CRESPIN v. RYAN (2022)

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Freddie CRESPIN, Petitioner-Appellee, v. Charles L. RYAN; Attorney General for the State of Arizona, Respondents-Appellants.

No. 18-15073

Decided: October 20, 2022

Before: HAWKINS, M. SMITH, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges.

ORDER

The opinion in this case was issued on August 19, 2022. Crespin v. Ryan, 46 F.4th 803 (9th Cir. 2022). Petitioner-Appellee Freddie Crespin died on September 7, 2022. In light of Crespin's death, we remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss the petition for writ of habeas corpus as moot. See Farmer v. McDaniel, 692 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2012); Griffey v. Lindsey, 349 F.3d 1157 (9th Cir. 2003).

“The decision whether to vacate a filed opinion based on post hoc mootness ‘is within our discretion based on equity.’ ” Dickens v. Ryan, 744 F.3d 1147, 1148 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc) (quoting United States v. Payton, 593 F.3d 881, 885 (9th Cir. 2010)). No party has sought vacatur, and in the exercise of our discretion, we decline to vacate the filed opinion. See id. (noting that “judicial precedents ‘are not merely the property of private litigants,’ but are ‘valuable to the legal community as a whole’ ” (quoting U.S. Bancorp Mortg. Co. v. Bonner Mall P'ship, 513 U.S. 18, 26, 115 S.Ct. 386, 130 L.Ed.2d 233 (1994))).

The petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc remains pending.

REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS.