United States v. Hopkins

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: June 16, 2026
• Docket: 25-1220
• Status: Unpublished

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NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 16 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT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. 25-1220 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 1:22-cr-00108-SPW-1 v. MEMORANDUM* JESSE LEE HOPKINS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Montana Susan P. Watters, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted June 12, 2026** Portland, Oregon

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

* 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). Jesse Lee Hopkins appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to vacate,

set aside, or correct his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, and of his motion for

compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c).1

We review the denial of a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 de novo. United

States v. Hill, 915 F.3d 669, 673 (9th Cir. 2019). We review the denial of a motion

for sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) for abuse of discretion.

United States v. Keller, 2 F.4th 1278, 1281 (9th Cir. 2021). We have jurisdiction

under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a), and we affirm.

1. Hopkins argues that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance at

sentencing in connection with the district court’s determination that his prior

robbery conviction under Montana law qualified as a crime of violence. Before

sentencing, Hopkins’s counsel argued that his robbery conviction was not a crime

of violence because the statute was overbroad. This argument was not objectively

unreasonable at the time of counsel’s conduct. See Strickland v. Washington, 466

U.S. 668, 690 (1984).

Counsel was not ineffective for failing to raise the other arguments Hopkins

now advances because they would have been futile “as of the time of counsel’s

conduct.” Id. At the time of sentencing, the district judge presiding over

1 Hopkins now concedes that in light of United States v. King, 257 F.3d 1013 (9th Cir. 2001), “the district court did not err” in denying his pro se motion to withdraw his guilty plea. Accordingly, we do not reach this issue.

2 25-1220 Hopkins’s sentencing and another judge in the District of Montana had rejected the

argument that “bodily injury,” as relevant to Montana’s robbery statute, could be

committed without physical force. See United States v. Castro, No.

1:21-CR-00059-SPW, Dkt. 52 (D. Mont. Apr. 21, 2022) (sentencing transcript);

United States v. DeFrance, 577 F. Supp. 3d 1085, 1093–99 (D. Mont. 2021).

Although we subsequently held that a conviction under Montana’s partner or

family member assault statute is categorically not a crime of violence, see United

States v. Castro, 71 F.4th 735, 736–37 (9th Cir. 2023), a lawyer is not deficient for

failing “to anticipate [the court’s] decision in [a] later case, because his conduct

must be evaluated for purposes of the performance standard of Strickland ‘as of the

time of counsel’s conduct.’” Lowry v. Lewis, 21 F.3d 344, 346 (9th Cir. 1994)

(quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690). Hopkins’s reliance on Stokeling v. United

States, 586 U.S. 73 (2019), is also unavailing because the state of the law at the

time of sentencing was that a violation of the Montana statute required the use of

physical force.

2. Hopkins contends that the district court erred in denying his motion

for compassionate release because his medical and mental health conditions

constitute an extraordinary and compelling reason for reducing his sentence. We

need not address the district court’s determination that Hopkins lacked

extraordinary and compelling circumstances because Hopkins has not shown any

3 25-1220 abuse of discretion in the district court’s independent and dispositive conclusion

that the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors did not support relief. See United States v.

Wright, 46 F.4th 938, 948 (9th Cir. 2022) (explaining that any error in assessing

extraordinary and compelling circumstances is harmless if the district court

properly relies on the § 3553(a) factors as an alternate basis to deny relief). The

district court reasonably weighed Hopkins’s criminal history, dangerousness to the

community, and the circumstances of the offense in determining that reducing

Hopkins’s sentence would denigrate the seriousness of the offense and undermine

respect for the law. United States v. Robertson, 895 F.3d 1206, 1213 (9th Cir.

2018) (explaining that a district court abuses its discretion only if its decision is

illogical, implausible, or without support in the record).

AFFIRMED.

4 25-1220