United States v. Gary Henry

984 F.3d 1343
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 6, 2021
Docket19-50080
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 984 F.3d 1343 (United States v. Gary Henry) 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. Gary Henry, 984 F.3d 1343 (9th Cir. 2021).

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 19-50080 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. v. 2:16-cr-00862-RHW-1

GARY LAMAR HENRY, AKA OPINION G-Thing, AKA G., Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Robert H. Whaley, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 12, 2020 Pasadena, California

Filed January 6, 2021

Before: Morgan Christen and Paul J. Watford, Circuit Judges, and Lee H. Rosenthal, * Chief District Judge.

Opinion by Chief District Judge Rosenthal

* The Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal, Chief United States District Judge for the Southern District of Texas, sitting by designation. 2 UNITED STATES V. HENRY

SUMMARY **

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed convictions for one count of conspiracy to commit bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 371; five counts of armed bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) and (d); two counts of bank robbery under § 2113(a); and three counts of brandishing a firearm during the bank robberies under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii).

The panel held that the defendant did not waive his Speedy Trial Act claim, that the district court made sufficient findings to support its three ends-of-justice continuances under 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7), and that the delays were not unreasonable.

The panel held that the defendant did not waive his claims under United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019), and Honeycutt v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1626 (2017), that the district court misapplied Pinkerton liability to the § 924(c) counts, and that Rosemond v. United States, 572 U.S. (2014), requires revisiting Pinkerton liability.

Because the defendant’s convictions are valid under either a Pinkerton or aiding-and-abetting theory, the panel did not need to decide which theory the jury used to convict. The panel held that Honeycutt, which addressed joint and several liability under 21 U.S.C. § 853, does not apply principles of conspiracy and thus does not require this court

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. UNITED STATES V. HENRY 3

to vacate the defendant’s § 924(c)’s convictions. The panel also held that Davis, under which crimes of violence for § 924(c) are limited to those that have violence as an element under § 924(c)(3)(A), does not conflict with or undermine the cases upholding § 924(c) convictions based on Pinkerton liability.

The panel reviewed for plain error the defendant’s argument that his § 924(c) convictions should be vacated because the jury instructions and verdict form for the predicate § 2113(d) convictions only required the jury to find a conspiracy to commit generic bank robbery and did not require the jury to find the knowing use of a gun. Noting that Rosemond did not alter Ninth Circuit precedents on accomplice liability, the panel declined the defendant’s request to revisit the mens rea required for Pinkerton liability in light of the Supreme Court’s holding in Rosemond that “knowledge”—not just reasonable foreseeability—is required for aiding-and-abetting liability for § 924(c) charges. The panel held that the district court’s instructions on aiding-and-abetting liability were not plainly erroneous, and that the defendant’s conviction on either a Pinkerton or an aiding-and-abetting theory was amply supported.

The panel held that the defendant preserved the claim that the indictment failed to allege the necessary elements of armed bank robbery under § 2113(d). Noting that the word “assault” used in the indictment denotes intentionality, the panel wrote that the indictment charged the required mens rea. The panel wrote that the failure to include the “use of a weapon” element in the verdict form for armed robbery was incorrect, but that there is not a basis for reversal, because the district court correctly instructed the jury on the use of a dangerous weapon. 4 UNITED STATES V. HENRY

COUNSEL

Benjamin L. Coleman (argued), Coleman & Balogh LLP, San Diego, California, for Defendant-Appellant.

David R. Friedman (argued), Assistant United States Attorney, Criminal Appeals Section; Nicole T. Hanna, United States Attorney; L. Ashley Aull, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Criminal Appeals Section; Los Angeles, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee.

OPINION

ROSENTHAL, Chief District Judge:

This appeal raises three issues: continuances that allegedly violated the Speedy Trial Act; §924(c) convictions after United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019); and an allegedly defective indictment and verdict form. Gary Henry appeals his bank robbery, armed bank robbery, and derivative firearms convictions. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742, and we affirm.

I.

In 2017, Gary Henry was indicted with three codefendants for a 2016 series of bank robberies in Los Angeles and Bakersfield, California. Henry was charged with conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371, bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), armed bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a) and (d), and brandishing a firearm during the armed bank robberies under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii). The indictment alleged that Henry would remain outside the banks while some of his codefendants went inside. The UNITED STATES V. HENRY 5

armed bank robbery counts alleged that “[i]n committing said offense, defendants HENRY and [his codefendants] assaulted and put in jeopardy the life of an employee of [the bank], and others, by using a dangerous weapon and device.” Some of the armed bank robbery counts specified that a firearm was used.

Henry was arrested and detained and made his first appearance on May 1, 2017, starting the Speedy Trial Act clock. The district court set a trial date of June 27, 2017. On June 6, 2017, the government and two codefendants, Orlando Soto-Forcey and Edgar Santos, jointly sought a continuance to December 2017, citing the need for more time to prepare and their lawyers’ conflicting trial settings through the summer and early fall. Henry opposed the continuance. At a June 12, 2017 status conference, the district court stated that it would grant the continuance over Henry’s objection because Santos had just made his first appearance in what was “a complicated conspiracy and bank robbery case.” The next day, the district court entered a written order finding that the continuance served the “ends of justice.”

In October 2017, the government and all codefendants sought a second continuance, to March 2018.

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984 F.3d 1343, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-gary-henry-ca9-2021.