Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-23-50016/USCOURTS-ca9-23-50016-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Christopher Beasley
Appellee
United States of America
Appellant
Nathan Wilson
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 v. 

NATHAN WILSON; 

CHRISTOPHER BEASLEY, 

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 23-50016 

D.C. No. 

2:20-cr-00516-

FMO-1 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Fernando M. Olguin, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted May 6, 2024

Pasadena, California

Filed December 19, 2024

Before: Danielle J. Forrest and Patrick J. Bumatay, Circuit 

Judges, and James Donato,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Forrest;

Concurrence by Judge Bumatay;

Concurrence by Judge Donato

* The Honorable James Donato, United States District Judge for the 

Northern District of California, sitting by designation.

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 1 of 28
2 USA V. WILSON

SUMMARY**

Criminal Law

In a case in which the government alleges that Nathan 

Wilson and Christoher Beasley (Defendants) set fire to a 

police car during a protest following the killing of George 

Floyd, the panel reversed the district court’s selectiveprosecution discovery order, reversed the district court’s 

order dismissing without prejudice an indictment charging 

Defendants with arson, and remanded for further 

proceedings. 

Defendants moved to dismiss their indictment, arguing 

that they were unconstitutionally singled out for prosecution 

based on the perception that they held anti-government 

views. Alternatively, Defendants sought discovery on their 

selective-prosecution claim. The district court denied 

Defendants’ motion for dismissal but granted them 

discovery regarding selective prosecution. But after the 

Government indicated that it would seek appellate review 

rather than produce the ordered discovery, the district court 

dismissed the indictment without prejudice.

Rejecting Defendants’ argument that this court lacks 

jurisdiction, the panel explained that nothing in the text of 

18 U.S.C. § 3731 (governing Government appeals in 

criminal cases) indicates that appellate jurisdiction exists 

only for final decisions or orders. 

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 2 of 28
USA V. WILSON 3

A defendant seeking discovery on a claim of selective 

prosecution must show some evidence of both 

discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent.

Analyzing statistics in connection with its selected 

control group of arsonists in the Central District of 

California, the district court found that the U.S. Attorney’s 

Office was “obviously aware of and chose not to federally 

prosecute far more serious and damaging arsons” than the 

police-car burning for which Defendants were charged. As 

a result, the district court concluded that Defendants met 

their burden to show evidence of discriminatory effect.

The panel held that this was an abuse of discretion 

because the district court based its ruling on an erroneous 

view of the law. To show discriminatory effect sufficient to 

warrant discovery, a defendant must produce some evidence 

that similarly situated defendants could have been 

prosecuted, but were not. To be similarly situated means 

more than merely committing the same crime in the same 

place; a proper comparator must be the same as the 

defendant in all relevant respects. Here, Defendants did not 

offer evidence, and the district court did not make any 

findings, about the nature of the proposed comparators other 

than that they committed a shared crime in a shared 

location. Because Defendants failed to meet their burden to 

produce some evidence that similarly situated individuals 

could have been prosecuted but were not, the panel reversed 

the district court’s selective-prosecution discovery order and 

its dismissal of the indictment without prejudice, and 

remanded for further proceedings. The panel declined to 

address whether Defendants presented evidence of 

discriminatory intent. 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 3 of 28
4 USA V. WILSON

Concurring, Judge Bumatay joined the majority opinion 

showing that the district court botched the discriminatoryeffect analysis, but wrote to explain that the district court’s 

discriminatory-purpose analysis was also flawed. He 

explained that (1) the government does not engage in 

arbitrary classifications when it singles out political violence 

for prosecution; (2) the First Amendment doesn’t alter the 

government’s discretionary authority to target political 

violence; and (3) Defendants offered no evidence that the 

government prosecuted them for protected non-violent 

expression.

Concurring, District Judge Donato wrote separately to 

state his understanding of the standard a defendant must 

meet to be entitled to discovery on a selective-prosecution 

claim. Noting that the Supreme Court has not equated the 

evidentiary burden for discovery with that of establishing a 

prima facie case of selective prosecution, he wrote that a 

court must take care to ensure that the threshold a defendant 

must cross for obtaining discovery is not so high as to 

foreclose a plausible selective-prosecution claim before the 

merits are even examined. Judge Donato saw no reason why 

Defendants, on remand, may not seek to renew a selectivediscovery request and claim with proper evidence. He wrote 

that in the circumstances of this case, the district court could 

reasonably request a word of explanation from the 

prosecutors.

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 4 of 28
USA V. WILSON 5 

COUNSEL

Alexander P. Robbins (argued), Assistant United States 

Attorney, Deputy Chief, Criminal Appeals Section; David 

R. Friedman, Jeremiah Levine, and Sara B. Vargas, 

Assistant United States Attorneys; Bram M. Alden, 

Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Criminal Appeals 

Section; E. Martin Estrada, United States Attorney; United 

States Department of Justice, Office of the United States 

Attorney, Los Angeles, California; for Plaintiff-Appellant. 

Andrew B. Talai (argued), Deputy Federal Public Defender; 

Cuauhtemoc Ortega, Federal Public Defender, Central 

District of California; Federal Public Defender’s Office, Los 

Angeles, California; Mark M. Kassabian, Buehler & 

Kassabian, Pasadena, California; for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

FORREST, Circuit Judge: 

In summer 2020, nationwide protests followed the death 

of George Floyd. In some cities, the protests escalated into 

rioting and property destruction. Public officials—including 

then-President Donald Trump and Attorney General 

William Barr—promised to prosecute the rioters responsible 

for the violence and destruction. 

