USA V. CARMELITA BARELA

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 22, 2022
• Docket: 21-10231
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 22 2022 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 21-10231

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. Nos. 3:20-cr-00254-CRB-1 v.

CARMELITA BARELA, MEMORANDUM* Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Charles R. Breyer, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted October 18, 2022 San Francisco, California

Before: CLIFTON, BEA, and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges.

Carmelita Barela timely appeals her jury conviction on one count of Hobbs

Act robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951. We have jurisdiction under 28

U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

1. Barela argues that the district court erred in instructing the jury that

“[t]hreatening to infect another person with a disease can amount to threatened

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. force, violence or fear of injury, immediate or future, to that person” because the

instruction was unsupported by law, improperly emphasized the government’s

theory of the case, and failed to require findings that the threat was made

knowingly or intentionally and was a threat of violent force. We review “de novo

whether jury instructions omit or misstate elements of a statutory crime or

adequately cover a defendant’s proffered defense.” United States v. Kaplan, 836

F.3d 1199, 1214 (9th Cir. 2016) (cleaned up). We review the wording of jury

instructions for abuse of discretion. Id.

Because the parties are familiar with the facts, we need not recount them in

detail here. We conclude that the district court did not err in its “threatened force”

instruction. Barela’s threat to expose Walgreens employees to COVID-19 could

have easily put the store clerks in “fear of injury.” See, e.g., Black’s Law

Dictionary at 939 (11th ed. 2019) (defining injury as “[a]ny harm or damage” and

defining bodily harm as “[p]hysical pain, illness, or impairment of the body”

(emphasis added)); see also Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 138 (2010)

(attributing the “ordinary meaning” to undefined words in the statute, meaning

reliance on dictionary definitions). By threatening to infect someone with an

illness known to cause bodily harm, as Barela did, one could certainly put another

in “fear of injury” under the Hobbs Act. The district court’s jury instruction also

did not improperly adopt the government’s theory nor improperly deemphasize the

2 defense’s theory. The instruction left the jury to determine whether Barela

threatened anyone with a disease and, if she did, whether such a threat amounted to

threatened force, violence, or fear of injury, immediate or future.

The district court also properly gave the Ninth Circuit Model Jury

Instruction on Hobbs Act robbery and did not err by rejecting Barela’s request to

insert the word “intentional” in the instruction.1 The jury necessarily found that

Barela threatened to expose the Walgreens employees to COVID-19, which fulfills

the required intent for Hobbs Act robbery, as threatening someone denotes

intentionality. See Ninth Circuit Model Jury Instruction 9.8 cmt. (stating that

Hobbs Act robbery has “criminal intent—acting ‘knowingly or willingly’—[a]s an

implied and necessary element that the government must prove for a Hobbs Act

violation”) (citing United States v. Dominguez, 954 F.3d 1251, 1261 (9th Cir.

2020)); cf. United States v. Henry, 984 F.3d 1343, 1358 (9th Cir. 2021) (“[T]he

word ‘assault’ used in [defendant]’s indictment denotes intentionality.”).

Additionally, the district court’s jury instruction for Hobbs Act robbery, which

1 Barela requested the addition of the italicized word in the Ninth Circuit Model Jury Instruction below:

“Robbery” means the unlawful taking or obtaining of personal property from the person or in the presence of another, against their will, by intentional means of actual or threatened force, or violence or fear of injury, immediate or future, to his person or property, or to property in his custody or possession, or to the person or property of a relative or member of his family or of anyone in his company at the time of the taking or obtaining.

3 largely conformed to the Ninth Circuit Model Jury Instruction, adequately

conveyed the force required for a conviction and did not need the addition of a

“violent force” instruction as argued by Barela for the first time on appeal. See

United States v. Still, 857 F.2d 671, 672 (9th Cir. 1988) (holding no plain error

where “the court’s instructions conformed almost entirely with federal model jury

instructions”).

2. Barela’s challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence as to the force

and affects-commerce elements of Hobbs Act robbery lack merit. Viewing the

evidence in the light most favorable to the government, see Jackson v. Virginia,

443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979), we hold that there was sufficient evidence to support the

verdict. The jury heard testimony from the Walgreens store manager that she saw

Barela cough and heard her say “I have COVID” as she loaded her purse with store

merchandise and again as she walked out of the store, and the jury saw video

footage of Barela walking out while the store manager stepped back to keep away

from her and took a photograph that depicts a smiling Barela walking out with her

bags full. A rational trier of fact could have found from this evidence that Barela’s

conduct amounted to threats to infect the employees with COVID-19, made with

intent to keep them from interfering with her theft of merchandise. Regarding the

affects-commerce element, Barela stipulated to “the element of the offense which

requires that it have an impact on interstate commerce,” and the jury was so

4 advised. Barela’s stipulation provided sufficient evidence as to that element. See

Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 186 (1997); United States v. Merino-

Balderrama, 146 F.3d 758, 762 (9th Cir. 1998).

3. We review de novo whether the admission of evidence violated the

Confrontation Clause, and for abuse of discretion a district court’s decision to

admit evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence. United States v. Johnson,

875 F.3d 1265, 1278 (9th Cir. 2017). The district court’s admission of a portion of

a 911 call by a non-testifying witness did not violate the Confrontation Clause and

was not an abuse of discretion under the Federal Rules of Evidence. The primary

purpose of the portion of the 911 call was for facilitating police assistance, such

that the statements were made for primarily nontestimonial purposes. See United

States v. Fryberg, 854 F.3d 1126, 1134–35 (9th Cir. 2017). And the portion of the

911 call did not violate the rule against hearsay because the witness was reporting

present sense impressions. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(1). In any event, even if part of

the call was erroneously admitted, any error was harmless, as there was more than

enough evidence for the jury to convict Barela without the non-testifying witness’s

statements from the 911 call. See United States v. Shayota, 934 F.3d 1049, 1052

(9th Cir. 2019).

AFFIRMED.