United States v. Rico

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 6, 2025
• Docket: 24-2662
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION MAR 6 2025 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-2662 D.C. No. Plaintiff-Appellee, 2:10-cr-00381-AG-1 v. MEMORANDUM* ISABEL RICO, AKA Bad Girl,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 4, 2025** Pasadena, California

Before: IKUTA and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges, and LIBURDI,*** District Judge.

Defendant Isabel Rico appeals from the district court’s revocation of her

supervised release and imposition of a 16-month prison sentence, followed by a

* 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 Michael T. Liburdi, United States District Judge for the District of Arizona, sitting by designation. new two-year period of supervised release. We have jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C.

§ 3742 and 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

Contrary to Rico’s assertion, we are bound by circuit precedent applying the

fugitive tolling doctrine. See, e.g., United States v. Crane, 979 F.2d 687, 691 (9th

Cir. 1992); United States v. Murguia-Oliveros, 421 F.3d 951, 954 (9th Cir. 2005);

United States v. Ignacio Juarez, 601 F.3d 885, 889 (9th Cir. 2010) (per curiam).

The fugitive tolling doctrine is consistent with Bowles v. Russell. 551 U.S. 205,

214 (2007). Bowles held that the Supreme Court cannot create an equitable

exception to a jurisdictional requirement created by Congress. Id. at 213, 214.

Because Congress has not stripped the courts of jurisdiction over implementation

of a term of supervised release, the fugitive tolling doctrine is not “clearly

irreconcilable” with intervening higher authority. Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889,

893 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc).

Here, the district court correctly concluded that the fugitive tolling doctrine

applied. Rico absconded in May 2018, after she had served five months of a 42-

month term of supervised release. This means that she had 37 months of

supervised release remaining. Pursuant to the fugitive tolling doctrine, Rico’s term

of supervised release was tolled while she was a fugitive from May 2018 to

January 2023, a period of four years and eight months. After tolling ended in

2 January 2023, Rico’s term of supervised release would have expired in February

2026, i.e., 37 months from January 2023. Therefore, the district court had the

authority to revoke Rico’s 42-month term of supervised release—and to sentence

her to 16 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release—based on

violations that the probation office first raised in February 2023. See 18 U.S.C.

§ 3583(i).

Finally, we conclude that this case does not meet the standard for en banc

review. See Fed. R. App. P. 40. Therefore, we decline to reconsider the fugitive

tolling doctrine en banc. See 9th Cir. Gen. Ord. 5.2 (stating that a three-judge

panel can deny initial en banc review on behalf of the Court).

AFFIRMED.