On May 31, 2020, Defendants-Appellees Nathan Wilson 

and Christopher Beasley allegedly joined a protest in Santa 

Monica, California and set fire to a police car. They were 

both federally indicted on one count of arson. Defendants 

moved to dismiss their indictment, arguing that they were 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 5 of 28
6 USA V. WILSON

unconstitutionally singled out for prosecution based on the 

perception that they held anti-government views. 

Alternatively, Defendants sought discovery on their 

selective-prosecution claim. The district court denied 

Defendants’ motion for dismissal but granted them

discovery regarding selective prosecution. But after the 

Government indicated that it would seek appellate review 

rather than produce the ordered discovery, the district court

dismissed the indictment without prejudice. On appeal, the 

Government contends that the district court erred in ordering 

selective-prosecution discovery, and Defendants contend 

that we lack appellate jurisdiction. We conclude that we have 

jurisdiction, and we reverse and remand.

I. BACKGROUND

A. George Floyd Protests

After George Floyd was killed at the hands of 

Minneapolis police officers on May 25, 2020, protests 

sprang up across the nation, sometimes turning into 

destructive riots. The week after Floyd’s death, Attorney 

General Barr issued a statement that the “peaceful and 

legitimate protests h[ad] been hijacked by violent radical 

elements. Groups of outside radicals and agitators are 

exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate, violent, 

and extremist agenda.” He explained that the violence 

associated with the rioting was “domestic terrorism” and 

“[f]ederal law enforcement actions will be directed at 

apprehending and charging the violent radical agitators who 

have hijacked peaceful protest and are engaged in violations 

of federal law.” President Trump echoed similar sentiments: 

“[O]ur nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, 

violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, antifa, and 

others. . . . I want the organizers of this terror to be on notice 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 6 of 28
USA V. WILSON 7

that you will face severe criminal penalties and lengthy 

sentences in jail.” In a conference call with state governors, 

President Trump and Attorney General Barr reiterated that 

some subset of “extremist anarchist agitators,” “terrorists,” 

and “Antifa” were responsible for the property destruction 

and would be the target of federal enforcement. 

A month after Floyd’s death, on June 26, 2020, Attorney 

General Barr issued a memorandum stating that he was 

“directing the creation of a task force devoted to countering 

violent anti-government extremists’” The memorandum

explained that there had been “significant threats to the rule 

of law” from “anti-government extremists engaged in 

indefensible acts of violence designed to undermine public 

order,” such as “violently attack[ing] police officers and 

other government officials, destroy[ing] public and private 

property, and threaten[ing] innocent people.” And months 

later, in September 2020, Attorney General Barr directed 

United States Attorneys to “be aggressive when charging 

violent demonstrators with crimes” and “encouraged the 

prosecutors to seek a number [of] federal charges . . . even 

when state charges could apply[.]” 

B. Defendants’ Prosecutions

Wilson and Beasley allegedly participated in a protest in 

Santa Monica, California on May 31, 2020, and set fire to a 

police car. A three-minute video shows two men damaging 

and graffitiing the police car before starting a fire with a 

lighter. In the video, the men take pictures with and climb 

onto the smoking car. The day after the protest, Beasley 

posted a video on Twitter in which he said that the “solution 

to cops killing Black people is to kill cops.” The Twitter 

video caught the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI)

attention. Further investigation of Beasley’s social media 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 7 of 28
8 USA V. WILSON

revealed that on the day of the protest he posted a video of 

the police-car arson on Facebook. Additional investigation 

revealed that Beasley was a long-time member of the 

Westside Crips gang and had been convicted of multiple 

violent crimes. 

Initially law enforcement did not identify Wilson as the 

second person in the arson video. But in September 2020, 

Wilson’s girlfriend called 9-1-1 to report that he had set fire 

to her car after a domestic dispute. She claimed that he had 

also burned a police car earlier that year in Santa Monica. 

Defendants were indicted on a single count of arson of a 

vehicle belonging to an institution or organization receiving 

federal financial assistance, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 844(f)(1), (2), 2(a). A year later, Defendants moved to 

dismiss their indictment for selective prosecution. In sum, 

Defendants relied on statistical evidence that the Central 

District of California’s U.S. Attorney’s Office very rarely 

prosecuted arson. Citing statements from President Trump 

and Attorney General Barr, Defendants argued that the 

“decision to prosecute [them] for federal arson is the result 

of an unconstitutional policy targeting persons the 

government believed to be anti-government protesters.”

Alternatively, they requested discovery regarding their 

allegation of selective prosecution. The Government 

opposed Defendants’ motion. 

The district court denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss 

their indictment without prejudice but granted their 

alternative discovery requests in full, subject to objections 

based on the deliberative-process privilege. The 

Government moved for reconsideration, explaining that if 

the district court denied reconsideration, “the U.S. 

Attorney’s Office intends to seek appellate review . . . rather 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 8 of 28
USA V. WILSON 9

than produce the discovery covered by the Court’s order.” 

