United States v. Vidal

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedOctober 24, 2005
Docket04-50185
StatusPublished

This text of United States v. Vidal (United States v. Vidal) 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. Vidal, (9th Cir. 2005).

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  No. 04-50185 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. v.  CR-03-01178-1- JUAN JOSE VIDAL, JTM Defendant-Appellant.  OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Jeffrey T. Miller, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 9, 2005 Submission Vacated and Deferred February 22, 2005 Resubmitted October 24, 2005 Pasadena, California

Filed October 24, 2005

Before: James R. Browning, Frank J. Magill,* and Pamela Ann Rymer, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Rymer; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge Browning

*The Honorable Frank J. Magill, Senior Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.

14511 14514 UNITED STATES v. VIDAL

COUNSEL

Siri Shetty, San Diego, California, for the defendant- appellant.

Mark R. Rehe, Assistant United States Attorney, San Diego, California, for the plaintiff-appellee.

OPINION

RYMER, Circuit Judge:

Juan Jose Vidal appeals from his sentence for being a deported alien found in the United States, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. Vidal challenges the eight-level enhancement to his sentence resulting from the district court’s conclusion that his conviction for the unlawful taking of a vehicle, in vio- lation of California Vehicle Code § 10851(a), constitutes an aggravated felony under United States Sentencing Guideline § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C). He also argues that Blakely v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004), precludes resort to the modified cate- gorical approach to determine whether the defendant was pre- viously convicted of conduct that would constitute an aggravated felony under federal law. Finally, in a Fed. R. App. P. 28(j) letter, Vidal asks for his sentence to be vacated UNITED STATES v. VIDAL 14515 and remanded for reconsideration in light of United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005).

We conclude that Vidal was convicted of an aggravated fel- ony. Moreover, Blakely does not undermine Taylor v. United States, 494 U.S. 575 (1990), or our own authority embracing the modified categorical approach. Therefore, the district court did not err in applying it. Nevertheless, we remand for further proceedings in light of Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738, and United States v. Ameline, 409 F.3d 1073, 1074 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc).

I

Vidal, a Mexican citizen, entered the United States from Mexico on February 15, 2003. Border Patrol agents discov- ered and arrested him the next day. The government filed an indictment in the Southern District of California charging Vidal with being a deported alien found in the United States, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. Vidal pled guilty to the charge. The district court then determined, under both the cat- egorical and modified categorical approaches, that Vidal’s 1994 conviction for the unlawful driving or taking of a vehi- cle, in violation of California Vehicle Code § 10851(a), con- stituted a conviction for a “theft offense.” Because a theft offense is an aggravated felony, the district court increased Vidal’s offense level by eight levels, pursuant to United States Sentencing Guideline § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C). Vidal was sentenced to 33 months imprisonment.

Vidal timely appealed.

II

Whether Vidal’s prior conviction qualifies as an aggravated felony for purposes of § 2L1.2 is reviewed de novo. United States v. Arellano-Torres, 303 F.3d 1173, 1176 (9th Cir. 2002) (citation omitted). 14516 UNITED STATES v. VIDAL III

A

[1] Vidal argues that California Vehicle Code § 10851(a) does not categorically qualify as an aggravated felony under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C). In the 2002 version of the Guide- lines, which the district court correctly used here, § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C) provides for an 8-level enhancement of the offense level if the defendant was previously deported after a conviction for an aggravated felony. A “theft offense (includ- ing receipt of stolen property) . . . for which the term of imprisonment [is] at least one year” is an aggravated felony for purposes of U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2. U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2, cmt. n. 2; 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(G).

[2] To determine whether Vidal’s prior conviction qualifies as an aggravated felony, we first “look only to the fact of con- viction and the statutory definition of the prior offense.” United States v. Corona-Sanchez, 291 F.3d 1201, 1203 (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (quoting Taylor, 495 U.S. at 602). Under the categorical approach, the court asks whether “the statute criminalizes conduct that would not constitute an aggravated felony under federal sentencing law.” Id.

[3] Vidal contends that § 10851 is overly broad in two respects. First, he maintains that it encompasses the intent to make a temporary or de minimis deprivation of a vehicle whereas the generic federal definition of “theft offense” adopted in Corona-Sanchez employs the Model Penal Code approach that requires the intent “to withhold property of another permanently or for so extended a period as to appro- priate a major portion of its economic value.” 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 19.5, at 88 (2003). We disagree that it is possible to read Corona-Sanchez in this way. There, we adopted the Seventh Circuit’s generic defini- tion of the phrase “theft offense (including receipt of stolen property),” which is UNITED STATES v. VIDAL 14517 a taking of property or an exercise of control over property without consent with the criminal intent to deprive the owner of rights and benefits of owner- ship, even if such deprivation is less than total or permanent.

291 F.3d at 1205 (quoting Hernandez-Mancilla v. INS, 246 F.3d 1002, 1009 (7th Cir. 2001)). We noted that “Congress used the words ‘theft offense’ rather than just ‘theft,’ thus indicating that the phrase ought be read to incorporate differ- ent but closely related constructions in modern state statutes.” Id. And we explicitly declined to embrace the Model Penal Code definition, whether or not it reflects the view of a major- ity of modern theft statutes. Id.

[4] There is no inconsistency between § 10851(a) and Corona-Sanchez’s generic definition. Section 10851(a) crimi- nalizes “tak[ing] a vehicle . . . without the consent of the owner thereof, and with intent either to permanently or tem- porarily deprive the owner thereof of his or her title to or pos- session of the vehicle,”1 while Corona-Sanchez contemplates deprivations even if “less than total or permanent.” Thus, the intent to make a less than permanent, i.e., temporary, depriva- tion of a vehicle falls within the intent requirement of a theft offense.

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Related

Taylor v. United States
495 U.S. 575 (Supreme Court, 1990)
Blakely v. Washington
542 U.S. 296 (Supreme Court, 2004)
United States v. Booker
543 U.S. 220 (Supreme Court, 2004)
United States v. Gary Barnett
667 F.2d 835 (Ninth Circuit, 1982)
United States v. Jeffrey Lynn Franklin
235 F.3d 1165 (Ninth Circuit, 2000)
United States v. Miguel Angel Arellano-Torres
303 F.3d 1173 (Ninth Circuit, 2002)
United States v. Pedro Velasco-Medina
305 F.3d 839 (Ninth Circuit, 2002)
United States v. Timothy Dean Smith
390 F.3d 661 (Ninth Circuit, 2004)
United States v. Alfred Arnold Ameline
409 F.3d 1073 (Ninth Circuit, 2005)
United States v. David Lopez-Montanez
421 F.3d 926 (Ninth Circuit, 2005)
People v. Prettyman
926 P.2d 1013 (California Supreme Court, 1996)

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