Civil Rights Clinic Students Max Kohn, Kiar Rivers Argue Before Ninth Circuit
On March 4, law students Max Kohn ’26 and Kiar Rivers ’26 argued on behalf of a Civil Rights Clinic client before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. The panel was comprised of Ninth Circuit Judges Milan D. Smith Jr. and Ryan Nelson, and Brian Morris, the Chief Judge of the District of Montana, sitting by designation.
The clinic represents a California state prisoner, Joaquin Murillo, who brought a lawsuit in federal district court alleging that court-ordered suicide prevention welfare checks interfered with his right to be free from sleep deprivation. The district court denied summary judgment to the defendant prison wardens, holding that they were not entitled to qualified immunity. The defendants filed an interlocutory appeal from that order. The Court of Appeals appointed the clinic to represent Murillo in this appeal.
Professors Eric Fish, Carlton Larson, Mark Rigau, and Brian Soucek helped the students prepare for this argument.
Professor Carter White, Director of the Civil Rights Clinic, supervised the students’ work on the case.
The Civil Rights Clinic has afforded law students the opportunity to represent incarcerated clients in civil rights cases since 1993. Clinic students routinely argue appeals in the Ninth Circuit.