Thus, the Government asked the district court to dismiss the 

indictments pending its appeal to this court. Defendants 

opposed the motion for reconsideration, arguing that the 

Government’s requested relief was “a transparent attempt to 

enlist the Court in the government’s effort to subvert the 

rules, and to recast an unappealable discovery order as an 

appealable order dismissing the indictment.” The district 

court determined that the appropriate remedy for failure to 

comply with the court’s discovery order was to set a hearing 

for the Government to “show cause as to why it should not 

be held in contempt.” 

The district court declined to reconsider its prior ruling

but elected to dismiss the indictment without prejudice rather 

than “hold[] the government in contempt in order to provide 

it with the basis for an appealable order.” Noting the 

Government’s intention to seek appellate review rather than 

produce the ordered discovery, the district court dismissed 

the indictment. The Government appealed the district court’s 

discovery order, its order dismissing the indictment, and the 

judgment. 

II. DISCUSSION

A. Jurisdiction

The first issue that we must resolve is whether we have 

jurisdiction. We review our appellate jurisdiction de novo. 

United States ex rel. Alexander Volkhoff, LLC v. Janssen 

Pharmaceutica N.V., 945 F.3d 1237, 1241 (9th Cir. 2020). 

In criminal cases, we have jurisdiction over Government 

appeals from three types of decisions: (1) an order 

“dismissing an indictment or information or granting a new 

trial after verdict or judgment” unless double jeopardy has 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 9 of 28
10 USA V. WILSON

attached; (2) an order “suppressing or excluding evidence or 

requiring the return of seized property” made before 

jeopardy has attached or a verdict rendered; and (3) orders 

“granting the release of a person charged with or convicted 

of an offense, or denying a motion for revocation of, or 

modification of the conditions of, a decision or order 

granting release.” 18 U.S.C. § 3731. Congress instructs us to 

“liberally construe[]” these provisions. Id. 

Although this case seems to fall into the first category

because the Government appeals the district court’s order 

dismissing Defendants’ indictment without prejudice,

Defendants argue that we lack jurisdiction. Defendants 

assert that § 3731 cabins the statutory authorization to appeal

to only final judgments and that the Government 

manufactured “review of an otherwise non-appealable 

[discovery] order that is not specifically listed in § 3731” in 

a way that raises “serious constitutional and prudential 

problems.” 

We disagree for the reasons explained by the Seventh 

Circuit in United States v. Davis, 793 F.3d 712 (7th Cir. 

2015) (en banc). That case had nearly identical facts to this 

one: the district court dismissed an indictment “without 

prejudice to a new indictment” in order “to permit appellate 

review of [its selective-prosecution] discovery order, with 

which the prosecutor had declined to comply.” Id. at 714. 

Rejecting the same finality argument that Defendants raise 

here, the Seventh Circuit noted that “[t]he word ‘final’ does 

not appear in § 3731, nor does any similar word.” Id. at 716. 

It also explained that orders § 3731 specifically makes 

appealable—such as dismissals of less than all counts, orders 

setting a new trial, suppression orders, and orders related to 

bail and conditions of pretrial release—are not final. Id. at 

716–17. Thus, the Seventh Circuit concluded that it is “apt 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 10 of 28
USA V. WILSON 11

to say that all of § 3731 is an exception to the final-decision 

rule.” Id. at 717; see also United States v. Richter, 488 F.2d 

170, 172 (9th Cir. 1973). And it noted that the Supreme 

Court has instructed that if a district court enters an order 

listed in § 3731, “there are no further barriers to appeal.” 

Davis, 793 F.3d at 718 (discussing United States v. Wilson, 

420 U.S. 332 (1975)). Finally, the Seventh Circuit rejected 

the notion that the government can improperly manufacture 

review of a discovery order because to get review of such an 

order “requires the [district] court’s approval.” Id. (citing 

Fed. R. Crim. P. 48(a)). If a district court deems 

interlocutory review improper, it “has only to avoid issuing 

one of the sorts of orders that fall within the scope of 

§ 3731.” Id. 

We adopt this same reasoning. Nothing in the text of 

§ 3731 indicates that appellate jurisdiction exists only for 

final decisions or orders. This contrasts with the statute 

governing appellate jurisdiction in civil cases, which does 

limit our jurisdiction to appeals “from all final decisions of 

the district courts.” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. And as the Seventh 

Circuit recounted, the plain language of § 3731 makes 

multiple non-final decisions appealable. Thus, § 3731 is “a 

statutory exception to the final judgment rule.” Flanagan v. 

United States, 465 U.S. 259, 265 n.3 (1984). And as a 

prudential matter, it makes sense that Congress authorized 

some interlocutory appeals by the government “because the 

Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment creates 

special obstacles for a prosecutor who contends that a district 

court’s order is erroneous.” Davis, 793 F.3d at 717. 

This is not a close call; we have jurisdiction over this 

appeal. 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 11 of 28
12 USA V. WILSON

B. Selective-Prosecution Discovery

“Whether the district court applied the correct discovery 

standard is a legal question that we review de novo.” United 

States v. Sellers, 906 F.3d 848, 851 (9th Cir. 2018). We 

review for an abuse of discretion a district court’s 

determination that the defendant has made the requisite 

showing to obtain discovery on a claim of unconstitutional

selective prosecution. Id. at 851–52. “The court necessarily 

abuses its discretion when it applies the wrong legal 

standard.” Id. at 852; see also Highmark Inc. v. Allcare 

Health Mgmt. Sys., 572 U.S. 559, 563 n.2 (2014) (“‘A 

district court would necessarily abuse its discretion if it 

based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law . . . .’” 

(quoting Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 

405 (1990)). 

The Executive Branch has “‘broad discretion’ to enforce 

the Nation’s criminal laws.” United States v. Armstrong, 517 

U.S. 456, 464 (1996) (citations omitted). Thus, a 

“‘presumption of regularity supports’ . . . prosecutorial 

decisions and, ‘in the absence of clear evidence to the 

contrary, courts presume that [prosecutors] have properly 

discharged their official duties.’” Id. (quoting United States 

v. Chemical Foundation, Inc., 272 U.S. 1, 14–15 (1926)).

Selective-prosecution claims—assertions that a prosecutor 

has brought charges for reasons forbidden by the Due 

Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment—require courts “to 

exercise judicial power over a ‘special province’ of the 

Executive.” Id. (quoting Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 

832 (1985)); see also United States v. Rundo, 108 F.4th 792,

798 (9th Cir. 2024) (“[T]he decision to prosecute may not be 

‘deliberately based upon an unjustifiable standard such as 

race, religion, or other arbitrary classification, including the 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 12 of 28
USA V. WILSON 13

exercise of protected statutory and constitutional rights.’”

(citation omitted)). 

Given the separation-of-powers concerns at play, the 

standard for proving selective prosecution is “a demanding 

one.” Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 463; see also id. at 465; cf. 

United States v. Steele, 461 F.2d 1148, 1151 (9th Cir. 1972) 

(“Mere selectivity in prosecution creates no constitutional 

problem.”). The Supreme Court has established a two-factor 

standard: the defendant must demonstrate “clear evidence,”

first that the decision to prosecute “had a discriminatory 

effect and[, second,] that it was motivated by a 

discriminatory purpose.” Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 465 

(citation omitted). “[T]he showing necessary to obtain 

discovery” on a selective-prosecution claim is 

“correspondingly rigorous,” id. at 468, and is intended to be 

a “significant barrier to the litigation of insubstantial 

claims,” id. at 464. A defendant seeking “discovery on a 

claim of selective prosecution must show some evidence of 

both discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent.” United 

States v. Bass, 536 U.S. 862, 863 (2002) (per curiam) 

(emphasis added). Here, the district court correctly 

articulated this governing test but erred in applying it. 

To show discriminatory effect sufficient to warrant 

discovery, a defendant must “produce some evidence that 

similarly situated defendants . . . could have been 

prosecuted, but were not.” Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 469; see 

also id. at 470 (describing the burden as “a credible showing 

of different treatment of similarly situated persons”). As we 

have explained, 

The goal of identifying a similarly situated 

class of law breakers is to isolate the factor 

allegedly subject to impermissible 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 13 of 28
14 USA V. WILSON

discrimination. The similarly situated group 

is the control group. The control group and 

defendant are the same in all relevant 

respects, except that defendant was, for 

instance, exercising his first amendment 

rights. If all other things are equal, the 

prosecution of only those persons exercising 

their constitutional rights gives rise to an 

inference of discrimination. But where the 

comparison group has less in common with 

defendant, then factors other than the 

protected expression may very well play a 

part in the prosecution.

United States v. Aguilar, 883 F.2d 662, 706 (9th Cir. 1989), 

superseded by statute as stated in United States v. GonzalezTorres, 309 F.3d 594, 599 (9th Cir. 2002); see also United 

States v. Smith, 231 F.3d 800, 810 (11th Cir. 2000) (defining 

a similarly situated person as “one who engaged in the same 

type of conduct, which means that the comparator 

committed the same basic crime in substantially the same 

manner as the defendant—so that any prosecution of that 

individual would have the same deterrence value and would 

be related in the same way to the Government’s enforcement 

priorities and enforcement plan—and against whom the 

evidence was as strong or stronger than that against the 

defendant.”); cf. Bass, 546 U.S. at 864 (“[R]aw statistics 

regarding overall charges say nothing about charges brought 

against similarly situated defendants.”).

Defendants argued to the district court that they were 

unconstitutionally prosecuted based on a policy of the 

Trump Administration to prosecute an arbitrary class: 

“‘individuals associated with protests who the government 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 14 of 28
USA V. WILSON 15

thought held anti-government views, regardless of what 

actual views they held.’” And they asserted that to evaluate 

the discriminatory effect of their prosecution, the district 

court should look to “a control group consisting of ‘all 

individuals whom the [U.S. Attorney’s Office] could charge 

federally for arson.’” The district court accepted the 

Defendants’ posited control group “because both its 

members and defendants ‘are the same in all relevant 

respects, except that’ the charged offense—arson—

allegedly occurred during the George Floyd Protests.” The 

district court declined to consider the Government’s 

narrower proposed control group—other arsons from the 

George Floyd protests—because individuals in that group 

also fell into Defendants’ alleged arbitrary class. 

