Court Opinion

ID: 1807
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-16 00:40:26+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:42:02.410872
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                            FILED
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT                               APR 15 2010

                                                                          MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                            U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                        No. 09-50066

             Plaintiff - Appellee,               D.C. No. 8:07-cr-00275-JVS-1

  v.
                                                 MEMORANDUM *
FERNANDO ALBERTO VELASQUEZ-
BOSQUE,

             Defendant - Appellant.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Central District of California
                    James V. Selna, District Judge, Presiding

                               Argued March 2, 2010
                              Submitted April 8, 2010
                                Pasadena, California

Before: CANBY, GOULD and IKUTA, Circuit Judges.

       Nieves-Medrano v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1057 (9th Cir. 2010) (order), held that

carjacking under California Penal Code section 215 is a categorical crime of

violence under 18 U.S.C. § 16. Id. at 1058. Nothing in Johnson v. United States,

        *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
130 S. Ct. 1265 (2010), is irreconcilable with Nieves-Medrano, and therefore this

court has no authority to disregard Nieves-Medrano. See Miller v. Gammie, 335
F.3d 889, 900 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc). Velasquez-Bosque’s challenge to his

conviction under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b)(2) fails.

      As the government concedes, the district court erred in admitting the Wilson

Declaration at trial, because such admission was in violation of the Confrontation

Clause. See Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 129 S. Ct. 2527, 2532 (2009).

However, because the declaration was cumulative of Agent Johnston’s testimony,

that testimony was tested through extensive cross-examination, and there was no

evidence to contradict the element for which the declaration was offered, we hold

that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v.

Larson, 495 F.3d 1094, 1107–1108 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc). Even though Agent

Johnston’s testimony did not precisely track the language of 8 U.S.C. § 1326, it

was sufficient to constitute evidence of the Attorney General’s lack of consent to

the “alien’s reapplying for admission.” See United States v. Cervantes-Flores, 421
F.3d 825, 834 (9th Cir. 2005) (per curiam).

      Last, Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 226–27 (1998),

forecloses Velasquez-Bosque’s challenge to the constitutionality of § 1326(b),

including the claim that Nijhawan v. Holder, 129 S. Ct. 2294 (2009), “softened”

Almendarez-Torres’s holding. Almendarez-Torres has never been expressly
overruled and continues to constitute binding precedent. See, e.g., United States v.

Garcia-Cardenas, 555 F.3d 1049, 1051 (9th Cir. 2009) (per curiam); United States

v. Martinez-Rodriguez, 472 F.3d 1087, 1093 (9th Cir. 2007).1

      AFFIRMED.

      1
        We address the government’s cross-appeal in a separate opinion filed
concurrently with this memorandum disposition.