Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-14-50315/USCOURTS-ca9-14-50315-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David Rosales-Aguilar
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

DAVID ROSALES-AGUILAR,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 14-50315

D.C. No.

3:13-cr-03254-BTM-1

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of California

Barry T. Moskowitz, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

September 1, 2015—Pasadena, California

Filed April 12, 2016

Before: Alex Kozinski, Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain

and Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Kozinski

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2 UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR

SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed a conviction on two counts of

attempted illegal reentry, and stayed further proceedings

pending a Supreme Court decision on a sentencing issue, in

a case in which the government impeached a defense expert

with statements that the defendant made voluntarily to Border

Patrol officers but that weren’t Miranda compliant.

The panel held that the district court did not err by

admitting the statements to impeach the defendant’s account

of the events – that he lacked the specific intent necessary for

attempted illegal reentry because he was under the influence

of heroin and meth – on cross-examination of a defense

psychiatrist who testified that the defendant told him he had

no memory of going to the border or speaking with the agent. 

The panel emphasized that it was not the psychiatrist’s

observations that were being impeached, but the defendant’s

perception, recollection and veracity that were being

impeached by the defendant’s own prior inconsistent

statements.

The panel held that the district court didn’t err in denying

the defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal. The panel

held that a jury could reasonably find (1) that the defendant

had taken a substantial step by crossing the border and

waiting in line for about an hour and a half to reach the

inspection station, and (2) that the defendant had the specific

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

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

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UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR 3

intent to enter without the express consent of the Attorney

General. The panel rejected the defendant’s contention that

the second count was added by the prosecutor vindictively,

and held that the district court didn’t abuse its discretion by

denying an adverse-inference jury instruction relating to the

destruction of a port-of-entry video.

Regarding the defendant’s challenge to the district court’s

assessment of a drug-trafficking offense enhancement

pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(i) based on his 1998

conviction for sale of cocaine base under California Health

and Safety Code § 11352(a), the panel held that the version

of § 11352(a) under which the defendant was convicted does

not categorically qualify as a drug trafficking offense because

it permits a conviction for transportation of a controlled

substance for personal use. The panel deferred resolution of

whether § 11352(a) is divisible, thereby permitting

application of the modified categorical approach, pending the

Supreme Court’s decision in Mathis v. United States, No. 15-

6092.

COUNSEL

Kara Hartzler (argued), Federal Defenders of San Diego, Inc.,

San Diego, California, for Defendant-Appellant.

Laura E. Duffy, U.S. Attorney, Brandon James Kimura,

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, Peter Ko, Assistant U.S.

Attorney Chief, Appellate Section Criminal Division, Colin

M. McDonald (argued), Assistant U.S. Attorney, San Diego,

California, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

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4 UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR

OPINION

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge:

David Rosales-Aguilar was convicted under 8 U.S.C.

§ 1326 of two counts of attempted illegal reentry. At trial,

Rosales did not testify but he snuck in his recollection of

events by using an expert witness as a conduit for his own

words. The principal issue in this appeal is whether it was

proper to allow the government to impeach the expert with

statements that Rosales made voluntarily but that weren’t

Miranda compliant.

FACTS

On June 21, 2013, Border Patrol Officer Moreno spotted

Rosales in the pedestrian entry line at San Ysidro. 

“Disheveled” and “grungy,” Rosales “stood out” from the

crowd. Rosales told Moreno that he was going to Chula Vista

but didn’t have any entry documents. He also told Moreno

that he wasn’t a U.S. citizen. When Moreno asked Rosales

how he intended to enter the United States, Rosales replied

that he was “just going to walk through and they wouldn’t

stop him.” According to Moreno, it’s not unusual for

pedestrians to “make a break for it” once they arrive at the

front of the line.

Moreno searched Rosales and found a syringe in his

pocket but didn’t ask whether Rosales was intoxicated. 

Rosales was arrested and processed for expedited removal. 

