical restraint.” Because it is improper to
       ask the individual to “share equally with
       society the risk of error when the possible
       injury to the individual”—deprivation of
       liberty—is so significant, a clear and
       convincing evidence standard of proof
       provides the appropriate level of procedural
       protection.

638 F.3d at 1203–04 (internal quotation marks omitted) (first
quoting Casas-Castrillon v. DHS, 535 F.3d 942, 950 (9th
Cir. 2008), then quoting Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418,
427 (1979)).       Under Singh, when an individual’s
immigration detention becomes prolonged, they are entitled
to a bond hearing at which the government bears the burden
of proof by clear and convincing evidence.
     By the time his habeas petition was adjudicated,
Rodriguez Diaz had been detained for fourteen months since
his initial bond hearing, at which he bore the burden of
proving that he was not a flight risk or a danger to the
community. Because Rodriguez Diaz bore the burden at his
initial bond hearing, once the district court determined that
his detention had become prolonged, due process demanded
a bond hearing at which the government was required to
6                RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND

justify his ongoing detention by clear and convincing
evidence. Rodriguez Diaz v. Barr, 2020 WL 1984301, at
*6–8 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 27, 2020).
     The panel majority distinguishes Singh based on the
initial statutory authority under which a noncitizen is
detained, a technicality on which Singh’s constitutional
holding does not rest. Singh, who was detained under 8
U.S.C. § 1226(c), did not receive an initial bond hearing. At
the time we decided Singh, we understood the government’s
detention authority to shift to § 1226(a) once proceedings
before the Board of Immigration Appeals were complete,
and we construed that statute to require a bond hearing. See
Casas-Castrillon, 535 F.3d at 947–948, 951. Intervening
caselaw clarified that noncitizens initially detained under
§ 1226(c) do not have a statutory right to a bond hearing.
Avilez v. Garland, 69 F.4th 525 (9th Cir. 2022) (abrogating
in part Casas-Castrillon, 535 F.3d at 950–52). Because
Singh was initially detained under § 1226(c), the portion of
Singh premised on that implied statutory right is no longer
good law.
    Singh’s constitutional holding, however, remains
binding law of our court. As the panel majority noted, Singh
“relied on the Due Process clause in determining the
procedural rights available” to noncitizens challenging their
prolonged detention. Rodriguez Diaz, 53 F.4th at 1202. The
panel majority distinguishes Singh on the basis that Singh
did not have an initial bond hearing, while Rodriguez Diaz
did. But in Singh, we held that, when detention becomes
prolonged, due process requires a bond hearing at which the
government must prove by clear and convincing evidence
that detention remains justified. Thus, while the difference
in detention authority raised the question of whether
Rodriguez Diaz’s initial bond hearing was sufficient to
                     RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND                            7

justify his detention once that detention became prolonged,
Singh required the panel to answer that question in the
negative.
    In Singh, we also expressly considered and rejected
several of the arguments the panel majority embraces in
Rodriguez Diaz. First, we refused the government’s
invitation to distinguish the liberty interest at stake in
immigration detention from that of other forms of civil
detention, explaining that “[t]he Supreme Court . . .
‘repeatedly has recognized that civil commitment for any
purpose constitutes a significant deprivation of liberty.’”
Singh, 638 F.3d at 1204 (quoting Addington, 441 U.S. at
425). We decided that, citizen or not, the issue was reducible
to the core principle that “it is improper to ask the individual
to ‘share equally with society the risk of error when the
possible injury to the individual’—deprivation of liberty—is
so significant.” Id. at 1203–04 (quoting Addington, 441 U.S.
at 427). 1 Our constitutional holding in Singh was thus rooted
in the Supreme Court’s civil detention precedent, which the

1
  In addition to Addington, we based our decision in Singh on other
procedural due process cases from both immigration and
nonimmigration contexts: Cooper v. Oklahoma, 517 U.S. 348, 363 (9th
Cir. 1996) (“[D]ue process places a heightened burden of proof on the
State in civil proceedings in which the ‘individual interests at stake . . .
are both particularly important and more substantial than mere loss of
money.’”) (second alteration in original) (quoting Santosky v. Kramer,
455 U.S. 745, 756 (1982)); Foucha v. Louisiana, 504 U.S. 71, 80 (1992)
(requiring clear and convincing evidence to justify civil commitment
because “[f]reedom from bodily restraint has always been at the core of
the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause”); Woodby v. INS, 385
U.S. 276, 285 (1966) (requiring “clear, unequivocal, and convincing”
evidence to prove deportability); Chaunt v. United States, 364 U.S. 350,
353 (1960) (requiring “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” evidence to
set aside a naturalization decree) (internal quotation marks omitted).
8                RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND

Rodriguez Diaz panel majority instead rejects as
inapplicable to the context of immigration detention.
Rodriguez Diaz, 53 F.4th at 1210–12.
    Second, in Singh, we disagreed with the government’s
position that noncitizens “should be treated differently” than
other individuals in civil detention “because they can end
their detention by voluntarily electing to leave the country.”
638 F.3d at 1204. We explained that a lower standard of
proof was not “justified by putting people like Singh to the
choice of remaining in detention, potentially for years, or
leaving the country and abandoning their challenges to
removability even though they may have been improperly
deemed removable.” Id.; see also Prieto-Romero v. Clark,
534 F.3d 1053, 1060–61 (9th Cir. 2008). By contrast, the
Rodriguez Diaz panel majority endorses the government’s
argument that Rodriguez Diaz’s decision to pursue his legal
rights by appealing an adverse decision diminishes his
liberty interest. 53 F.4th at 1207–08.
    Third, in Singh, we were not persuaded that Singh’s
liberty interest was diminished because he had already
received a removal hearing. We reaffirmed the conclusion
that our court had reached in Diouf v. Napolitano, 634 F.3d
1081 (9th Cir. 2011), when we held that, “[r]egardless of the
stage of the proceedings, the same important interest is at
stake—freedom from prolonged detention.” Singh, 638 F.3d
at 1205 (quoting Diouf, 634 F.3d at 1087). We additionally
held that, whether the noncitizen is in the judicial review
phase of a final removal order or has yet to have a hearing
on the merits of his case, “fundamentally the same interest
in freedom from prolonged detention is at stake.” Id.
Ignoring this holding, the Rodriguez Diaz majority embraces
the government’s argument that Rodriguez Diaz’s liberty
                  RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND                   9

interest is diminished by the fact that he has already had a
removal hearing. 53 F.4th at 1207–08.
    Finally, our reasoning in Singh tied the substantiality of
Singh’s liberty interest to his length of detention, with longer
detention reinforcing its weight. 683 F.3d at 1203 (“Given
the substantial liberty interest at stake—Singh, for example,
has been detained for nearly four years—we hold that the
government must prove by clear and convincing evidence
that a[] [noncitizen] is a flight risk or a danger to the
community to justify denial of bond . . . .”). This reasoning
conflicts with the Rodriguez Diaz majority’s conclusion that
the length of a noncitizen’s detention weighs more heavily
against their liberty interest as it increases. Rodriguez Diaz,
53 F.4th at 1207–11.
    Singh squarely forecloses the panel majority’s decision
in this case. The opinion incorrectly departs from our
binding application of core due process principles to
prolonged immigration detention. I therefore disagree with
the court’s decision not to rehear this case en banc.
                              II.
    As Judge Wardlaw’s dissent explains, the panel opinion
employs a flawed analysis of the Mathews factors. See
Rodriguez Diaz, 53 F.4th at 1223–28 (Wardlaw, J.,
dissenting). To avoid retreading the same ground as the
dissent, I raise only a subset of those flaws here, and focus
instead on the opinion’s impact.
    The panel majority undervalues the private interest at
stake. It assumes that noncitizens have a lesser interest in
avoiding arbitrary detention than citizens do, despite our
court’s prior rejection of the distinction between
immigration and other forms of civil detention in Singh;
10                    RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND

suggests that lawfully pursuing the right to remain in the
United States lessens an individual’s interest in freedom
from arbitrary detention, despite our rejection of such an
argument in Singh; and ignores caselaw explaining that an
individual’s liberty interest increases over the length of their
detention. 2 The panel majority also concludes that the
government’s interest in effectuating removal increases with
the length of detention, as the government spends “more
resources . . . to secur[e] . . . removal.” Id. at 1208. 3
    Under the panel majority’s Mathews analysis, then, the
government’s interest generally increases with the length of
a noncitizen’s detention under § 1226(a), while the
noncitizen’s liberty interest does not. (And the noncitizen’s
liberty interest is discounted if they exercise their right to
appeal an adverse decision, which is likely to extend the
length of their detention.) The likelihood that a noncitizen
can show that due process requires review of their
detention—that, balancing their liberty interest, the risk of
erroneous deprivation, and the government’s interest, the
noncitizen is entitled to additional procedural safeguards—
thus appears to generally decrease over time. This is deeply
concerning, as it creates a real danger that the majority’s

2
    See Rodriguez Diaz, 53 F.4th at 1224 (Wardlaw, J., dissenting).
3
   The majority also suggests it becomes more difficult for the
government to effectuate removal as a noncitizen’s case progresses. Id.
at 1208 (“The risk of a detainee absconding also inevitably escalates as
the time for removal becomes more imminent.”) (citing Johnson v.
Guzman Chavez, 594 U.S. ---, 141 S. Ct. 2271, 2290 (2021)). As the
dissent notes, Johnson in fact suggests noncitizens detained under
§ 1226, like Rodriguez Diaz, are less likely to flee because they may yet
be found admissible. See id. at 1227 (Wardlaw, J., dissenting). One
presumes such individuals exercise their right to appeal with some hope
of success.
                  RODRIGUEZ DIAZ V. GARLAND                 11

opinion may be read to effectively eliminate constitutional
relief from unreviewed, prolonged § 1226(a) detention, even
in the most extreme cases. Because of the flaws in the panel
majority’s Mathews analysis, and the potential effects of
those flaws, I seriously disagree with the court’s decision not
to rehear this case en banc.
                             III.
    The panel majority expressly states that its opinion
“do[es] not foreclose all as-applied challenges to § 1226(a)’s
procedures.” Rodriguez Diaz, 53 F.4th at 1213. As the panel
notes, it did not “have . . . occasion to consider the
constitutional limits of prolonged immigration detention.”
Id. at 1214.
    Taking the panel majority at their word, the majority
opinion should not be read to foreclose habeas relief for
noncitizens challenging their prolonged detention under
§ 1226(a). Rather, district courts should continue to engage
in an individualized analysis of what process the
Constitution requires for each petitioning noncitizen.
   What process is due may depend on the individual
noncitizen’s circumstances. But when an immigrant in
removal proceedings is detained for a prolonged period of
time, due process requires the government to justify their
ongoing physical confinement. Our court so held in Singh.
    For all of the above reasons, I respectfully, but strongly,
disagree with the court’s decision not to rehear this case en
banc.