Geoff Holtz '97 to Argue Prisoner Rights Case
On Monday morning, January 11, 2010, Hastings alum (’97) and Bingham McCutchen partner Geoff Holtz will argue an important federal appeal involving prisoners’ rights in the long-running dispute over parole revocation procedures in California.
California conducts roughly 100,000 parole revocation proceedings a year, and returning tens of thousands of defendants to prison each year, for technical violations based on disputed evidence, is one of the biggest causes of California’s current prison over-crowding and budget crises.
Holtz represents pro bono publico a massive class of parole revocation defendants. This appeal, Valdivia v. Schwartzenegger, No. 09- 15836, presents the State’s challenge to the district court’s ruling that, absent further proceedings, the bare terms of the 2008 California Proposition 9 cannot supplant the constitutional settlement and injunction entered by the court in 2004. Hastings Professor Rory Little served as a constitutional expert for the plaintiffs, and Hastings Professor Hadar Aviram has joined the plaintiffs’ Amicus Curiae brief.
The case will be argued at approximately 11 am on January 11 in Courtroom 3, 3rd floor, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit located at 7th and Mission Streets in San Francisco. The argument calendar can be viewed at http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/calendaring/2010/01/05/sf01_10r.pdf.
Professor Little can be reached for comment or background at littler@uchastings.edu, or 415.225.5190.