NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

JOHNL JACKSON, AKA Nelly, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22-30133 

D.C. No. 3:19-cr-00458-MO-1 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Oregon

Michael W. Mosman, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted October 18, 2023**

Portland, Oregon

Before: KOH and SUNG, Circuit Judges, and EZRA,*** District Judge.

Johnl Jackson appeals his conviction for conspiracy to commit sex 

trafficking of a minor and two counts of using force, fraud, or coercion to sex 

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

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision 

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

*** The Honorable David A. Ezra, United States District Judge for the 

District of Hawaii, sitting by designation.

FILED

OCT 30 2023

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
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traffic a minor (referred to as “MV5”) under 18 U.S.C. § 1591. We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

1. Sufficient evidence supported Jackson’s conviction. We review 

challenges to the sufficiency of evidence de novo. See United States v. Barragan, 

871 F.3d 689, 705 (9th Cir. 2017). We “must consider the evidence presented at 

trial in the light most favorable to the prosecution,” and then “determine whether 

this evidence, so viewed, is adequate to allow ‘any rational trier of fact [to find] the 

essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’” United States v. 

Nevils, 598 F.3d 1158, 1164 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (alteration in original)

(quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979)). Jackson argues that the 

evidence that Jackson took the minor victims far from home, isolated them from 

their families, and made them dependent on him for food, shelter, and drugs, was 

not enough to establish the element of force or coercion as a matter of law.

However, the evidence also established that Jackson directed his co-defendant to 

slap MV5 and that he openly carried a firearm when interacting with MV5.

Viewing all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we 

conclude that a rational juror could have found all of the essential elements, 

including force or coercion, beyond a reasonable doubt. 

2. The district court did not err in excluding evidence under Federal Rules of 

Evidence 412 and 403 that Jackson argues was necessary for his defense. We 
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review a district court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. We review de 

novo the district court’s interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence, United 

States v. Kahre, 737 F.3d 554, 565 (9th Cir. 2013), and whether the district court’s 

evidentiary rulings violated the defendant’s constitutional rights, United States v. 

Laursen, 847 F.3d 1026, 1031 (9th Cir. 2017).

The exclusion of evidence that purportedly would show the minor victim 

engaged in other prostitution activity did not violate Jackson’s constitutional rights. 

The proffered evidence of other alleged prostitution activity was very thin.

Moreover, evidence of a trafficking victim’s other prostitution activity has little or 

no relevance to the question of whether a defendant used force, fraud, or coercion 

to cause the victim to be trafficked. United States v. Haines, 918 F.3d 694, 697–98

(9th Cir. 2019) (collecting cases). Because the evidence that Jackson sought to 

present is only tenuously connected to his theory that he did not use force, fraud, or 

coercion to cause the victim to engage in commercial sex acts, he cannot show that 

his constitutional rights were violated. See Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 

319, 330 (2006) (district judges may “focus the trial . . . by excluding evidence that 

has only a very weak logical connection to the central issues”). 

Additionally, the district court allowed Jackson to introduce evidence of 

MV5’s sexual relationship with Charlie Hernandez and evidence of some 

relationship with Depree Smith and Keonte Scott. This evidence enabled Jackson 
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to present his theory of the case. The district court did not abuse its discretion in 

concluding that any probative value of the excluded evidence would be outweighed 

by its prejudicial effect.

The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of the 

victim’s alleged sexual relationship with the co-defendant, Petrovic, for failure to 

comply with Rule 412’s procedural notice requirements. Jackson only vaguely 

described the evidence to be introduced, and he did not provide any explanation of 

the good faith basis for believing that Petrovic and MV5 had a sexual relationship. 

Because Jackson described the evidence so vaguely and insufficiently, exclusion of 

the evidence was “not arbitrary nor disproportionate to the purposes behind Rule 

412’s procedural requirements.” United States v. Chang Ru Meng Backman, 817 

F.3d 662, 670 (9th Cir. 2016) (concluding exclusion of evidence for failure to 

comply with Rule 412’s procedural requirements was “within constitutional 

bounds” where the defendant’s Rule 412 motion “was vague as to the precise 

nature of the evidence”).

AFFIRMED.