Ariya Haghighat '23 Argues Before Ninth Circuit Panel

On Sept. 1, Ariya Haghighat ’23 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. Ninth Circuit Judges William A. Fletcher, Jay S. Bybee, and Lawrence VanDyke comprised the panel that heard the appeal.

The clinic represents the surviving daughter of a state prisoner who died in custody in 2017 in a civil rights case alleging deficient medical care by a prison doctor and nurse. The district court granted summary judgment to these defendants based on qualified immunity.

Julia Marostica ’22 and Alex Wheeler ’22 drafted the briefs for this case while enrolled in the Civil Rights Clinic during the previous school year. Professors Holly Cooper, Katherine Florey, Shayak Sarkar, Brian Soucek, and attorney Lori Rifkin helped Haghighat prepare for this argument.  

Professor Carter White, director of the Civil Rights Clinic, supervised the students’ work on the case. 

Watch a video of the Ninth Circuit argument.

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Watch a video of the Ninth Circuit argument.

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