United States v. Villegas

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: February 18, 2025
• Docket: 23-3492
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 18 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 23-3492 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 3:23-cr-00044-TWR-1 v. MEMORANDUM* MANUEL VILLEGAS, AKA Jose Figueroa-Garcia,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Todd W. Robinson, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 19, 2024 Pasadena, California

Before: RAWLINSON, CHRISTEN, and JOHNSTONE, Circuit Judges.

Manuel Villegas appeals his conviction for one count of illegal reentry in

violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) on the grounds that his jury waiver was invalid. We

have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we affirm.

“We review the adequacy of a jury-trial waiver de novo.” United States v.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Shorty, 741 F.3d 961, 965 (9th Cir. 2013). “To be valid, a defendant’s waiver of

the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial must be voluntary, knowing, and

intelligent.” United States v. Laney, 881 F.3d 1100, 1106 (9th Cir. 2018). A written

jury waiver signed by the defendant that complies with Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 23(a) typically creates a presumption that the defendant’s waiver is

valid. Id. at 1106–07. However, where a district court is “on notice that the

defendant’s waiver ‘might be less than knowing and intelligent’” because “the

record indicates a special disadvantage or disability bearing upon the defendant’s

understanding of the jury waiver,” the district court may not rely on a presumption

of validity and must otherwise ensure the waiver is voluntary, knowing, and

intelligent. United States v. Duarte-Higareda, 113 F.3d 1000, 1003 (9th Cir. 1997)

(quoting United States v. Christensen, 18 F.3d 822, 826 (9th Cir. 1994)). In these

circumstances, we have directed district courts to conduct a colloquy with the

defendant. See id.

The district court failed to do so here. Thus, we must determine whether “the

record otherwise shows that the defendant’s waiver was voluntary, knowing, and

intelligent.” Laney, 882 F.3d at 1108; see also United States v. Ceja, 23 F.4th

1218, 1224–25 (9th Cir. 2022) (finding that a non-English speaking defendant’s

jury waiver was valid despite the lack of a written waiver or complete colloquy,

where the record contained an oral waiver conducted through an interpreter, a

2 23-3492 partial colloquy, and no “suggest[ion] that [the defendant’s] waiver might not be

knowing and intelligent”). We have found a jury waiver invalid where the record

contained a written jury waiver signed by a non-English-speaking defendant but

did not reflect whether it had been translated into Spanish, and no colloquy or

additional facts established that the defendant’s waiver was voluntary, knowing,

and intelligent. Duarte-Higareda, 113 F.3d at 1002–03. Here, however, there are

additional facts bearing on the validity of Villegas’s jury waiver.

Villegas has been removed from the United States on at least 9 prior

occasions. This time, a jury waiver and request for a bench trial was filed soon

after a stipulation, also in English and signed by Villegas. The document, which

stated it was “entered into freely and voluntarily by all parties” and would serve as

evidence in lieu of witness testimony, stipulated to facts establishing all elements

of the crime. Villegas was represented by counsel and he does not challenge the

validity of the stipulation. See United States v. Larson, 302 F.3d 1016, 1020–21

(9th Cir. 2002) (holding that to be valid, a stipulation must be knowing and

intelligent, requiring that a defendant “entered into it ‘with sufficient awareness of

the relevant circumstances and likely consequences’” (quoting Adams v. Peterson,

968 F.2d 835, 844 (9th Cir. 1992) (en banc))). Thus, we accept that Villegas “knew

of the effect of the stipulation and made an intelligent decision to shoulder the

consequences” of stipulating to all elements of the offense. Id. at 1021.

3 23-3492 That Villegas knowingly and intelligently stipulated to all the elements of

his offense is consistent with a choice to proceed with a bench, rather than jury,

trial, and is evidence that Villegas’s subsequent jury waiver was also knowing and

intelligent. In the absence of any contention that the stipulation was not knowing

and intelligent, and any argument as to why Villegas’s stipulation is not probative

of the knowing and intelligent nature of his jury waiver, we conclude under these

circumstances that Villegas’s jury waiver was valid. See Laney, 882 F.3d at 1108.

AFFIRMED.

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