Court Opinion

ID: 9893765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-30 17:01:16.094465+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:28.622333
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       OCT 30 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                       No.    22-30133

                Plaintiff-Appellee,             D.C. No. 3:19-cr-00458-MO-1

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
JOHNL JACKSON, AKA Nelly,

                Defendant-Appellant.

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                           for the District of Oregon
                  Michael W. Mosman, District Judge, Presiding

                           Submitted October 18, 2023**
                                Portland, Oregon

Before: KOH and SUNG, Circuit Judges, and EZRA,*** District Judge.

      Johnl Jackson appeals his conviction for conspiracy to commit sex

trafficking of a minor and two counts of using force, fraud, or coercion to sex

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
      ***
             The Honorable David A. Ezra, United States District Judge for the
District of Hawaii, sitting by designation.
traffic a minor (referred to as “MV5”) under 18 U.S.C. § 1591. We have

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

      1. Sufficient evidence supported Jackson’s conviction. We review

challenges to the sufficiency of evidence de novo. See United States v. Barragan,

871 F.3d 689, 705 (9th Cir. 2017). We “must consider the evidence presented at

trial in the light most favorable to the prosecution,” and then “determine whether

this evidence, so viewed, is adequate to allow ‘any rational trier of fact [to find] the

essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’” United States v.

Nevils, 598 F.3d 1158, 1164 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc) (alteration in original)

(quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979)). Jackson argues that the

evidence that Jackson took the minor victims far from home, isolated them from

their families, and made them dependent on him for food, shelter, and drugs, was

not enough to establish the element of force or coercion as a matter of law.

However, the evidence also established that Jackson directed his co-defendant to

slap MV5 and that he openly carried a firearm when interacting with MV5.

Viewing all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, we

conclude that a rational juror could have found all of the essential elements,

including force or coercion, beyond a reasonable doubt.

      2. The district court did not err in excluding evidence under Federal Rules of

Evidence 412 and 403 that Jackson argues was necessary for his defense. We

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review a district court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. We review de

novo the district court’s interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence, United

States v. Kahre, 737 F.3d 554, 565 (9th Cir. 2013), and whether the district court’s

evidentiary rulings violated the defendant’s constitutional rights, United States v.

Laursen, 847 F.3d 1026, 1031 (9th Cir. 2017).

      The exclusion of evidence that purportedly would show the minor victim

engaged in other prostitution activity did not violate Jackson’s constitutional rights.

The proffered evidence of other alleged prostitution activity was very thin.

Moreover, evidence of a trafficking victim’s other prostitution activity has little or

no relevance to the question of whether a defendant used force, fraud, or coercion

to cause the victim to be trafficked. United States v. Haines, 918 F.3d 694, 697–98

(9th Cir. 2019) (collecting cases). Because the evidence that Jackson sought to

present is only tenuously connected to his theory that he did not use force, fraud, or

coercion to cause the victim to engage in commercial sex acts, he cannot show that

his constitutional rights were violated. See Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S.

319, 330 (2006) (district judges may “focus the trial . . . by excluding evidence that

has only a very weak logical connection to the central issues”).

      Additionally, the district court allowed Jackson to introduce evidence of

MV5’s sexual relationship with Charlie Hernandez and evidence of some

relationship with Depree Smith and Keonte Scott. This evidence enabled Jackson

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to present his theory of the case. The district court did not abuse its discretion in

concluding that any probative value of the excluded evidence would be outweighed

by its prejudicial effect.

       The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of the

victim’s alleged sexual relationship with the co-defendant, Petrovic, for failure to

comply with Rule 412’s procedural notice requirements. Jackson only vaguely

described the evidence to be introduced, and he did not provide any explanation of

the good faith basis for believing that Petrovic and MV5 had a sexual relationship.

Because Jackson described the evidence so vaguely and insufficiently, exclusion of

the evidence was “not arbitrary nor disproportionate to the purposes behind Rule

412’s procedural requirements.” United States v. Chang Ru Meng Backman, 817

F.3d 662, 670 (9th Cir. 2016) (concluding exclusion of evidence for failure to

comply with Rule 412’s procedural requirements was “within constitutional

bounds” where the defendant’s Rule 412 motion “was vague as to the precise

nature of the evidence”).

       AFFIRMED.

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