NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

WILLIAM PHILLIP NEIDINGER, AKA 

William Joseph Beck III, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22-10118 

D.C. No. 

3:20-cr-00009-HDM-CLB-1 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Nevada

Howard D. McKibben, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted July 18, 2023

San Francisco, California

Before: WARDLAW and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and RAYES,** District 

Judge.

William Phillip Neidinger appeals his conviction of making a false statement 

on a passport application and sentence of eight months’ imprisonment and three 

years’ supervised release. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we 

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

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The Honorable Douglas L. Rayes, United States District Judge for the 

District of Arizona, sitting by designation.

FILED

AUG 14 2023

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
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affirm. Because the parties are familiar with the facts and relevant standards of 

review, we do not recount them here, except as necessary to provide context to our 

ruling.

1. Neidinger argues that he did not knowingly and intelligently waive his 

right to counsel because he reserved “rights” under Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519 

(1972) in response to the district court’s questions about his understanding that he 

would receive no special treatment if he represented himself. Neidinger’s reference 

to Haines was both relevant and applicable to the criminal context. See Haines, 

404 U.S. at 520–21 (holding self-represented litigants to “less stringent” pleading 

standards); United States v. Qazi, 975 F.3d 989, 993 (9th Cir. 2020) (applying 

Haines in criminal case). Even “indulging ‘every reasonable presumption against

waiver,’” United States v. Erskine, 355 F.3d 1161, 1167 (9th Cir. 2004) (quoting 

United States v. Arlt, 41 F.3d 516, 520 (9th Cir. 1994)), a relevant and appropriate 

reference to caselaw does not reflect a misunderstanding of “the dangers and 

disadvantages of self-representation,” United States v. Balough, 820 F.2d 1485, 

1487 (9th Cir. 1987).

2. The district court did not err when it rejected Neidinger’s proposed 

mens rea instruction and gave another that allowed Neidinger to present his own 

defense. Neidinger’s defense was that, based on an excerpt from the Freedom 

Outlaw’s Handbook: 179 Things to Do ‘til the Revolution (the “Handbook”), he 
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believed he assumed the identity of William Beck and used Beck’s information on 

the passport application, believing it to be his own. 

The jury instruction given at trial allowed Neidinger to present his defense 

that he was Beck—and indeed his standby counsel did so in closing. We find no

reversible error. See United States v. Whittemore, 776 F.3d 1074, 1078 (9th Cir. 

2015) (finding no reversible error in rejecting a defendant’s proposed instruction 

when the given instruction “adequately encompass[ed]” the defendant’s theory).

3. The district court did not err by excluding a blog post and comments 

containing other statements made by Beck, admitting the Handbook excerpt off the 

record, and excluding Beck as a witness. None of these decisions prevented 

Neidinger from presenting his complete defense because Neidinger read the 

Handbook excerpt into the record, displayed the admitted excerpt to the jury, 

testified generally about the blog post and comments, and explained that they made 

him believe the Handbook reliable. Moreover, Beck’s anticipated testimony was 

irrelevant because Neidinger did not encounter Beck until after he claimed to have 

formed the belief that he had taken on Beck’s identity. Cf. DePetris v. Kuykendall, 

239 F.3d 1057, 1062–63 (9th Cir. 2001) (finding error where a journal 

corroborative of a defendant’s state of mind was entirely excluded and no 

witness—including defendant—was permitted to testify about it even generally).

4. Nor did the district court abuse its discretion by not giving a specific 
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unanimity instruction. A specific unanimity instruction is necessary only when 

“there is a genuine possibility of jury confusion or that a conviction may occur as 

the result of different jurors concluding that the defendant committed different 

acts.” United States v. Chen Chiang Liu, 631 F.3d 993, 1000 (9th Cir. 2011). The 

jury note did not reflect confusion about whether Neidinger committed different 

acts. And a jury need not be unanimous as to which statement was false to convict 

for making a false statement on a passport application. See United States v. 

McCormick, 72 F.3d 1404, 1409 (9th Cir. 1995). 

5. Finally, Neidinger’s challenges to his sentence and release conditions 

are unavailing. The district court did not err by basing the sentence on Neidinger’s 

decision to proceed to trial in violation of Neidinger’s due process rights. Rather, 

the district court explained that a term of imprisonment in the upper quartile of the 

Guidelines range was justified in light of Neidinger’s criminal history and history 

of noncompliance, his denial of responsibility, and his “ludicrous” theory of 

defense, which the district court found utterly “incredible.” 

Amid the full explanation, the district court made the offhand comment that 

“[i]t’s been a difficult case. I—we went through two trials. There was the first jury 

[that] couldn’t convict and didn’t convict on the evidence presented.” Yet the 

district court stated twice that Neidinger’s decision to go to trial and testify had 

nothing to do with the sentence determination. The district court simply “note[d]
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the fact that [Neidinger] went to trial,” which is not reversible error where, as here,

“the court base[d] its final decision on the facts of the case and the record as a 

whole.” United States v. Rojas-Pedroza, 716 F.3d 1253, 1270 (9th Cir. 2013).

Nor was the sentence length substantively unreasonable. As explained 

above, the district court did not consider Neidinger’s decision to go to trial when 

calculating the sentence. And the district court explained that the upper-quartile 

sentence was necessary to deter Neidinger and others from making false statements 

on passport applications and to protect the public from Neidinger’s misdeeds, 

concerns reasonably based in Neidinger’s non-trivial criminal history and history 

of noncompliance. The sentence was substantively reasonable. 

Lastly, the district court did not plainly err in imposing standard release 

condition twelve, which requires him to notify anyone identified by his probation 

officer of the risk he might pose to them. We have held this type of risknotification condition is not unconstitutionally vague. See United States v. Gibson, 

998 F.3d 415, 423 (9th Cir. 2021).

AFFIRMED.