Focusing on its selected control group—arsonists in the 

Central District of California—the district court turned to 

statistics. It noted that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the 

Central District brought four arson cases related to the

George Floyd protests, two arson cases in the previous 10 

years, and nine others in the decade before that. It also 

highlighted that the George Floyd protest cases were the first 

stand-alone arson charges brought since 2007. The district 

court further surveyed arson cases occurring in the area 

within the Central District overall, finding that between 2010 

and 2019, an annual average of 3,500 arsons were reported 

and 559 were prosecuted. Based on these statistics, the 

district court found that the U.S. Attorney’s Office was 

“obviously aware of and chose not to federally prosecute far 

more serious and damaging arsons” than the police-car 

burning for which Defendants were charged. As a result, it 

concluded that Defendants met their burden to show 

evidence of discriminatory effect. 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 15 of 28
16 USA V. WILSON

This was an abuse of discretion because the district court 

“based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law.”

Highmark Inc., 572 U.S. at 563 n.2 (citation omitted). In

defining the control group with only two shared facts—

(1) arson (2) within the Central District—the district court 

did not account for many other facets of the crimes. To be 

similarly situated means more than merely committing the 

same crime in the same place. Aguilar, 883 F.2d at 706; 

Rundo, 108 F.4th at 801. A proper comparator must be “the 

same [as the defendant] in all relevant respects.” Aguilar, 

883 F.2d at 706. 

The required specificity of this comparison is illustrated 

by United States v. Turner, 104 F.3d 1180, 1184–85 (9th Cir. 

1997), and United States v. Steele, 461 F.2d at 1151. In 

Turner, the defendants provided statistical evidence of racial 

disparities in crack-cocaine prosecutions. 104 F.3d at 1184. 

Nevertheless, we held that they failed to show 

unconstitutional selective prosecution based on race because 

the statistics did not account for other sociological factors, 

such as “the principal characteristic” of gang membership. 

Id. at 1185. And without accounting for all necessary factors, 

the defendants had “shown no more than the consequences 

of the investigation of violent street gangs,” which is “a 

neutral, nonracial law enforcement decision.” Id. By 

contrast, in Steele, the four defendants and the six-person 

control group all committed the same federal offense: refusal 

to complete the census questionnaire. 461 F.2d at 1151. But 

the defendants alone also took part in a census-resistance 

movement—holding press conferences, leading protest 

marches, distributing pamphlets, broadcasting editorials, 

and speaking out against the census on the radio—and the 

defendants alone were prosecuted. Id. In other words, the 

only distinguishing factor between the defendants and the 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 16 of 28
USA V. WILSON 17

control group was constitutionally protected expression. We 

explained that “[a]n enforcement procedure that focuses 

upon the vocal offender is inherently suspect, since it is 

vulnerable to the charge that those chosen for prosecution 

are being punished for their expression of ideas, a 

constitutionally protected right.” Id. at 1152. 

Here, Defendants did not offer evidence, and the district 

court did not make any findings, about the nature of the

proposed comparators other than that they committed a 

shared crime in a shared location. There are no facts 

indicating, for example, which of the other arsons identified 

were eligible for federal prosecution or if the arsons involved 

government property, were committed by defendants with 

criminal records, were committed by defendants in 

connection with the expression of ideas, or were publicly 

touted by the defendants. Rather, the district court simply 

presumed, without evidence, that the comparator arsonists 

fell outside Defendants’ defined arbitrary class of 

“‘individuals associated with the protests who the 

government thought held anti-government views.’” This is 

insufficient to satisfy the “rigorous” standard that must be 

met before ordering the Government to produce selectiveprosecution discovery. Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 468.

Following Armstrong and Turner, we resolve this case 

on the discriminatory-effect factor alone and decline to 

address whether Defendants presented evidence of 

discriminatory intent.1 Because Defendants failed to meet 

1 The discriminatory-intent factor is quite muddled. As the Sixth Circuit 

has recognized, “the appellate courts . . . have had difficulty articulating 

a clear and uniform standard for what constitutes ‘some evidence’ of 

discriminatory intent.” United States v. Thorpe, 471 F.3d 652, 660 (6th 

Cir. 2006).

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 17 of 28
18 USA V. WILSON

their burden to produce some evidence that similarly situated 

individuals could have been prosecuted but were not, we 

reverse the district court’s selective-prosecution discovery 

order and its dismissal of the Defendants’ indictment without 

prejudice, and we remand for further proceedings consistent 

with this opinion. 

REVERSED and REMANDED.

BUMATAY, Circuit Judge, concurring: 

When the government expressly targets arsonists, 

terrorists, violent anarchists, and the like, it is not evidence 

of discriminatory intent for a selective prosecution claim. 

Instead, it’s simply evidence of intent to enforce the law. 

And the Constitution makes clear that the decision to 

prioritize and prosecute certain crimes falls within the 

discretion of the Executive Branch. Absent “some 

evidence” of discriminatory intent, federal courts have no 

business meddling in the Executive’s choice to enforce 

criminal statutes. See United States v. Bass, 536 U.S. 862, 

863 (2002) (per curiam). 

And just because a prosecution follows political protests 

makes no difference. Indeed, violence is not immune from 

prosecution merely because it is cloaked in political 

ideology. In other words, even if the Defendants here have 

shown that the government selected them for prosecution 

based on their “anti-government extremist” violence, that’s 

fine. That’s because those who engage in violence for any 

reason are not a part of any protected class and the 

government is free to bring down the hammer of the justice 

system on them. In dismissing the indictments of 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 18 of 28
USA V. WILSON 19

Defendants Nathan Wilson and Christopher Beasley, the 

district court far overstepped its boundaries. 

* * *

In this case, on May 31, 2020, the Defendants allegedly 

set fire to a police car while protesting the death of George 

Floyd. The federal government indicted them both on one 

count of arson. The Defendants then sought to dismiss their 

indictment on a selective prosecution claim: that the 

government unconstitutionally singled them out because it 

believed they held anti-government views. The district court 

granted discovery on this claim and later dismissed the 

indictment after the government refused to comply with the 

discovery order. On appeal, we reverse.

While I join the majority opinion showing that the 

district court botched the discriminatory-effect analysis, it’s 

worth explaining why the district court’s discriminatorypurpose analysis was also flawed. See United States v. 

Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 465, 468 (1996) (describing how 

selective prosecution claims require both discriminatory 

effect and discriminatory purpose). The district court found 

that the Defendants proved “some evidence” of 

discriminatory intent because it concluded that the 

government “may have identified, as ‘anti-government 

extremists,’ individuals accused of engaging in criminal 

activity during the George Floyd protests.” The district court 

held that targeting violent lawbreakers with “antigovernment” views “qualifies as an arbitrary classification 

within the meaning” of the Fifth Amendment Due Process 

Clause. But that’s wrong.

First, the government does not engage in arbitrary 

classifications when it singles out political violence for 

prosecution. Of course, prosecution “may not be 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 19 of 28
20 USA V. WILSON

deliberately based upon an unjustifiable standard such as 

race, religion, or other arbitrary classification, including the 

exercise of protected statutory and constitutional rights.” 

Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 608 (1985) 

(simplified). But targeting political violence is not 

arbitrary—it’s central to governance. The federal 

government has done so since the ratification of the 

Constitution. President Washington himself rode at the head 

of an army to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. And federal 

military officers helped to stamp out the Ku Klux Klan 

during the early years of Reconstruction. Indeed, 

compelling evidence suggests that the Fourteenth 

Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause is an explicit 

guarantee of federal protection against violence. See Randy 

E. Barnett & Evan D. Bernick, The Original Meaning of the 

Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit 334–35 (2021). 

It defies common sense and constitutional history to say 

that the Executive acts arbitrarily when it weeds out one of 

the “great natural and historical enemies of all republics[:] 

open violence.” See Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651, 

657–58 (1884). No one can deny the government’s interest 

in combatting political violence. Cf. Holder v. 

Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 28 (2010) 

(“Everyone agrees that the Government’s interest in 

combating terrorism is an urgent objective of the highest 

order.”). And it’s also true that the government cannot 

eradicate all political violence. Thus, “[m]ere selectivity in 

prosecution creates no constitutional problem.” United 

States v. Steele, 461 F.2d 1148, 1151 (9th Cir. 1972). 

Selecting some violent extremists for prosecution doesn’t 

mean the government is acting with improper intent. And, 

of course, a government “investigation spurred by a highprofile event,” like the wave of violent protests in the 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 20 of 28
USA V. WILSON 21

summer of 2020, “is not unconstitutional.” United States v. 

Rundo, 108 F.4th 792, 808 (9th Cir. 2024); see also Wayte, 

470 U.S. at 607 (“the Government’s enforcement 

priorities . . . are not readily susceptible” to judicial review). 

Second, while no one denies the central importance of 

free speech, the First Amendment doesn’t alter the 

government’s discretionary authority to target political 

violence. While political speech is no doubt protected, 

“[t]he First Amendment does not protect violence.” 

N.A.A.C.P. v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 916 

(1982). While the government can’t ban “nonverbal 

expressive activity . . . because of the ideas it expresses,” it 

can ban such activity “because of the action it entails.” 

R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 385 (1992). So 

while the Defendants may have attempted to express some 

heartfelt political belief by burning the police car, they are 

not free from prosecution simply because they committed 

arson “in order to ‘protest’ the law.” See Wayte, 470 U.S. at 

614. As the Court has said, “[t]he First Amendment confers 

no such immunity from prosecution.” Id. After all, unlike 

protected expression, violence doesn’t so much critique the 

government as cripple it. 

And our decades-old decision in Steele doesn’t prevent 

the government from targeting political violence for 

prosecution. True, we said that “[a]n enforcement procedure 

that focuses upon the vocal offender is inherently suspect, 

since it is vulnerable to the charge that those chosen for 

prosecution are being punished for their expression of 

ideas.” Steele, 461 F.2d at 1152. But in that case, the 

government singled out the defendants—not for any political 

violence—but for engaging in protected expression, such as 

holding a press conference, leading a protest march, and 

distributing pamphlets. Id. at 1151. Based on that political 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 21 of 28
22 USA V. WILSON

expression, the government charged them with the separate

crime of refusing to answer census questions. Id. at 1150. 

Here, whatever political “expression” the Defendants 

engaged in was fundamentally violence—setting a police car 

ablaze to protest the death of George Floyd. So the 

government’s “enforcement procedure” didn’t target the 

“vocal offender,” it targeted the “violent offender.” 

Third, the Defendants offered no evidence that the 

government prosecuted them for protected non-violent 

expression. Defendants cite several statements from 

President Trump and Attorney General William Barr. But 

these statements only communicated the intent to prosecute 

rioters for their violence—not for any political belief the 

government thought they expressed. 

Take Attorney General Barr’s Task Force Memorandum 

on Violent Anti-Government Extremists. It observed that 

“anti-government extremists” were “engaged in indefensible 

acts of violence” “[a]mid peaceful demonstrations protected 

by the First Amendment.” See U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 

“Memorandum Regarding Department of Justice Task Force 

on Violent Anti-Government Extremists” (June 26, 2020).1 

It then announced the creation of “a task force devoted to 

countering violent anti-government extremists” to help 

“prosecute violent acts by anti-government extremists.” Id. 

President Trump’s statements similarly echoed the need 

to end political violence. On a call with State governors, 

President Trump stated that “what went on in Los Angeles 

with the stores . . . is terrible. Total domination, you have to 

dominate. . . . You’ve got to arrest these people and you’ve 

got to judge them . . . . These are terrorists . . . they’re 

1 Available at https://bit.ly/Memo-task-force.

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 22 of 28
USA V. WILSON 23

looking to do bad things to our country. They’re Antifa and 

they’re radical left.” CNN, “President Trump’s Call with US 

Governors Over Protests” (June 1, 2020).2 He then 

described “what happened in Dallas where they kicked a guy 

to death.” Id. According to President Trump, the purpose of 

the prosecutions would be deterrence and retribution: “[if] 

you don’t do the prosecutions—they’re just going to be 

back. . . . [W]e have a couple people badly hurt and there’s 

no retribution, so you have to . . . use [our] legal system.” 

Id. And he noted that this violence is “coming from the 

radical left . . . but it’s also looters.” Id. On the same call, 

Attorney General Barr referred to the targets as “extremist 

anarchist agitators” and noted that it would be imprudent to 

“treat these as demonstrations” because then police would 

not “have the dynamic ability to go out and arrest the 

troublemakers.” Id. 

These statements show that the government sought 

prosecution of the extremists because they had “engaged in 

indefensible acts of violence.” Their repeated references to 

violence are a call to enforce the laws—not target speech. 

The mere fact that government officials also labeled those 

who engaged in violence as “anti-government extremists,” 

“Antifa,” or “radical left” doesn’t suggest that they targeted 

the violent rioters because of their political beliefs. See 

Rundo, 108 F.4th at 806–07 (“Nothing in the press release 

says that [the Rise Above Movement] was ‘targeted’ 

because they were ‘white supremacists’; instead, the words 

‘white supremacists’ are only used to describe a statement of 

fact: that [the Rise Above Movement] consists of them.”). 

In context, these officials used those labels to identify violent 

wrongdoers, and these statements show that the decision to 

2 Available at https://bit.ly/Trump-call.

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 23 of 28
24 USA V. WILSON

prosecute those wrongdoers was based on their violence 

alone. Thus, the Defendants have not shown any evidence 

that the government selected them “for prosecution on the 

basis of their speech.” See Wayte, 470 U.S. at 609. With no 

evidence of discriminatory intent, the district court was 

wrong to order discovery and dismiss the indictment. 

* * * 

When the federal government targets perpetrators of 

violence—no matter their political motivations—it acts 

under its constitutionally derived authority. Without 

persuasive evidence that the government sought to suppress 

non-violent political speech, courts have no business 

meddling in the government’s charging decisions. I concur 

in reversing the district court’s discovery order and dismissal 

of the indictment. 

DONATO, District Judge, concurring. 

I agree that we have appellate jurisdiction to review the 

dismissal and discovery order. I also agree that, on the facts 

in the record before us, the District Court abused its 

discretion in granting defendants Nathan Wilson and 

Christopher Beasley’s request for discovery and then 

dismissing the indictment. I write separately to state my 

understanding of the standard a defendant must meet to be 

entitled to discovery on a selective-prosecution claim. 

There is no doubt that this claim “asks a court to exercise 

judicial power over a ‘special province’ of the Executive.” 

United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464 (1996) 

(quoting Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 832 (1985)). 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 24 of 28
USA V. WILSON 25

“[S]o long as the prosecutor has probable cause to believe 

that the accused committed an offense defined by statute, the 

decision whether or not to prosecute . . . generally rests 

entirely in his discretion.” Id. (quoting Bordenkircher v. 

Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 364 (1978)). 

It is also true that a prosecutor’s discretion is not 

“unfettered.” United States v. Rundo, 108 F.4th 792, 798 

(9th Cir. 2024) (quoting Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 

598, 608 (1985)). “Selectivity in the enforcement of 

criminal laws is . . . subject to constitutional constraints,” 

Wayte, 470 U.S. at 608 (omission in original) (quoting 

United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114, 125 (1979)), 

including but not limited to the fundamental right against 

viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment and 

the equal-protection guarantee of the Due Process Clause of 

the Fifth Amendment, see Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 464 (citing 

Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 500 (1954)); Rundo, 108 

F.4th at 801. A prosecutor may not charge a person based 

on “an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other 

arbitrary classification,” Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 464 

(quoting Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 456 (1962)), 

“including the exercise of protected statutory and 

constitutional rights,” Wayte, 470 U.S. at 608 (citing United 

States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368, 372 (1982)). 

The constitutional protections remain just as robust 

irrespective of whether the charged conduct involves 

violence, the destruction of property, or other mayhem. 

