Case ID: f-appx_654/html/0891-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Darren David CHAKER, aka Darren Del Nero, aka Darrin Shackler, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 15-50138, No. 15-50193
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Argued and Submitted June 10, 2016 Pasadena, California
    Filed July 06, 2016
    
      Helen H; Hong, Assistant U.S. Attorney, San Diego, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellee
    Sarah Rose Weinman, Attorney, Federal Defenders of San Diego, Inc., San Diego, CA, for Defendant-Appellant
    Patrick Joseph Carome, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and' Dorr LLP, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties, Cato Institute, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, Electronic Frontier Foundation and First Amendment Coalition
    Before: KOZINSKI and WARDLAW, Circuit Judges and KORMAN, Senior District Judge.
    
      
      The Honorable Edward R. Korman, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Darren David Chaker appeals the district court’s revocation of supervised release and the sentence imposed upon revocation. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We reverse the revocation of Chaker’s supervised release and vacate the sentence imposed.

The relevant supervised release condition provides that Chaker “may not stalk and/or harass other individuals, to include, but not limited to, posting personal information of others or defaming a person’s character on the internet.” Chaker’s blog post, which claimed that former police investigator Leesa Fazal “was forced out of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department,” does not qualify as harassment. Among other issues, the blog post was not directed at Fazal, and the government failed to prove that Chaker intended to harass Fa-zal. See United States v. Gnirke, 775 F.3d 1155, 1162 (9th Cir. 2015) (“[Cjonditions of supervised release are read to require an element of mens rea.”) (citation omitted); Harassment, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). The government also failed to prove that Chaker’s blog post satisfied the elements of defamation, including falsity and actual malice. See N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 279-80, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964); Defamation, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). We therefore conclude that Chaker did not violate the special condition of supervised release.

Because we reverse the revocation of Chaker’s supervised release on these grounds, we need not reach his constitutional arguments. Similarly, because we vacate Chaker’s sentence for the reversed revocation, see United States v. Moreland, 622 F.3d 1147, 1173 (9th Cir. 2010), we need not address Chaker’s challenges to the newly imposed conditions of supervised release, which were only imposed as a result of that reversed revocation.

REVERSED; VACATED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.