During this process, Rosales said he left Mexico “[t]o find

work and to live in the United States.” Because these

statements were not preceded by a Miranda warning, the

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UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR 5

district court suppressed them but ruled they were voluntary

and could therefore be used for impeachment.

Rosales was removed but three days later, on June 24,

Border Patrol officers found him in a bush approximately 300

yards north of the border. When arrested, Rosales was high

on methamphetamine and heroin.

After conducting a field interview, the agents took

Rosales to a nearby station. Before interrogating him, the

agents read him his Miranda rights. As they did so,

Rosales—who “was, to some degree, under the influence of

heroin and methamphetamine”—was mumbling to himself

and nodding off. During this interrogation, Rosales admitted

that he had been previously removed and didn’t ask the U.S.

Attorney General for permission to reenter, that he climbed

over the border fence and that he was on his way to San

Diego. The district court suppressed Rosales’s statements

after viewing the videotape and finding that the waiver

“couldn’t have been [made] knowingly because he was

dozing off during part of it.” But, as with statements made

during his expedited removal on June 21, the court found that

these statements were made voluntarily. Thus, the court

concluded, “if [Rosales] takes the stand and he denies any of

the facts that are set forth in the sworn statement, the

government can impeach him with the sworn statement.”

Rosales was charged with attempted reentryby a removed

alien in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 based on the June 24

bush incident. This indictment was superseded by adding a

second count of attempted illegal reentry based on Rosales’s

June 21 appearance at the port of entry. Rosales was found

guilty on both counts.

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6 UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR

In calculating the Sentencing Guidelines range, the

district court applied a 16-level enhancement upon finding

that a 1998 conviction for sale of cocaine base under

California Health and Safety Code section 11352(a)—for

which Rosales was sentenced to three years in

prison—qualified as a drug trafficking offense under U.S.

Sentencing Guidelines section 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(i). The court

calculated a Guidelines range of 84 to 105 months, but varied

the sentence down to 54 months.

DISCUSSION

Rosales challenges the use of his suppressed statements

during the cross-examination of his expert witness. Rosales

also appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for

judgment of acquittal, denial of his motion to dismiss the

June 21 count for vindictive prosecution and rejection of an

adverse-inference jury instruction based on the routine

destruction of border security videos by the government. 

Rosales also challenges the district court’s assessment of a

drug-trafficking offense enhancement.

I. Impeachment Exception

Before trial, Rosales filed a motion in limine to prevent

the government from using his suppressed statements for

purposes other than impeachment of his testimony at trial. 

Rosales’s lawyer explained that he intended to call Dr.

Matthew Carroll, a psychiatrist who evaluated Rosales on two

occasions, as an expert witness. Dr. Carroll would testify that

Rosales told him he had no memory of going to the border or

speaking with the agent on June 21, and that Dr. Carroll

found this behavior consistent with an individual who is

under the influence of drugs. The court warned Rosales that

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UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR 7

if he offered the hearsay statements—which the court deemed

admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(4)—the

government would likely be able to impeach the declarant

with Rosales’s suppressed statements under Federal Rule of

Evidence 806.

At trial, Rosales’s theory of the case was that he lacked

the specific intent necessary for attempted illegal reentry

because he was under the influence of heroin and meth. 

Defense counsel asked Dr. Carroll to talk about his interview

with Rosales. Dr. Carroll testified that Rosales “says he

doesn’t remember anything [that occurred on June 21]. He

doesn’t remember going [to the port of entry]. He doesn’t

remember talking to anybody. He doesn’t remember it

happening at all.” And as to the June 24 incident, Dr. Carroll

testified, “[Rosales] has some memory about that incident. 

