Civil Rights Clinic Students Thacher Hoch '25, Sinporion Phuong '25 Argue Before Ninth Circuit

On March 6, students Thacher Hoch ’25 and Sinporion Phuong ’25 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 comprised Judges Kim McLane Wardlaw, Richard A. Paez and Kenneth K. Lee.

The clinic represents a California state prisoner who brought a lawsuit in federal district court alleging claims of excessive force and deprivation of medical care. The trial court judge denied summary judgment to the medical defendants, holding that they were not entitled to qualified immunity. The defendants filed an interlocutory appeal from that order.

Professors Ashutosh Bhagwat, Gabriel “Jack” Chin, Katherine Florey, Carlton Larson 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.

Watch a video of the Ninth Circuit argument.