United States v. Salazar-Gonzalez

Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit·Decided August 14, 2006·No. 04-50411·Published

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  No. 04-50411 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. v.

 CR-04-00182-MJL

GUMERCINDO SALAZAR-GONZALEZ, ORDER AND Defendant-Appellant. AMENDED  OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California M. James Lorenz, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

June 8, 2005—Pasadena, California

Opinion Filed April 21, 2006 Amended Opinion Filed August 15, 2006

Before: Betty B. Fletcher, Pamela A. Rymer and Raymond C. Fisher, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Fisher; Concurrence by Judge Rymer

UNITED STATES v. SALAZAR-GONZALEZ 9611 COUNSEL

Vincent J. Brunkow, Steven F. Hubachek, Federal Defenders of San Diego, Inc., San Diego, California, for the defendant- appellant.

Shanna L. Dougherty, Assistant United States Attorney, San Diego, California, for the plaintiff-appellee.

ORDER

Defendant-Appellant’s petition for panel rehearing, filed June 5, 2006, is GRANTED. The disposition filed on April 21, 2006 is amended and replaced by the disposition filed concurrently with this order. No further petitions for rehearing will be entertained by this court.

OPINION

FISHER, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-appellant Gumercindo Salazar-Gonzalez (“Salazar-Gonzalez”) appeals his conviction for being found in the United States without the consent of the Attorney General in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. At trial, the district court refused to give Salazar-Gonzalez’s proposed jury instruction requiring the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Salazar-Gonzalez “voluntarily reentered” and “knew he was in” the United States. The district court concluded that Salazar-Gonzalez presented no evidence to support a voluntariness instruction, but did not separately address the knowledge instruction. Although this was in error, we affirm the district court nonetheless because it is “clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found the defendant 9612 UNITED STATES v. SALAZAR-GONZALEZ guilty absent the error[.]” Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 18 (1999). However, because Salazar-Gonzalez preserved his nonconstitutional Booker claim that he is entitled to resentencing under the now-advisory Sentencing Guidelines, and the district court’s error in sentencing him under the mandatory regime was not harmless, we vacate and remand for resentencing under the advisory regime. United States v. Beng-Salazar, 452 F.3d 1088 (9th Cir. 2006).

I.

On October 23, 2003, Border Patrol Agent Raul Castorena noticed footprints crossing the unmarked United States- Mexico border fence near Jacumba, California. After following these footprints for approximately 100 yards, Castorena found Salazar-Gonzalez, sitting with 10 other people, partially obscured in moderately dense brush. He ordered them not to move and then asked their citizenship and if they “had proper documents to be legally present in the United States.” All of the individuals, including Salazar-Gonzalez, responded that they were citizens of Mexico and did not have documents authorizing them to be in the United States.

Salazar-Gonzalez, who had been convicted of crimes in the United States and deported on three previous occasions, most recently on October 20, 2003, was charged and convicted with being found in the United States after deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The district court increased Salazar- Gonzalez’s base offense level by 16 levels pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2, based on his being deported after sustaining a conviction for a crime of violence, and it increased his criminal history category from level IV to V, based on its finding that two prior convictions arose from separate arrests. The district court sentenced Salazar-Gonzalez to 70 months’ imprisonment, a sentence in the middle of the range prescribed by the United States Sentencing Guidelines.

UNITED STATES v. SALAZAR-GONZALEZ 9613 II.

[1] Preliminarily, we address the district court’s denial of Salazar-Gonzalez’s motion to exclude a “Certificate of Nonexistence of Record” (“CNR”) submitted by the government to prove that Salazar-Gonzalez had not received the Attorney General’s permission to apply for readmission to the United States. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (“[A]ny alien who — (1) has been . . . deported . . . and thereafter (2) . . . is at any time found in, the United States, unless (A) . . . the Attorney General has expressly consented to such alien’s reapplying for admission . . . , shall be fined under Title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.” (emphasis added)). Salazar-Gonzalez contends that admission of the CNR violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him, as articulated by the Supreme Court in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). The CNR is not testimonial evidence under Crawford; the district court properly admitted it as a nontestimonial public record. United States v. Cervantes-Flores, 421 F.3d 825, 834 (9th Cir. 2005).

III.

Salazar-Gonzalez principally challenges the district court’s refusal to give a jury instruction on the general intent element of being a deported alien “found in” the United States under § 1326.1 At trial, Salazar-Gonzalez offered as his defense that 1 Salazar-Gonzalez argues that the district court erred by failing to instruct on voluntariness, and that this failure precluded him from presenting the defense that he “inadvertently” or “unknowingly” wandered into the United States. Although Salazar-Gonzalez argues that he was entitled to a jury instruction embodying his defense theory, his objection to the jury instructions is more appropriately viewed as a request that the jury receive an instruction on each element of the crime. Indeed, in his opening brief, Salazar-Gonzalez begins by claiming that “[t]he district court failed, over objection, to instruct on the elements of general criminal intent.” Similarly, before the district court, defense counsel argued that “voluntariness of return is an element which must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” The district court’s ruling, “den[ying] the defense motion that a voluntariness issue or element be added,” further supports this view of Salazar-Gonzalez’ request. (Emphasis added.)

9614 UNITED STATES v. SALAZAR-GONZALEZ he had not knowingly and voluntarily entered the United States but rather wandered into the country inadvertently, without knowing that he was crossing the border. Salazar- Gonzalez proposed a jury instruction specifying that the jury must, in order to convict, find that he had “voluntarily reentered the United States” and “knew he was in the United States.” His proposed instruction concluded: “It is not sufficient that the government proves that Mr. Salazar was ‘found in’ the United States; rather, it must prove that Mr. Salazar committed an intentional act, that is, a voluntary entry.”

Although the district court agreed that a “voluntariness” instruction “could be applicable” and “certainly not frivolous” in some cases, the court rejected Salazar-Gonzalez’ proposed instruction, concluding that “in this case the evidence does not warrant it.” The court instead instructed the jury as follows:

In order for the defendant to be found guilty of [being a deported alien found in the United States], the government must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt: First, the defendant is an alien; second, the defendant was deported or removed from the United States; . . . third, the defendant was subsequently found in the United States; and fourth, at the time the defendant was found in the United States he did not have the consent of the United States Attorney General or his designated successor, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. (emphasis added).

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