United States v. Bounds

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 16 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-7252 D.C. Nos. Plaintiff - Appellee, 3:23-cv-00255-DCN 3:18-cr-00290-DCN-1 v.

CHRISTOPHER WILLIAM BOUNDS, MEMORANDUM*

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Idaho David C. Nye, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted June 10, 2026** Portland, Oregon

Before: CHRISTEN, HURWITZ, and BADE, Circuit Judges.

Christopher William Bounds appeals the district court’s denial without an

evidentiary hearing of his motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under

28 U.S.C. § 2255 and its denial of his motion for access to certain letters he

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). submitted pro se. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a), and

we affirm in part and dismiss in part.

1. Bounds argues that trial counsel violated his Sixth Amendment right to

present a defense of his own choosing by presenting a defense that Bounds

possessed drugs for his personal use, not for trafficking. Bounds contends that he

did not agree to this defense and that his intended defense was instead that “I

believed I was working for the DEA.”

“[A] defendant has the right to insist that counsel refrain from admitting

guilt.” McCoy v. Louisiana, 584 U.S. 414, 417 (2018). When counsel is

“[p]resented with express statements of the client’s will to maintain

innocence, . . . counsel may not steer the ship the other way.” Id. at 424. But

Bounds’s counsel did not concede guilt. See id. at 419–20. Instead, he argued for

Bounds’s acquittal on gun and drug trafficking charges based on Bounds’s lack of

intent. Consistent with this defense, Bounds testified that he acquired “intelligence

and firearms” and drugs with the intent to turn them over to the government.

Bounds also argues that counsel improperly incriminated him by arguing

that “Bounds had pounds of drugs on him at the time of arrest for his person[al]

use as a drug addict.” But the record reflects that doing so provided context for

Bounds’s statements during his arrest that he was an addict, which were admitted

during the prosecution’s case at trial. Counsel argued that Bounds did not conceal

2 24-7252 his drug activity because he intended to turn the drugs and guns over to law

enforcement and urged the jury to find Bounds not guilty because he intended to

“turn it all over to law enforcement.”

Counsel’s argument was consistent with the objective of Bounds’s preferred

defense that he “believed [he] was working for the DEA.” It was also consistent

with the trial court’s ruling that Bounds could not testify “that he was working for

any government agency or was working undercover” but could testify “that he had

the intent to give the drugs or the guns to the police.” Determining that this ruling

did not limit Bounds’s ability to present testimony to support “his theory that he

lacked culpable intent,” we affirmed Bounds’s convictions on direct appeal.

United States v. Bounds, No. 21-30114, 2022 WL 1284302, at *2 (9th Cir. Apr. 29,

2022). We now conclude that Bounds’s Sixth Amendment right to “present a

defense of his own choosing” was not violated. United States v. Read, 918 F.3d

712, 719 (9th Cir. 2019).

2. Bounds argues that the district court abused its discretion when it denied

his § 2255 motion without an evidentiary hearing. “Section 2255 requires that the

district court grant a petitioner’s motion to hold an evidentiary hearing ‘unless the

motion and the files and records of the case conclusively show that the prisoner is

entitled to no relief.’” United States v. McMullen, 98 F.3d 1155, 1158 (9th Cir.

1996) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2255). The record makes plain that Bounds was not

3 24-7252 entitled to relief; therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying

the motion without an evidentiary hearing.1

3. Bounds also argues that the district court abused its discretion because it

denied his motion for access to pro se letters, and denied his § 2255 motion

without providing him access to these letters. Bounds argues that the district

court’s denial of his motion for access to the letters violated Rule 7(c) of the Rules

Governing § 2255 Proceedings, which provides that the court “must give the party

against whom the additional materials are offered an opportunity to admit or deny

their correctness.” Whether the district court violated Rule 7(c) is, however,

beyond the scope of the certificate of appealability. See 28 U.S.C.

§ 2253(c)(1)(B). We decline to expand the certificate, and therefore dismiss the

appeal to the extent it raises this argument.

AFFIRMED in part, DISMISSED in part.

1 Bounds suggests that, when ruling on the request for an evidentiary hearing, the district court applied an incorrect legal standard because it cited a local rule pertaining to oral argument. The record does not support this argument. The district court cited the local rule to support its decision that oral argument was not necessary, and later separately concluded that an evidentiary hearing was not required.

4 24-7252