NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

RODERICK EARL VANGA, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 15-10308 

D.C. No. 

2:14-cr-00184-GEB-1 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of California

Garland E. Burrell, Jr., District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 13, 2018

San Francisco, California

Before: PAEZ and IKUTA, Circuit Judges, and VITALIANO,** District Judge.

Roderick Earl Vanga appeals from the district court’s entry of judgment and 

sentence following his guilty plea to one count of violating 18 U.S.C. § 751(a). 

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm. 

 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The Honorable Eric N. Vitaliano, United States District Judge for the 

Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

FILED

APR 2 2018

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

1. We hold that the district court did not improperly deny Vanga his Sixth 

Amendment right to represent himself. Although the Sixth Amendment guarantees 

a criminal defendant the right to represent himself, Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 

806, 819 (1975), a defendant who wishes to proceed pro se “must make a timely, 

unequivocal, voluntary, and intelligent request.” United States v. Farias, 618 F.3d 

1049, 1051 (9th Cir. 2010) (footnote, alteration, and quotation marks omitted). “If 

he equivocates, he is presumed to have requested the assistance of counsel.” 

Adams v. Carroll, 875 F.2d 1441, 1444 (9th Cir. 1989). While “[w]e have not yet 

clarified whether [a] denial of a request to proceed pro se is reviewed de novo or 

for abuse of discretion,” United States v. Maness, 566 F.3d 894, 896 n.2 (9th Cir. 

2009), we review a district court’s factual findings underlying such a denial for 

clear error, including a finding that a request was equivocal. United States v. 

Mendez-Sanchez, 563 F.3d 935, 944 (9th Cir. 2009). 

The district court did not clearly err in finding Vanga’s self-representation

requests equivocal. Although a defendant’s conditional request may be 

unequivocal under limited circumstances, see Adams, 875 F.2d at 1445, the 

conditions Vanga placed on his self-representation requests—including library 

access to a “full scope of federal law,” regular, business-hours access to advisory 

counsel and/or a paralegal and/or an investigator, and obtaining a continuance to 
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present his untimely, meritless jurisdictional motion—were inapposite and made 

his requests equivocal. 

2. We further hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying 

substitute counsel. We consider three factors in evaluating whether a district court 

abused its discretion in denying a motion to substitute counsel: “(1) the adequacy 

of the district court's inquiry; (2) the extent of the conflict between the defendant 

and counsel; and (3) the timeliness of defendant's motion.” United States v. 

Velazquez, 855 F.3d 1021, 1034 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting United States v. ReyesBosque, 596 F.3d 1017, 1033 (9th Cir. 2010)). Vanga focuses on the second 

factor, arguing that there was a complete breakdown in communications between 

Vanga and defense counsel that could not be reconciled. But Vanga “must show 

that there was an ‘extensive, irreconcilable conflict’ between himself and his 

appointed counsel,” Mendez-Sanchez, 563 F.3d at 943 (quoting United States v. 

Smith, 282 F.3d 758, 763 (9th Cir. 2002)), that led to “a significant breakdown in 

communication that substantially interfered with the attorney-client relationship.” 

United States v. Adelzo-Gonzalez, 268 F.3d 772, 779 (9th Cir. 2001). 

We hold that there was no “extensive, irreconcilable” conflict that required

the district court to grant the request for substitution of counsel. Indeed, Vanga

repeatedly affirmed his desire to continue with his appointed counsel. Reviewing 

the record as a whole, we conclude that the conflict between Vanga and his counsel 
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arose from Vanga’s disagreement with his counsel’s litigation tactics, as well as 

from Vanga’s “general unreasonableness or manufactured discontent,” rather than 

from a genuine extensive and irreconcilable conflict. See Smith, 282 F.3d at 763–

64 (affirming denial of substitute counsel where defendant disagreed with 

attorney’s wording of discovery motion and cut off communication after counsel 

refused to use defendant’s wording, noting that “[l]itigation tactics are decisions 

generally left to defense counsel” and concluding that the disagreement apparently 

arose from defendant’s “general unreasonableness or manufactured discontent” 

(quoting United States v. Walker, 915 F.2d 480, 484 (9th Cir. 1990))).

3. Because we affirm Vanga’s conviction, we deny as moot Vanga’s request 

that his case should be assigned to a different district judge on remand. We note, 

however, that this case is not an example of a “rare and extraordinary 

circumstance[]” that would warrant reassignment. See Krechman v. Cnty. of 

Riverside, 723 F.3d 1104, 1112 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting United Nat. Ins. Co. v. 

R&D Latex Corp., 242 F.3d 1102, 1118 (9th Cir 2001)). 

AFFIRMED.