Opinion ID: 2717105
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mosley’s location at the time of the fire.

Text: The State first argues that the court incorrectly found that, based on Taylor’s testimony, Mosley was in the apartment building 45 minutes before the fire started but across the street in the schoolyard when the fire started. According to the State, 12 No. 13-2515 Taylor testified that she knew Mosley’s location at only two specific instances: when he left her apartment 45 minutes before the fire, and after the fire started when she noticed Mosley and the others running to the building as it burned. The State notes that Taylor testified that she did not again look out the window between those two instances and asserts that, in the interim, Mosley could have returned to the apartment and given the instruction to burn down the building. Taylor testified at the hearing that Mosley had visited her the evening of the fire, offering to bring her ribs for dinner. When Mosley left, Taylor said, she saw him go across the street to the schoolyard, approximately 20 to 25 feet from her building. She watched Mosley in the schoolyard for only “two minutes at the most” before walking to the bathroom to bathe her son. From her bathroom window, Taylor could not see the schoolyard. She did not again look out the window to the schoolyard, but neither did she hear yelling or talking from outside through her windows, which were open and directly above Fernando’s. From this, the district court concluded that Taylor, if called at the trial, would have testified that “Mosley was in the building 45 minutes before the fire and then was across the street in a group of men and children at the time the fire started.” The district court later framed Taylor’s testimony as establishing that Mosley left her apartment 45 minutes before the fire started “and went across the street to the schoolyard,” thus saying nothing about whether he remained there until the fire began. From Taylor’s testimony it is possible to conclude that Mosley had enough time to instruct the other gang members to burn down the building. But it also is plausible that he did No. 13-2515 13 not leave the schoolyard until the apartment building was in flames. That either theory is possible from Taylor’s testimony does not make the district court’s finding clearly incorrect. Ray, 700 F.3d at 1013; Stankewitz v. Wong, 698 F.3d 1163, 1169 (9th Cir. 2012). Although Taylor did not watch Mosley every minute after he left her apartment, it is an acceptable conclusion that he remained in the schoolyard until he noticed the fire and ran over to help. Thus, the court’s finding was not clear error.