NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

WILLIAM ARTHUR STEHL, AKA 

William A. Stehl, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

No. 15-50035 

D.C. No. 

2:12-cr-00995-TJH-1 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Terry J. Hatter, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted April 4, 2017

Pasadena, California

Before: PLAGER,** BEA, and OWENS, Circuit Judges.

Defendant William Arthur Stehl appeals from his conviction entered 

following a guilty plea and from a 144-month sentence for conspiracy to commit 

mail fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1349), false statements to federal agents (18 U.S.C. 

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

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The Honorable S. Jay Plager, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. 

Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation.

FILED

APR 12 2017

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
 2 

§ 1001), tax evasion (26 U.S.C. § 7201), and tax fraud (26 U.S.C. § 7206). As the 

parties are familiar with the facts, we do not recount them here. We affirm in part, 

vacate in part, and remand.

1. We reject Stehl’s contention that the district court violated Federal Rule of 

Criminal Procedure 32(e)(1) by deferring acceptance of his guilty plea, made 

pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), until after the court

reviewed the presentence report (“PSR”). See Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(e)(1) (“Unless 

the defendant has consented in writing, the probation officer must not submit a 

presentence report to the court or disclose its contents to anyone until the defendant 

has pleaded guilty or nolo contendere, or has been found guilty.”). Despite the 

district court’s comments at the change-of-plea hearing, looking at the entire 

record, there is insufficient evidence that the court actually reviewed the PSR 

before accepting Stehl’s guilty plea. See Gregg v. United States, 394 U.S. 489, 

493 (1969) (affirming a defendant’s conviction where “[t]he trial judge did not 

state that he read the presentence report before the jury verdict was delivered, nor 

is there any direct evidence in this record that he did”).

Moreover, Stehl failed to object to the alleged Rule 32 violation in the 

district court. Even if the district court did review the PSR prematurely, Stehl has 

not shown that he was prejudiced. As such, there was no plain error. See United 

States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734 (1993).
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2. The parties agree that a remand for resentencing is appropriate based on the 

district court’s statements that it chose Stehl’s sentence, in part, to provide him

“with needed medical care or other correctional treatment in the most effective 

manner.” See Tapia v. United States, 564 U.S. 319, 321 (2011) (holding that 

federal courts are precluded “from imposing or lengthening a prison term in order 

to promote a criminal defendant’s rehabilitation”). We decline to grant the 

government’s request for a limited remand, and remand for the district court to 

resentence Stehl on an open record. 

AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED.