Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-06-50447/USCOURTS-ca9-06-50447-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Paul Mendoza
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  No. 06-50447

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No.

v.  CR-96-00394-

RSWL PAUL MENDOZA,

Defendant-Appellant. OPINION 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Ronald S.W. Lew, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

December 3, 2007—Pasadena, California

Filed March 3, 2008

Before: Thomas G. Nelson, Richard A. Paez, and

Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Thomas G. Nelson;

Concurrence by Judge Bybee

1925

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COUNSEL

Richard A. Levy, Torrance, California, for the defendantappellant. 

UNITED STATES v. MENDOZA 1927

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Alka Sagar, Assistant United States Attorney, Los Angeles,

California, for the plaintiff-appellee. 

OPINION

T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judge:

Paul Mendoza appeals his convictions on two counts of

subscribing to a false income tax return in violation of 26

U.S.C. § 7201. Mendoza contends that the eight-year delay

between his indictment and his arrest violated his Sixth

Amendment right to a speedy trial. He further contends that

the district court plainly erred when it ordered restitution during sentencing. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 1291, and we reverse.

I. Background

Mendoza’s conviction was based on two income-tax

returns that underreported his income. Mendoza worked for a

management company in Los Angeles, California called

Nobel Marketing Company where he was in charge of administering Nobel Medical Clinic. As the administrator, Mendoza

was authorized to deposit clients’ checks into the clinic’s

bank accounts, but he was not a signatory on the accounts. 

During 1989 and 1990, Mendoza embezzled approximately

$285,000 from the clinic by personally collecting some of the

clinic’s checks and depositing them into his own bank

accounts or cashing the checks at a check-cashing company.

The money from these transactions was not reported on his

1989 or 1990 tax returns. 

During the Internal Revenue Service’s (“IRS”) investigation of Mendoza’s failure to report the money on his income

tax returns, Mendoza left the United States and went to the

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Philippines. On June 19, 1995, prior to Mendoza’s departure

from the United States, IRS Special Agent Slotsve attempted

to serve Mendoza with a Grand Jury subpoena for handwriting and fingerprint exemplars by serving the subpoena on

Mendoza’s attorney. When Mendoza failed to meet with

Agent Slotsve on June 27, 1995, as required by the subpoena,

Agent Slotsve again contacted the attorney. The attorney

informed Agent Slotsve that he no longer represented Mendoza. 

Based on previous correspondence with Mendoza’s attorney, Agent Slotsve determined that Mendoza had left the Los

Angeles area for Seattle, Washington. Agent Slotsve then sent

the subpoena to IRS Special Agent Lynn in the Seattle area

so that Agent Lynn could serve Mendoza. Agent Lynn called

Mendoza’s wife on January 4, 1996. Mendoza’s wife

informed Agent Lynn that Mendoza had left her and her children and had been living in the Philippines since June 1995.

Mendoza’s wife gave Agent Lynn a phone number for Mendoza’s relatives in the Philippines. 

Mendoza’s wife relayed Agent Lynn’s message to Mendoza and later that day Mendoza called Agent Lynn from the

Philippines. Agent Lynn was not in the office so Mendoza

spoke with an FBI agent, but refused to give the agent his

contact information. The following day, Mendoza called

again from a pay phone in the Philippines and spoke with

Agent Lynn. Mendoza stated that he was planning on returning to Seattle in two months and that he was in the Philippines

selling property so he could defend himself in California.

Mendoza refused to give Agent Lynn his contact information.

Agent Lynn did not inform Mendoza that he wanted to serve

him with a subpoena. After Agent Lynn spoke with Mendoza,

he called Agent Slotsve to inform him of his conversation

with Mendoza. 

Mendoza was indicted on April 12, 1996. After the indictment, the government put a warrant out on the law enforceUNITED STATES v. MENDOZA 1929

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ment database so that Mendoza would be detained when he

attempted to return to the United States. The warrant was the

only attempt the government made to apprehend Mendoza;

the government made no attempt to contact Mendoza to

inform him that he had been indicted. 

Mendoza returned to the United States in June 2004, but

was not arrested until October 13, 2004. After his arrest, Mendoza sought and received seven continuances of the scheduled

trial date, from December 7, 2004, to March 14, 2006. On

January 3, 2006, Mendoza filed a motion to dismiss the

indictment because the eight-year delay between his indictment and his arrest violated his Sixth Amendment right to a

speedy trial. The district court denied the motion, but did not

make any factual findings, stating only: “This Court DENIES

Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment finding that

. . . (2) [ ] defendant Mendoza’s speedy trial rights have not

been violated.” 

Mendoza was found guilty on two counts of subscribing to

a false income-tax return after a jury trial and was sentenced

to a term of imprisonment of thirteen months and restitution

in the amount of $79,837.90. 

II. Mendoza’s Right to a Speedy Trial

A district court’s decision on a Sixth Amendment speedy

trial claim is reviewed de novo. United States v. Gregory, 322

F.3d 1157, 1160 (9th Cir. 2003). Factual determinations

underlying the claim are reviewed for clear error. Id. 

[1] The Sixth Amendment guarantees that criminal defendants “shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial . . . .”

U.S. Const. amend. VI. To determine whether a defendant’s

Sixth Amendment speedy trial right has been violated, we balance the following four factors: “[l]ength of delay, the reason

for the delay, the defendant’s assertion of his right, and preju1930 UNITED STATES v. MENDOZA

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dice to the defendant.” Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530

(1972). 

None of these four factors are either necessary or sufficient,

individually, to support a finding that a defendant’s speed trial

right has been violated. Id. at 533. Rather the factors are

related and “must be considered together with such other circumstances as may be relevant.” Id. Further, the balancing of

these factors, and other relevant circumstances, “must be carried out with full recognition that the accused’s interest in a

speedy trial is specifically affirmed in the Constitution.” Id.

A. Length of Delay

[2] For speedy trial claims, the length of the “delay is measured from ‘the time of the indictment to the time of trial.’ ”

United States v. Gregory, 322 F.3d 1157, 1162 (9th Cir. 2003)

(quoting United States v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 877 F.2d

734, 739 (9th Cir. 1989)). If the length of delay is long

enough to be considered presumptively prejudicial, an inquiry

into the other three factors is triggered. Barker, 407 U.S. at

530. Generally, a delay of more than one year is presumptively prejudicial. See Gregory, 322 F.3d at 1161-62. 

[3] In this case, the indictment was filed on April 12, 1996,

and the trial did not start until April 25, 2006. We find that

this ten-year delay creates a presumption of prejudice and

triggers an inquiry into the other three factors. 

B. Reason for the Delay

The government has “some obligation” to pursue a defendant and bring him to trial. United States v. Sandoval, 990

F.2d 481, 485 (9th Cir. 1993). If the government fulfills that

obligation by pursuing a defendant with reasonable diligence,

the defendant does not have a speedy trial claim. Doggett v.

United States, 505 U.S. 647, 656 (1992). On the other hand,

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if the government is negligent in pursuing the defendant, prejudice is presumed. Id. at 657. 

The government has the primary, though not exclusive,

responsibility to ensure that the defendant is brought to trial.

See Sandoval, 990 F.2d at 482. If a defendant attempts to

avoid detection, the government is not required to “ ‘make

heroic efforts to apprehend a defendant who is purposefully

avoiding apprehension.’ ” Id. at 485 (quoting Rayborn v.

Scully, 858 F.2d 84, 90 (2d Cir. 1988)). However, if the

defendant is not attempting to avoid detection and the government makes no serious effort to find him, the government is

considered negligent in its pursuit. See Doggett, 505 U.S. at

653. 

[4] In this case, the agent in charge of Mendoza’s investigation made no effort to contact Mendoza to inform him that he

had been indicted. The government had Mendoza’s wife’s

telephone number and the telephone number of Mendoza’s

relatives in the Philippines. But rather than attempting to

inform Mendoza that he had been indicted through those avenues, the government simply put a warrant out on the law

enforcement database so that Mendoza would be detained

when he returned to the United States.1 As a result, Mendoza

was not informed he had been indicted until more than eight

years after the indictment. 

Even though Mendoza left the country prior to his indictment, the government still had an obligation to attempt to find

him and bring him to trial. After Doggett, the government was

required to make some effort to notify Mendoza of the indictment. However, the government made no serious effort to do

so. Further, there is no evidence that Mendoza was keeping

his whereabouts unknown. Although he refused to give his

1For reasons not made clear in the record nor in oral argument, this warrant did not result in Mendoza being detained when he reentered the

United States, but did eventually lead to his arrest. 

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own contact information, the government still had his relative’s contact information. And when a government agent

contacted Mendoza’s wife on January 4, 1996, Mendoza

returned the call from a pay phone in the Philippines that

same day. 

[5] Nor does Mendoza’s failure to return to the United

States as he stated he would support the argument that he was

deliberately avoiding contact with the government. Mendoza

was unaware of the indictment, so he did not know that he

needed to return. And it was not Mendoza’s responsibility to

contact the government during the investigation. Based on its

previous success in contacting Mendoza, the government was

negligent when it failed to attempt to inform Mendoza of the

indictment by calling either the wife or the relative’s telephone number. Therefore, the delay between Mendoza’s

indictment and arrest was caused by the government’s negligence, and this factor weighs in favor of Mendoza. 

Our recent decision in United States v. Corona-Verbera,

509 F.3d 1105 (9th Cir. 2007), does not alter this conclusion.

In Corona-Verbera, the defendant was in Mexico and there

was an almost eight-year delay between his indictment and

his arrest. Id. at 1111. However, the government in that case

took additional steps beyond simply entering the defendant’s

arrest warrant into the law enforcement system. The government contacted Unsolved Mysteries and America’s Most

Wanted, which aired segments on the case over twenty times

in the United States and at least once in Mexico. Id. at 1115.

In contrast, in this case, the government made no effort

beyond entering Mendoza’s arrest warrant in the law enforcement database. 

C. Defendant’s Assertion of Speedy Trial Right

[6] Mendoza did not assert his right to a speedy trial until

after he made numerous requests for continuances and

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delayed the trial date by over a year. Because Mendoza

caused this delay before his assertion of his speedy trial

rights, this factor does not weigh in favor of Mendoza nor in

favor of the government. Corona-Verbera, 509 F.3d at 1116.

D. Prejudice

The final factor is prejudice. The Supreme Court has recognized three forms of prejudice that can result from postindictment delay: (1) oppressive pretrial incarceration, (2)

anxiety and concern of the accused, and (3) “the possibility

that the [accused’s] defense will be impaired by dimming

memories and loss of exculpatory evidence.” Doggett, 505

U.S. at 654 (quoting Barker, 407 U.S. at 532) (internal quotations omitted). “Of these forms of prejudice, ‘the most serious

is the last, because the inability of a defendant adequately to

prepare his case skews the fairness of the entire system.’ ” Id.

(quoting Barker, 407 U.S. at 532). 

This final form of prejudice is not only the most important,

it is also the most difficult to prove because “time’s erosion

of exculpatory evidence and testimony ‘can rarely be

shown.’ ” Id. at 655 (quoting Barker, 407 U.S. at 532). In

other words, excessive delays can “compromise[ ] the reliability of a trial in ways that neither party can prove or, for that

matter, identify.” Id.

[7] Due to these concerns, “no showing of prejudice is

required when the delay is great and attributable to the government.” United States v. Shell, 974 F.2d 1035, 1036 (9th

Cir. 1992) (citing Doggett, 505 U.S. at 657-58). Instead, we

presume prejudice. Id. Further, “[t]he presumption that pretrial delay has prejudiced the accused intensifies over time.”

McNeely v. Blanas, 336 F.3d 822, 831 (9th Cir. 2003). 

[8] If, in this case, the government had pursued Mendoza

with reasonable diligence, his speedy trial claim would have

failed unless he could show “specific prejudice to his

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defense.” Doggett, 505 U.S. at 656. However, the government

did not exercise due diligence. Instead, the government was

negligent in pursuing Mendoza, and the eight-year delay

between Mendoza’s arrest and indictment was attributable to

the government. There is, therefore, a strong presumption that

Mendoza suffered prejudice, and no showing of actual prejudice is required. 

III. Conclusion

After balancing the Barker factors, we conclude that Mendoza’s Sixth Amendment speedy-trial right was violated. The

eight-year delay between Mendoza’s indictment and arrest

was a result of the government’s negligence, so we presume

that Mendoza suffered prejudice. As a result, a dismissal of

Mendoza’s indictment is warranted.2

Accordingly, we REVERSE and REMAND the case for

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

BYBEE, Circuit Judge, concurring: 

Appellant Paul Mendoza was found guilty by a jury of his

peers of filing false tax returns for failing to report over

$285,000 in funds he embezzled from his employer. Today

we are forced to overturn his conviction. I join the majority

opinion because I believe we dutifully applied Doggett v.

United States, 505 U.S. 674 (1992); I write separately because

the facts before us demonstrate how Doggett requires a presumption unsupported by the record. Because the government

did not make even a single effort to notify Mendoza of his

conviction, we must find the government responsible for the

2Because we find that Mendoza’s Sixth Amendment speedy-trial right

was violated, we do not need to address his arguments related to sentencing. 

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constitutionally impermissible eight-and-a-half-year delay

between Mendoza’s indictment and arrest.1 Nevertheless, we

might not have been required to set aside Mendoza’s jury verdict but for Doggett’s requirement that we presume that the

delay prejudiced Mendoza. In this case, it appears Mendoza

suffered no prejudice. 

Mendoza was a manager at a medical clinic in Los Angeles, where his duties included depositing clients’ checks to the

clinic’s bank account. Instead, Mendoza kept the money for

himself. Over a two year period, Mendoza managed to

embezzle $285,135.26, none of which he chose to report to

the IRS. After being served, through his attorney, with a subpoena to provide handwriting and fingerprint exemplars for

the IRS investigation in 1995, Mendoza left his wife and child

behind and fled to the Philippines. 

The IRS filed an indictment in April 1996, but, by its own

admission, never attempted to contact Mendoza to inform him

of this turn of events. Because Mendoza never provided contact information, no IRS agent attempted to contact him

directly. No agent attempted to call the phone number in the

Philippines his wife had provided, for relatives with whom

she believed he was in contact. No agent attempted to notify

his wife of the indictment—even though when Special Agent

Lynn spoke with his wife on January 8, 1996, Mendoza himself called the IRS the very same day and asked for Special

Agent Lynn. The only step the government took was to place

notices in law enforcement databases about the indictment

and the outstanding warrant for Mendoza’s arrest—in other

1Subsequent to Mendoza’s arrest, trial was further delayed by another

year and a half due to Mendoza’s own requests for continuances. On

appeal, however, Mendoza alleges the cognizable constitutionally impermissible post-indictment delay to be the eight-and-a-half year period from

the date of his indictment, April 12, 1996, to the date of his arrest, October

14, 2004. 

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words, the government told other law enforcement agencies

about the indictment but not Mendoza himself.2

Mendoza was ultimately found guilty by a jury on two

counts of filing a false income tax return, and was sentenced

to thirteen months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay the IRS

restitution in the amount of $79,837.90. On appeal, Mendoza

does not challenge the sufficiency of the government’s evidence against him; nor does he argue that any aspects of his

jury trial deprived him of due process. Rather, despite the fact

that Mendoza fled to the Philippines and hampered the IRS

investigation against him, Mendoza argues that we must

reverse his conviction because he was denied his Sixth

Amendment right to a speedy trial. Under Doggett, he is correct. 

Doggett holds the government responsible for postindictment delay if it is “negligent” in its attempt to notify the

accused of the indictment, however, Doggett does not define

the duty of care the government owes. 505 U.S. at 652-53.

The Sixth Amendment does not require the government to

make “heroic efforts to apprehend a defendant who is purposefully avoiding apprehension.” United States v. Sandoval,

990 F.2d 481, 485 (9th Cir. 1993) (internal quotation and citation omitted). In this case, the government may have been

understandably frustrated by the fact that Mendoza fled the

country and refused to provide contact information. Nonetheless, the government knew that within a day of speaking to his

wife, Mendoza was somehow informed of both the fact that

the IRS was trying to reach him and that the particular agent

was named Special Agent Lynn. Moreover, the government

knew that Mendoza was able to initiate responsive communi2Even this tactic appeared to be of limited utility, as even with notice

of the arrest warrant out “in the system,” Mendoza was able to re-enter the

United States in June of 2004 and was not arrested or informed of his

indictment until October 13, 2004, eight and one-half years after it was

first filed. 

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cation with the government within twenty-four hours of the

government’s contact with his wife. Thus, Mendoza, though

half-way around the world, was never more than a pay-phone

call away from the IRS. The fact that Mendoza called the government twice within a day of learning an IRS agent was trying to reach him may even suggest that, while attempting to

maintain a healthy distance between himself and the IRS,

Mendoza was not attempting to disappear completely. On

these facts, it is quite possible that even a single additional

communication from Special Agent Lynn to Mendoza’s wife,

in which he notified her of the indictment and asked her to let

Mendoza know he needed to contact the IRS, might have

been sufficient for the government to discharge its duty of

care under Doggett. Unfortunately, we were not given the

opportunity to rule on this question because the government

did not take even these small steps. 

Yet even the government’s negligence in this case might

not have required us to overturn Mendoza’s jury conviction

absent Doggett’s requirement that we presume that the defendant was prejudiced where the delay was attributable to the

government’s negligence and far in excess of the threshold

needed to state a speedy trial claim. See 505 U.S. at 657-58.

Unreasonable post-indictment delay may cause three types of

prejudice: oppressive pretrial incarceration, anxiety and concern of the accused, and the possibility that the accused’s

defense will be impaired by dimming memories and loss of

exculpatory evidence. Id. at 654. The eight-and-a-half year

delay between Mendoza’s indictment and his arrest did not

implicate oppressive pretrial incarceration, as Mendoza lived

freely in the Philippines during that time. Mendoza suffered

no “anxiety and concern [as an] accused” because he

remained blissfully unaware that he had been indicted. Id. 

The only form of prejudice Mendoza could possibly have

suffered would be an impairment of his ability to prepare his

defense. The Doggett Court stated that “the impairment of

one’s defense is the most difficult form of speedy trial preju1938 UNITED STATES v. MENDOZA

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dice to prove because time’s erosion of exculpatory evidence

and testimony ‘can rarely be shown.’ ” 505 U.S. at 654 (citing

Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 532 (1972)). The Court’s

solution to this evidentiary problem was to require the court

of appeals to “recognize that excessive delay presumptively

compromises the reliability of a trial in ways that neither party

can prove or, for that matter, identify.” Id. The Court further

held that it is in “the nature of the prejudice presumed” that

we must make the presumption stronger as the length of the

delay increases. Id. at 657. We have interpreted Doggett’s

directive, accurately, I believe, to mean that “no showing of

prejudice is required when the delay is great and attributable

to the government.” United States v. Shell, 974 F.2d 1035,

1036 (9th Cir. 1992). 

In Mendoza’s case, the facts strongly suggest he suffered

no impairment in his ability to marshal his defense. Mendoza

claims that he was prejudiced because much of the documentary evidence of his embezzlement has been destroyed. Yet,

the government maintained all of the documentary evidence

related to this case, including the checks Mendoza cashed to

his own checking account, bank records for the seven bank

accounts he controlled, and the accounting ledgers of the

medical clinic. Mendoza has not introduced any evidence to

suggest these records were incomplete or unreliable. Mendoza

also claims he was unable to locate a key witness. Yet, the

record shows that Mendoza made no attempt to locate, contact, or subpoena the witness, suggesting it was not the pretrial delay that caused the absence of this witness at trial. As

for another key witness, there is evidence in the record that,

after Mendoza learned this witness would not be “friendly” to

his case, Mendoza called the witness in the Philippines and

threatened to “bring him down” if he traveled to the United

States to testify against him. Given the opportunity, we might

rule that the record shows Mendoza’s ability to marshal a

defense had not been prejudiced. Unfortunately, Doggett does

not permit us to reach this question. 

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If not for Doggett, I would uphold Mendoza’s conviction.

I would hold that the pre-trial delay was attributable to the

government’s negligence, but that Mendoza had not been

prejudiced. Instead, I join the majority in holding that Mendoza’s speedy trial right was violated under Doggett. As the

government closed in on Mendoza, he fled to the Philippines

and hampered efforts to investigate and indict him. Today,

however, Mendoza proves that under Doggett, you can still

claim your right to a speedy trial has been violated if you run,

but you don’t hide. 

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