What he remembers is being asleep in the bushes and all of a

sudden seeing Border Patrol agents, and he does remember

talking to them and then going to a hospital after that.” When

Dr. Carroll asked Rosales how he got there, Rosales said, “I

don’t know; I was just using; I don’t know what happened; I

don’t remember that night at all.” Dr. Carroll also testified

that Rosales told him that if the Border Patrol hadn’t found

him, he “would have walked back to Mexico.” The court

then allowed the government to use Rosales’s suppressed

statements in cross-examining Dr. Carroll.

“Ever since its inception, the rule excluding evidence

seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment has been

recognized as a principal mode of discouraging lawless police

conduct . . . . [W]ithout it the constitutional guarantee against

unreasonable searches and seizures would be a mere ‘form of

words.’” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 12 (1968) (quoting Mapp

v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961)). The Supreme Court,

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8 UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR

however, “has carved out exceptions to the exclusionary rule

. . . where the introduction of reliable and probative evidence

would significantly further the truthseeking function of a

criminal trial and the likelihood that admissibility of such

evidence would encourage police misconduct is but a

‘speculative possibility.’” James v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 307,

311–12 (1990) (quoting Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222,

225 (1971)).

One of these exceptions “permits prosecutors to introduce

illegally obtained evidence for the limited purpose of

impeaching the credibilityof the defendant’s own testimony.” 

Id. at 312. In Harris and Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714

(1975), the Court clarified that this exception “permit[s]

prosecutors to impeach defendants using incriminating yet

voluntary and reliable statements elicited in violation of

Miranda requirements.” James, 493 U.S. at 312.

But the Court has refused to “[e]xpand[] the class of

impeachable witnesses from the defendant alone to all

defense witnesses.” Id. at 313 (emphasis added). In James,

one out of three boys fired a gun into a group of eight other

boys, “killing one boy and seriously injuring another.” Id. at

309. Five members of the larger group testified that the

shooter “had ‘reddish’ hair, worn shoulder length in a slickedbacked ‘butter’ style.” Id. at 310. The evening after the

shooting, two detectives found Darryl James at his mother’s

beauty parlor. Id. at 309. After being arrested, James told the

detectives that he dyed and curled his hair “to change his

appearance.” Id. The trial court suppressed his statements

after finding that “the detectives lacked probable cause for his

warrantless arrest.” Id. James didn’t take the stand, but he

called as a witness a family friend who “testified that on the

day of the shooting she had taken James to register for high

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UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR 9

school and that, at that time, his hair was black.” Id. at 310. 

Over James’s objection, the trial court allowed the state to

impeach the witness with James’s prior statements to the

police. Id.

The Supreme Court held that the state court erred in

allowing the prosecution to use the suppressed statements to

impeach the defense witness. Id. at 320. The Court reasoned

that the impeachment exception “penalizes defendants for

committing perjury by allowing the prosecution to expose

their perjury through impeachment using illegally obtained

evidence,” but “leaves defendants free to testify truthfully on

their own behalf.” Id. at 314. “The exception thus generally

discourages perjured testimony without discouraging truthful

testimony.” Id. The Court refused to expand “the

impeachment exception to encompass the testimony of all

defense witnesses” because it “would not have the same

beneficial effects.” Id.

Jamesis distinguishable. The witness there was testifying

as to her own perception and recollection. Id. at 310. In

contrast, the statements impeached here were not the

observations of Dr. Carroll as to Rosales’s activities on the

day he was arrested. Rather, they were Rosales’s account of

the events as communicated to Dr. Carroll, e.g., “[h]e would

have walked back to Mexico.” It was Rosales’s perception,

recollection and veracity that were being impeached by

Rosales’s own prior inconsistent statements.

We see this case as much closer to Harris and Hass: 

“The shield provided by Miranda cannot be perverted into a

license to use perjury by way of a defense, free from the risk

of confrontation with prior inconsistent utterances.” Harris,

401 U.S. at 226. Insofar as Rosales’s statements to Dr.

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10 UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR

Carroll differ from the ones he made to the Border Patrol

officers, the inconsistencies cast doubt on his veracity, not Dr.

Carroll’s. They were thus properly admitted to impeach

Rosales’s account of the events under dispute. Because

Rosales does not challenge the district court’s finding that his

statements to the Border Patrol officers were voluntary and

reliable, the district court did not err by admitting these

statements.

II. Motion for Judgment of Acquittal on the June 21

Count

“Where a defendant moves for acquittal at the close of the

government’s evidence, we review de novo whether sufficient

evidence exists to support a guilty verdict.” United States v.

Stewart, 420 F.3d 1007, 1014 (9th Cir. 2005). In making this

review, “we assess the evidence in the light most favorable to

the prosecution, determining whether any rational trier of fact

could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond

a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 1014–15 (internal quotation marks

omitted).

Attempted illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326

“essentially requires two elements: (1) the specific intent to

reenter without consent; and (2) an overt act that was a

substantial step towards this illegal reentry.” United States v.

Leos-Maldonado, 302 F.3d 1061, 1063 (9th Cir. 2002).

Rosales argues that his presence “in secondary screening,

standing alone, does not prove that he was attempting to

reenter the U.S. without permission.” United States v. ValdezNovoa, 780 F.3d 906, 923 (9th Cir. 2015) (as amended). But

a jury could reasonably find Rosales had taken a substantial

step by crossing the border and waiting in line for about an

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UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR 11

hour and a half to reach the inspection station. There, he told

Officer Moreno that he was traveling to Chula Vista, even

though he had no entry documents and hoped “they wouldn’t

stop him.”

The jury could also reasonably have found that Rosales

had the specific intent to enter “without the express consent

of the Attorney General.” United States v. GracidasUlibarry, 231 F.3d 1188, 1196 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc).1

In

early 2013, Rosales received written notice advising him that

he was “inadmissible,” and that “before commencing [his]

travel to the United States,” he had to first “obtain permission

from the Secretary of Homeland Security to reapply for

admission.” While a noncitizen who has been removed may

“request permission at a port of entry to reapply for

admission into the United States,” id. at 1194, the jury was

entitled to find that Rosales had no such intent, based on his

statements to Moreno. The district court thus didn’t err in

denying Rosales’s motion for judgment of acquittal on the

June 21 count.

III. Vindictive Prosecution

Over defense counsel’s objection, the government took

Rosales’s fingerprint exemplars. Defense counsel reported to

the district court that the prosecutor had unlawfully taken

Rosales’s fingerprints without a court order, over counsel’s

objection and in violation of California’s rules of professional

conduct. On the same day Rosales moved to sanction the

1

In 2002, Congress transferred the authority to grant such consent from

the Attorney General to the Secretary of Homeland Security. See

Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107–296, §§ 402, 1517,

116 Stat. 2135, 2177–78, 2311 (2002) (codified at 6 U.S.C. §§ 202, 557).

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12 UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR

prosecutor, the prosecutor added a second count of attempted

illegal reentry based on Rosales’s June 21 appearance at the

port of entry. Rosales moved to dismiss this second charge,

alleging that it was vindictively added by the prosecutor.

“A prosecutor violates due process when he seeks

additional charges solely to punish a defendant for exercising

a constitutional or statutory right.” United States v. GamezOrduño, 235 F.3d 453, 462 (9th Cir. 2000). The district court

found that the prosecutor submitted the superseding

indictment “before he had notice” that the defense was going

to move to sanction the prosecutor. The prosecutor therefore

couldn’t have been “seek[ing] . . . to punish [Rosales] for

exercising” his rights. Id.

IV. Destruction of Evidence

After the superseding indictment was filed, defense

counsel requested any port-of-entry video showing Rosales

at San Ysidro. But, by the time the prosecution had filed the

superseding indictment, the video (if there had ever been one

depicting Rosales) had already been destroyed as the

government routinely destroys San Ysidro port-of-entry

videos after 90 days. Rosales requested an adverse-inference

jury instruction based on the destruction of this video, which

the district court denied.

“We review a district court’s refusal to give an adverse

inference instruction, when properly raised by the appellant,

for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Sivilla, 714 F.3d

1168, 1172 (9th Cir. 2013). Here, abuse of discretion is a

two-part test. Id. at 1173. First, we identify if the district

court applied the correct legal rule. Id. If it didn’t, then the

court abused its discretion. Id. Second, we determine

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UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR 13

whether the court’s application of this legal rule was either

“(1) illogical, (2) implausible, or (3) without support” in the

record. Id.

The district court correctly determined that, in deciding

whether to give a remedial jury instruction, “[c]ourts must

balance ‘the quality of the Government’s conduct’ against

‘the degree of prejudice to the accused,’ where the

government bears the burden of justifying its conduct and the

accused of demonstrating prejudice.” Id. (quoting United

States v. Loud Hawk, 628 F.2d 1139, 1152 (9th Cir. 1979) (en

banc) (Kennedy, J., concurring)). The prosecutor played no

role in the destruction of the videotape. But even if we were

to decide the prosecution played a role in the destruction of

the videotape by failing to bring the second charge more

promptly, there is no indication that “there was anything on

the video that in any way would be helpful” to Rosales. 

Therefore, the district court didn’t abuse its discretion by

denying an adverse-inference jury instruction relating to the

destruction of the port-of-entry video.

V. Sentencing Enhancement

The crime of attempted illegal reentry carries a base

offense level of 8 under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines section

2L1.2(a). A court may increase this base by 16 levels if a

defendant “has a prior conviction for a ‘drug trafficking

offense,’ and the sentence on the prior conviction exceeded

thirteen months.” United States v. Leal-Vega, 680 F.3d 1160,

1163 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(i)). 

Rosales argues that his 1998 conviction for violating

California Health and Safety Code section 11352(a) is not a

“drug trafficking offense” under the Guidelines.

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14 UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR

To determine whether Rosales’s ’98 conviction is a “drug

trafficking offense,” we apply a three-step process. AlmanzaArenas v. Lynch, 809 F.3d 515, 521 (9th Cir. 2015) (en banc). 

First, “we compare the elements of the state offense to the

elements of the generic offense defined by federal law.” 

Lopez-Valencia v. Lynch, 798 F.3d 863, 867 (9th Cir. 2015). 

If “the elements of the state crime are the same as or narrower

than the elements of the federal offense, then the state crime

is a categorical match and every conviction under that statute

qualifies as [a drug trafficking offense].” Id. Second, if the

statute “criminalizes conduct that goes beyond the elements

of the federal offense,”—that is to say, if the statute is

“overbroad”—then we must determine whether the statute is

“divisible or indivisible.” Id. at 867–68 (internal quotation

marks omitted). “If the statute is indivisible, ‘our inquiry

ends, because a conviction under an indivisible, overbroad

statute can never serve as a predicate offense.’” Id. at 868

(quoting Medina-Lara v. Holder, 771 F.3d 1106, 1112 (9th

Cir. 2014)). Third, if the statute is both overbroad and

divisible, we apply the “modified categorical approach.” Id.

“At this step, we may examine certain documents from the

defendant’s record of conviction to determine what elements

of the divisible statute he was convicted of violating.” Id.

The Guidelines define “drug trafficking offense” as “an

offense under federal, state, or local law that prohibits the

manufacture, import, export, distribution, or dispensing of, or

offer to sell a controlled substance (or a counterfeit

substance) or the possession of a controlled substance (or a

counterfeit substance) with intent to manufacture, import,

export, distribute, or dispense.” U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 application

n.1(B)(iv). California Health and Safety Code section

11352(a) punishes any person “who transports, imports into

this state, sells, furnishes, administers, or gives away, or

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UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR 15

offers to transport, import into this state, sell, furnish,

administer, or give away, or attempts to import into this state

or transport” certain controlled substances.

The version of section 11352(a) under which Rosales was

convicted does not categorically qualify as a drug trafficking

offense because it permits a conviction for transportation of

a controlled substance for personal use. See People v. Cortez,

212 Cal. Rptr. 692, 693 (Cal. Ct. App. 1985).2

“We have

identified transportation of a controlled substance for

personal use as outside the scope of the drug trafficking

enhancements.” United States v. Almazan-Becerra, 482 F.3d

1085, 1089 (9th Cir. 2007).3

Rosales doesn’t challenge the district court’s analysis

under the modified categorical approach. Thus, the only

question before us is whether section 11352(a) is divisible.

Recently, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in United

States v. Mathis, 786 F.3d 1068 (8th Cir. 2015). As described

by the government, the question presented in Mathis is

“[w]hether a court may employ the ‘modified categorical

approach’ . . . when a defendant has been convicted under a

2

In 2013, section 11352 was amended to provide that “transport” means

transport for sale. A.B. no. 721, 2013 Cal. Stat. ch. 504. We do not

address whether the amended statute would categorically qualify as a drug

trafficking offense with respect to the conduct it proscribes.

3 We have held that section 11352(a) is divisible with respect to drug

type, because the statute lists alternative controlled substances and

“because California law confirms that the controlled substance is an

essential element ofthe crime.” United States v. Huitron-Rocha, 771 F.3d

1183, 1184 (9thCir. 2014). Huitron-Rocha didn’t address whether the act

element (i.e., transport vs. sell) is divisible.

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16 UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR

state statute that sets out, in the alternative, several forms of

committing an offense, or whether instead the applicability of

the modified categorical approach depends on a state-law

inquiry into whether the alternative forms of the offense

represent ‘means’ or ‘elements.’” Brief for the United States

at I, Mathis v. United States, No. 15-6092, 2015 WL 9855126

(U.S. Dec. 17, 2015). A “deep and widespread” conflict

regarding what constitutes a divisible statute has developed

among our sister courts following Descamps v. United States,

133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013). Brief for the United States at 17. On

the one hand, the Sixth, Eighth and Tenth Circuits find a

statute listed in the alternative sufficient to trigger the

modified categorical approach analysis. United States v.

Ozier, 796 F.3d 597, 601–02 (6th Cir. 2015); United States v.

Trent, 767 F.3d 1046, 1058–61 (10th Cir. 2014); Mathis,

786 F.3d at 1075. We and the Fourth Circuit hold that to

apply the modified categorical approach a statute must list

“elements” in the alternative. Almanza-Arenas, 809 F.3d at

523; Omargharib v. Holder, 775 F.3d 192, 198–99 (4th Cir.

2014).

We have struggled to determine how we apply this test of

divisibility. See Rendon v. Holder, 764 F.3d 1077 (9th Cir.

2014); Rendon v. Holder 782 F.3d 466, 467–73 (2015)

(dissentals); Almanza-Arenas, 809 F.3d at 528 (Owens, J.,

concurring) (“The only consistency in these cases is their

arbitrariness.”); Id. at 529 (Watford, J., concurring in the

judgment) (“I would overrule Rendon, as I think its approach

to divisibility analysis is inconsistent with the approach

required by Descamps.” (citation omitted)). But, despite the

dissonance, the Almanza-Arenas majority confirmed “that if

the elements of the crime are alternative to each other—not

the mode or means of proving an element of the crime—the

statute is divisible.” Id. at 523 (majority opinion).

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UNITED STATES V. ROSALES-AGUILAR 17

Because the petition for certiorari granted in Mathis is

directly relevant to our resolution of Rosales’s challenge to

his sentence enhancement, we will defer the resolution of this

one issue pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Mathis.

* * *

Conviction AFFIRMED. Future proceedings in this case

are stayed until further order by the court. No petition for

rehearing or petition for rehearing en banc may be filed until

this court files its disposition resolving the sentencing

question.

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