USD Appellate Clinic Students Successfully Argue Case in Front of Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

SAN DIEGO (May 8, 2024) – Students from the University of San Diego (USD) School of Law Legal Clinics recently argued, and won, a case in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case involves a Salvadoran man whose deportation the Appellate Clinic argues would violate his right to international protection because of the imminent danger to his life in El Salvador.

The students—Eitan Peled ‘24 (JD), Chase Booth ‘24 (JD), Derek Sturhann ’24 (JD), and Dorothy Couchman ’24 (JD)—represented the client for his Ninth Circuit appeal. The Circuit level is the first time a noncitizen in removal proceedings has their case heard by a judge working in the Judicial Branch, rather than the Executive Branch. The USD Appellate Clinic submitted an opening brief to the court in the fall and then submitted a reply brief this spring. On April 9, 2024, Peled and Booth delivered the oral arguments in front of the three-judge panel tasked with deciding the case. The Ninth Circuit issued an order in their favor three weeks later.

Peled, Booth, Sturhann, and Couchman, supervised by Professor Michael Devitt and Professor David Schlesinger, did significant leg work on the case. They researched the client’s facts and circumstances, the situation in El Salvador, and procedural legal issues. Then they prepared briefs, which totaled almost 100 pages, and prepared their oral argument. Noncitizens in immigration cases have no right to appointed counsel, so without the work done by the Appellate Clinic, the client would have been left to navigate the complicated proceedings by himself.

“Ultimately, the most rewarding part was getting to zealously advocate on behalf of our client,” said Peled. “He has experienced so many terrible things—physical abuse, torture, threats, death of family members. And to be able to use the tools we’ve learned in school to advocate on his behalf is more rewarding than anything else.”

Said Booth, “It was particularly rewarding getting to represent a deserving client and advocate for his relief from removal proceedings because a part of the reason I chose to come to USD was its proximity to the border and to become familiar with border-related legal issues. It's great that the school chooses to devote its clinic resources to representing deserving clients and to give students the opportunity to vigorously defend them before such an esteemed panel like the Ninth Circuit.”

“I’m very thankful for the students' determination and hard work,” said Professor Michael Devitt, the Executive Director of the Appellate Clinic. “There is nothing mock or moot about these cases; the students are representing a real individual in what is, in many ways, a life-or-death situation. I’m just blown away by the quality and capability of the students.”

The oral arguments were streamed online. Watch the oral arguments here.

About the University of San Diego School of Law

Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 30th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 41st nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.