NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

PATRICK SLAVIN, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 21-10123

D.C. Nos. 

2:17-cr-00115-TLN-1 

2:17-cr-00115-TLN

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of California

Troy L. Nunley, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 7, 2022

San Francisco, California

Before: HURWITZ and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges, and ERICKSEN,** District 

Judge.

Patrick Slavin was indicted on twelve counts of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1341, and nine counts of wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343. After a psychiatric 

evaluation, the district court determined that Slavin was incompetent to stand trial. 

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

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The Honorable Joan N. Ericksen, United States District Judge for the 

District of Minnesota, sitting by designation.

FILED

FEB 25 2022

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

The district court later issued an order authorizing the government to administer 

medication against Slavin’s wishes to render him competent. Slavin appeals that 

order.

We have jurisdiction to review an order for involuntary medication under the 

collateral order exception to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. United States v. Onuoha, 820 F.3d 

1049, 1051 (9th Cir. 2016); Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166, 176 (2003). The 

only issue in this appeal is whether the government has shown “important

governmental interests” in prosecuting this case, as required for an order of 

involuntary medication to restore trial competency. Sell, 539 U.S. at 180. This

issue is “primarily a legal question,” so we review the district court’s order de 

novo. United States v. Ruiz-Gaxiola, 623 F.3d 684, 693 (9th Cir. 2010). We 

affirm.

The first issue is whether Slavin’s alleged offense, which arises out of his 

alleged participation in a fraudulent investment scheme, is serious. To analyze 

whether a crime is sufficiently serious to support an important governmental

interest in administering medication to restore competency, the “starting point” is 

the length of a sentence the defendant likely would face under the federal 

Sentencing Guidelines; we then consider other relevant factors. United States v. 

Hernandez-Vasquez, 513 F.3d 908, 919 (9th Cir. 2008); Onuoha, 820 F.3d at 1055 

(observing that relevant considerations include “the specific facts of the alleged 
3 

crime as well as the defendant’s criminal history”).1 Slavin acknowledges that his 

Guidelines range is between 70 and 87 months. That range significantly exceeds 

Guidelines ranges that we have found to indicate serious offenses when combined 

with other circumstances showing seriousness. See Onuoha, 820 F.3d at 1055 

(range of 27–33 months); United States v. Gillenwater, 749 F.3d 1094, 1101 (9th 

Cir. 2014) (range of 33–41 months). The facts alleged in this case—a fraudulent 

investment scheme spanning roughly eight years and costing investors at least $1.7 

million—also indicate a serious offense that the government ordinarily would have 

an important interest in prosecuting.

Although Slavin asserts that the government’s interest in prosecution is 

diminished because the public already understands that fraud is a serious crime, we 

never have suggested that the government only has an important interest in 

prosecuting crimes that are poorly understood. The government maintains an 

interest in showing that a serious crime “will result predictably in conviction and a 

serious penalty of incarceration.” Onuoha, 820 F.3d at 1055 (emphasis added).

We also find no error in the district court’s observation that prosecution may 

carry enhanced value as a means of general deterrence where, as here, the alleged 

1 We adopted this approach in 2008, after the Sentencing Guidelines already 

had become merely advisory. Hernandez-Vasquez, 513 F.3d at 919. Despite their

advisory nature, we recognized that the likely Guidelines range is the “best 

available predictor” of the length of a defendant’s incarceration—albeit “not, 

however, the only factor that should be considered.” Id.
4 

offense is a white-collar crime, whose perpetrators “often calculate the financial 

gain and risk of loss.” United States v. Martin, 455 F.3d 1227, 1240 (11th Cir. 

2006); United States v. Sample, 901 F.3d 1196, 1200 (10th Cir. 2018) (recognizing 

that Congress, in adopting the Sentencing Factors at 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), 

determined general deterrence to be “particularly important in the area of white 

collar crime”) (quoting S. Rep. No. 98-225, at 76 (1983), reprinted in 1984 

U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, 3259). And a conviction would send a stronger deterrent 

signal to prospective fraudsters than would the mere fact that Slavin has spent 

several years in pretrial custody. See Onuoha, 820 F.3d at 1056 (noting “an 

important distinction between incarceration itself, and the significance for society 

of gaining a criminal conviction for a defendant’s violation of the law”).

Slavin, who has already been in pretrial custody for approximately 53 

months, asserts that the length of that custody is a special circumstance that

reduces the government’s interest in prosecuting him. This period is more than a

year short of the lower end of his Guidelines range of 70 to 87 months. The 

duration of Slavin’s pretrial confinement thus “moderate[s]” but does “not 

eliminate” the “importance of the governmental interest in prosecution.” See Sell, 

539 U.S. at 186.

No other special circumstance reduces the government’s important interest 

in prosecuting this case. We therefore agree with the district court that it is proper 
5 

for the government to administer medication involuntarily to render the defendant 

competent to stand trial.

AFFIRMED.