United States v. Dashawn Williams

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: April 3, 2023
• Docket: 21-10357
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 3 2023 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 21-10357

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:13-cr-00366-KJM-1 v.

DASHAWN WILLIAMS, MEMORANDUM*

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Kimberly J. Mueller, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 28, 2023** San Francisco, California

Before: GOULD and IKUTA, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,*** District Judge.

Dashawn Williams appeals from the district court’s judgment revoking

supervised release and remanding Williams to custody for 24 months with a term of

* 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). *** The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. 12-months supervised release to follow. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §

1291 and we affirm.

“We review the district court’s decision to revoke a term of supervised

release for an abuse of discretion.” United States v. Perez, 526 F.3d 543, 547 (9th

Cir. 2008). “On a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge to a supervised release

revocation, we ask whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the

government, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of a

violation by a preponderance of the evidence.” United States v. King, 608 F.3d

1122, 1129 (9th Cir. 2010) (citation and quotation marks omitted). And “[w]hether

a defendant has received due process at a revocation proceeding is a mixed

question of law and fact we review de novo.” Perez, 526 F.3d at 547.

1. Sufficient evidence supports the finding that Williams committed an

assault with a deadly weapon in violation of Section 245(a)(1) of the California

Penal Code. To have completed an assault, California law does not require that the

defendant “do everything physically possible to complete a battery short of

actually causing physical injury to the victim.” People v. Chance, 44 Cal. 4th

1164, 1175 (2008). Here, the victim testified that Williams pointed a box cutter at

her with its blade open. Williams appeared to be “angling” for a fight and

threatened the victim. This conduct is sufficient to establish the offense. See

People v. Bernal, 42 Cal. App. 5th 1160, 1168 (2019); see also People v. Superior

2 Ct. of Riverside Cnty., 86 Cal. App. 5th 268, 280 (2022) (finding evidence that the

defendant “put[] himself in close proximity to [the victim] and aggressively

wield[ed] a sharp knife” sufficient under § 245(a)(1)).

2. Sufficient evidence supports the district court’s findings that Williams

committed the crimes of (1) threatening crime with intent to terrorize, in violation

of Section 422(a) of the California Penal Code, and (2) disorderly conduct by

public intoxication, in violation of Section 647(f) of the California Penal Code.

The record supports the conclusion that Williams had the requisite specific

intent to make a criminal threat. Indeed, as the district court correctly found,

Williams “was not so impaired to undermine his ability to communicate with the

victim, with the third parties in the car nearby, [and] with the officers immediately

upon apprehension.” Further, as the district court explained, “[w]hen the victim

rebuffed him, he . . . threaten[ed] to harm her,” and his threat was “clear,

immediate, unconditional, and specific.” See In re George T., 33 Cal. 4th 620, 630

(2004) (citation omitted).

At the same time, a rational trier of fact could have found, as the district

court did, that Williams was intoxicated “in [a] public place . . . in a condition that

[he was] unable to exercise care for [his] own safety or the safety of others.” Cal.

Penal Code § 647(f). The record supports the district court’s conclusion that

Williams was intoxicated and that he was unable to care for the safety of others

3 because he possessed a dangerous weapon while visibly inebriated, and that he

used that box cutter to threaten another person.

3. The district court’s findings that Williams violated both Section 422(a)

and Section 647(f) are not inconsistent, and due process does not require that the

government introduce “scientific evidence” of Williams’s “neurological capacity”

to prove both crimes were committed.

Even where a voluntary intoxication defense is asserted for a specific intent

crime, and the defendant is shown to be intoxicated, the fact finder need not

conclude that the intoxication impaired the defendant’s ability to act with specific

intent. See People v. Gaytan, 38 Cal. App. 2d 83, 87–88 (1940) (holding that the

trier of fact must determine “whether appellant’s state of voluntary intoxication

was such as to render him incapable of forming the specific intent to commit

larceny”); People v. Reza, 121 Cal. App. 3d 129, 131 (1981) (affirming conviction

for a specific intent crime where defendant allegedly “had been drinking at a party”

and “did not remember what happened”); cf. People v. Mendoza, 18 Cal. 4th 1114,

1134 (1998) (“Evidence of intoxication, while legally relevant, may be factually

unconvincing.”). Indeed, California courts do not require an intoxication

instruction to the jury in some cases even where the defendant “was, to some

degree, intoxicated on the night of the offense.” People v. Dunkle, 36 Cal. 4th 861,

4 911 (2005), disapproved of on other grounds by People v. Doolin, 45 Cal. 4th 390

(2009); see also People v. Ramirez, 50 Cal. 3d 1158, 1181 (1990).

The intoxication element of the disorderly conduct offense focuses on

whether the defendant is “under the influence of alcohol,” not whether the

drunkenness impaired defendant’s mental state. See People v. Wolterman, 11 Cal.

App. 4th Supp. 15, 20 (1992), as modified, (Nov. 17, 1992); People v. Lively, 10

Cal. App. 4th 1364, 1368–69 (1992) (“This offense is complete if the arrestee is (1)

intoxicated (2) in a public place and either (3) is unable to exercise care for his

own safety or the safety of others or (4) interferes with or obstructs or prevents the

free use of any street, sidewalk or public way.”).

Thus, here, “based on the evidence . . . any rational fact finder could have

found a consistent set of facts supporting both convictions,” and “due process does

not require that the convictions be vacated.” Masoner v. Thurman, 996 F.2d 1003,

1005 (9th Cir. 1993); cf. People v. Marshall, 13 Cal. 4th 799, 848 (1996) (noting a

defendant’s blood-alcohol content may “suggest[] some impairment, as might have

rendered [defendant] an unsafe driver,” but the same record did “not support a

conclusion that . . . defendant was unable to premeditate or form an intent to kill”).

AFFIRMED.