United States v. Alvaro Sanchez-Aguilar

719 F.3d 1108, 2013 WL 3028222, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 12523
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJune 19, 2013
Docket12-30046, 12-30049
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 719 F.3d 1108 (United States v. Alvaro Sanchez-Aguilar) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Alvaro Sanchez-Aguilar, 719 F.3d 1108, 2013 WL 3028222, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 12523 (9th Cir. 2013).

Opinions

Opinion by Judge WATFORD.

Dissent by Judge FITZGERALD.

OPINION

WATFORD, Circuit Judge:

Alvaro Sanchez-Aguilar is a citizen of Mexico who initially came to the United States as a child with his mother. Although many of his immediate family members lawfully reside in the United States, he does not, and the federal government has formally removed him to Mexico on five occasions. Following his last removal, in 2010, he returned to the United States without first obtaining permission to do so, as required by law.

In May 2011, the government charged him with being an alien who, after having been removed in 1998, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2010, was “found in” the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. A jury convicted Sanchez-Aguilar of that offense, and the district court sentenced him to the applicable statutory maximum of two years in prison.

Sanchez-Aguilar raises two challenges to his conviction. The first, which he incorrectly frames as a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, requires a brief summary of the procedural history of the case.

[1110]*1110Before trial, Sanehez-Aguilar moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that each of his prior removal orders had been issued in violation of his due process rights. A removal order may not be used as the predicate for a § 1326 prosecution if the proceeding that produced the order “violated the alien’s due process rights and the alien suffered prejudice as a result.” United States v. Barajas-Alvarado, 655 F.3d 1077, 1085 (9th Cir.2011) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The government conceded that four of Sanchez-Aguilar’s removal orders were invalid under this standard. But the government argued that Sanchez-Aguilar’s due process rights had not been violated in connection with the 2006 removal order, and the district court ultimately agreed. The court accordingly denied Sanchez-Aguilar’s motion to dismiss the indictment, although it rejected the government’s request to introduce evidence relating to the 1998, 2005, 2007, and 2010 removal orders under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). At trial, the jury heard evidence that Sanehez-Aguilar had been removed from the United States only in 2006.

The source of controversy on appeal is this: Sanehez-Aguilar had already been convicted, in 2009, of violating § 1326 based on the same 2006 removal order that forms the predicate for the conviction in this case. There is nothing inherently wrong with that; under the “found in” prong of § 1326, the same removal order can serve as the basis for more than one conviction, so long as the government “prove[s] that the defendant ha[s] been outside the United States after each conviction” before he is again prosecuted for violating § 1326. United States v. MezaVillarello, 602 F.2d 209, 211 (9th Cir.1979) (per curiam). We adopted that rule, grounded in double jeopardy concerns, to avoid the specter of the government obtaining one § 1326 conviction and then, after releasing the defendant from prison, arresting him at the prison gates for again being “found in” the United States. Id.

In this case, the government did not prove at trial that Sanehez-Aguilar had been outside the United States between his 2009 conviction and his arrest for the offense at issue here. But in fact he had been. It is undisputed that, upon completing his sentence for the 2009 conviction, Sanehez-Aguilar was immediately removed to Mexico on September 3, 2010. The jury never learned of that fact because the district court excluded any evidence relating to the 2010 removal order.

The question we must resolve is whether the government’s failure to prove at trial that Sanehez-Aguilar left the United States after his 2009 conviction is of any significance. Sanehez-Aguilar contends the government’s failure to prove that fact means there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction in this case. We view the matter differently. Proof of Sanchez-Aguilar’s posb-2009 departure from the United States, although necessary to avoid double jeopardy concerns, was not an element of the § 1326 offense submitted to the jury. See United States v. Florez, 447 F.3d 145, 150 (2d Cir.2006) (proof of flight from justice necessary to avoid statute-of-limitations dismissal “did not thereby become an element of the charged narcotics offenses”). To obtain a conviction, the government needed to prove only that Sanehez-Aguilar had been removed from the United States in 2006, and that at some point thereafter he knowingly and voluntarily returned to the United States without first obtaining the requisite permission to do so. See United States v. Romo-Romo, 246 F.3d 1272, 1276 (9th Cir.2001). The government introduced ample proof of those statutory elements at trial, and Sanehez-Aguilar does not contend otherwise. Thus, the govern[1111]*1111ment introduced sufficient evidence -to sustain his conviction.

That leaves the question whether Sanchez-Aguilar’s conviction violates his right not to “be subject for the same of-fence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” U.S. Const, amend. V. Since Sanchez-Aguilar never raised a double jeopardy defense in the district court, we review the record only for plain error. See Fed. R.Crim.P. 52(b); United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 782, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). We find none. Under Meza-Villarello, in order to ensure that his conviction in this case is for a different § 1326 “offence,” the government had to show that Sanchez-Aguilar left the United States after his 2009 conviction. 602 F.2d at 211. But that fact was undisputed below and is not disputed on appeal. Indeed, in a pre-trial brief, SaneheznAgui-lar conceded that he had been removed from the United States in September 2010. So there was no error, much less plain error, in the district court’s refusal to vacate Sanchez-Aguilar’s conviction based on a double jeopardy defense he never raised.

We reject Sanchez-Aguilar’s contention that, in analyzing his double jeopardy defense, we are limited to reviewing the evidence presented to the jury. That contention cannot be squared with precedent holding that double jeopardy is a question of law that must be resolved by the court, not the jury, even when the defense turns on disputed factual issues. See United States v. Persico, 832 F.2d 705, 712 (2d Cir.1987); United States v. MacDougall, 790 F.2d 1135, 1142-43 (4th Cir.1986). When the defense must be addressed after trial and turns on disputed facts, district courts are empowered to hold post-trial evidentiary hearings to make the necessary, factual determinations. See Persico, 832 F.2d at 712; United States v. Young,

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719 F.3d 1108, 2013 WL 3028222, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 12523, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-alvaro-sanchez-aguilar-ca9-2013.