Perpetrators of violent conduct should be prosecuted, but the 

Constitution commands that prosecutors may not charge 

only those perpetrators whose race, religion, or political 

viewpoints are disfavored by the government. 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 25 of 28
26 USA V. WILSON

To balance respect for the “special province” of a 

coordinate branch with the safeguard that a prosecution not 

be based on “an unjustifiable standard,” the Supreme Court 

of the United States has held that a defendant must present 

“clear evidence” to establish that a prosecutor exceeded his 

or her constitutionally permitted discretion. Armstrong, 517 

U.S. at 464-65 (quotations omitted). The Court was also 

clear that, although the standard for discovery is “rigorous,” 

a defendant need not prove the defense first just to get 

discovery. Id. at 468. 

To that point, the Court recognized the consensus among 

the federal courts that a defendant need only proffer “some 

evidence tending to show” discriminatory effect and intent. 

Id. (quoting United States v. Berrios, 501 F.2d 1207, 1211 

(2d Cir. 1974)). The Court emphasized in Armstrong that 

the “some evidence” standard is not without teeth and should 

“be a significant barrier to the litigation of insubstantial

claims,” id. (emphasis added), but Armstrong did not equate 

the evidentiary burden for discovery with that of establishing 

“a prima facie case of selective prosecution,” id. at 467; see 

also United States v. Lewis, 517 F.3d 20, 23 n.2 (1st Cir. 

2008) (“[T]he quantum of evidence that would be needed to 

authorize discovery is less than the quantum of evidence 

needed to dismiss the indictment on selective prosecution 

grounds.” (citing Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 465, 468)); United 

States v. Arenas-Ortiz, 339 F.3d 1066, 1069 (9th Cir. 2003) 

(“The showing necessary to obtain discovery is somewhat 

less.”). 

Consequently, we must take care to ensure that the 

threshold a defendant must cross for obtaining discovery is 

not so high as to foreclose a plausible selective-prosecution 

claim before the merits are even examined. I do not read 

Armstrong or any of our precedents to categorically define 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 26 of 28
USA V. WILSON 27

or limit what a defendant may proffer as “some evidence 

tending to show” discriminatory effect and intent, or to hold 

that statistical evidence is never enough by itself to open the 

door to discovery. Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 468 (quotation 

omitted); see United States v. Bass, 536 U.S. 862, 863-64 

(2002) (per curiam). Rather, “a district court should assess 

every material fact” in determining whether there are 

similarly situated offenders against whom the law has not 

been enforced. Lewis, 517 F.3d at 27. 

With these principles in mind, I concur in the conclusion 

that defendants Wilson and Beasley fell short of crossing the 

threshold for discovery. Neither defendant produced 

evidence establishing a “colorable basis,” Armstrong, 517 

U.S. at 468, for concluding that similarly situated individuals 

were not prosecuted for arson because they did not engage 

in the public expression of certain political viewpoints. 

Consequently, on the specific record before the District 

Court, the discovery order was an abuse of discretion. On 

remand, I see no reason why defendants may not seek to 

renew a selective-prosecution discovery request and claim 

with proper evidence. In addition, I do not read our decision 

to establish, for these defendants or any others, a hard-andfast checklist of evidence that a defendant needs to proffer 

to obtain discovery. We provide guidance on the types of 

evidence that might be germane, but nothing more. 

I close by noting that neither Armstrong and our 

precedents, nor our decision today, preclude district courts 

from asking the government to provide “some response,” 

short of document productions or evidentiary hearings, when 

the evidence before the court is “sufficiently disturbing.” Id.

at 477 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). In 

Armstrong, the government submitted affidavits from the 

prosecutor addressing defendant’s selective-prosecution 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 27 of 28
28 USA V. WILSON

theory and from law enforcement agents attesting that “race 

played no role in their investigation.” Id. at 459-60; see also 

Lewis, 517 F.3d at 23 (government “submitted the affidavit 

of an [investigative] agent who described the results of the 

investigation”); United States v. Turner, 104 F.3d 1180, 

1182-83 (9th Cir. 1997) (multiple affidavits submitted by 

FBI agents and prosecutors stating basis of charges in 

opposition to motion for discovery). 

In this case, it is undisputed that the 2020 charges filed 

against Wilson and Beasley were the first stand-alone 

prosecutions for arson by the United States Attorney for the 

Central District of California since 2007. It is also 

undisputed that defendants were prosecuted after the thenPresident and Attorney General made public statements 

blaming the violence at George Floyd protests on individuals 

with leftist viewpoints such as antifa and anarchism,1 and 

threatening them with severe criminal penalties and long jail 

sentences. In these circumstances, the District Court could 

reasonably request a word of explanation from the 

prosecutors. 

1

 Antifa denotes “a loosely organized, secretive movement of likeminded far-left activists.” Turner, 108 F.4th at 798 n.3. Attorney 

General Barr expressly called out “anarchic and far-left extremist 

groups” in connection with the George Floyd protests. Phil McCausland, 

Attorney General Barr blames ‘far-left extremist groups’ for violent 

protests, NBC NEWS (May 30, 2020), https://www.nbcnews.

com/politics/justice-department/attorney-general-barr-blames-far-leftextremist-groups-violent-protests-n1219696 (last visited Dec. 10, 2024). 

Case: 23-50016, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917386, DktEntry: 58-1, Page 28 of 28