Court Opinion

ID: 9959805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-12 17:01:29.603073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:55.212484
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

      UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                         No. 23-705
                                                   D.C. No.
                Plaintiff - Appellee,
                                                3:22-cr-02443-
     v.
                                                    RSH-1
GENARO MEDINA-LUNA,
                                                   OPINION
                Defendant - Appellant.

          Appeal from the United States District Court
             for the Southern District of California
          Robert Steven Huie, District Judge, Presiding

                   Submitted March 26, 2024 *
                      Pasadena, California

                       Filed April 12, 2024

     Before: Susan P. Graber and Danielle J. Forrest, Circuit
         Judges, and James V. Selna, District Judge. **

                    Opinion by Judge Graber

*
 The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
**
  The Honorable James V. Selna, United States District Judge for the
Central District of California, sitting by designation.
2                       USA V. MEDINA-LUNA

                          SUMMARY ***

                          Criminal Law

    The panel dismissed in part Medina-Luna’s appeal from
the 41-month prison sentence imposed following his guilty
plea to an information charging him with attempted reentry
by a removed noncitizen in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326, and
otherwise affirmed.
    Medina-Luna challenged the validity of his waiver of a
grand jury indictment. The panel held that Medina-Luna
waived the right to appeal that issue by pleading guilty
unconditionally. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision
in United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625 (2002) (holding that
defects in an indictment do not deprive a court of
jurisdiction), the panel held that an error in procuring a
knowing and voluntary waiver of indictment is
nonjurisdictional and is therefore waived by a defendant’s
subsequent guilty plea.
    Citing Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889 (9th Cir. 2003)
(en banc) (holding that a three-judge panel may recognize a
decision as overruled if it is clearly irreconcilable with a later
precedent from the Supreme Court), the panel overruled
United States v. Travis, 735 F.2d 1129 (9th Cir. 1984), to the
extent Travis characterized any defect in the waiver of
indictment as jurisdictional. The panel took the opportunity
to reaffirm that Miller remains good law in all respects.

***
   This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
                    USA V. MEDINA-LUNA                    3

    Seeing no abuse of discretion, the panel held that the
sentence was substantively reasonable.

                       COUNSEL

Kenneth M. Miller, Law Office of Kenneth M. Miller,
Capistrano Beach, California, for Defendant-Appellant.
Jordan Arakawa and James Miao, Assistant United States
Attorneys; Daniel E. Zipp, Assistant United States Attorney,
Chief, Appellate Section, Criminal Division; Badih
Mouannes, Special Assistant United States Attorney; Tara
K. McGrath, United States Attorney; United States
Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorney,
San Diego, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee.

                        OPINION

GRABER, Circuit Judge:

    Defendant Genaro Medina-Luna timely appeals his
sentence of 41 months of imprisonment, following his guilty
plea to an information charging him with attempted reentry
by a removed noncitizen, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326.
He raises two issues: whether his waiver of the right to a
grand jury indictment was valid, and whether the sentence
imposed was substantively reasonable. We hold that
Defendant waived the right to appeal the first issue by
entering an unconditional guilty plea and that the sentence
was substantively reasonable. We therefore dismiss the
appeal in part and otherwise affirm.
4                   USA V. MEDINA-LUNA

    FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
   Defendant is a Mexican national and citizen. In
September 2022, he attempted to enter the United States
from Mexico through the Otay Mesa, California Port of
Entry, concealed in the trunk of a car. Defendant had been
ordered removed from the United States to Mexico on five
previous occasions, spanning the period from 2006 to early
2022.
    Defendant was charged with attempted reentry by a
removed noncitizen, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. During
a hearing, the magistrate judge informed Defendant of the
charge against him. The judge noted that the charge was for
a felony, and she advised Defendant, as well as several other
defendants who were charged in unrelated cases, as follows:

       [Y]ou have the right to have the charges
       presented to the grand jury. That’s a group of
       citizens from the community. They are
       brought together.      They hear evidence
       presented by the prosecutor. And it’s their
       job to decide if there’s probable cause to
       charge you with this crime or not.
           ....
           . . . [I]f the grand jury finds probable
       cause, you can be charged using a document
       called an Indictment. But if the grand jury
       doesn’t find probable cause, you can’t be
       charged with a felony at all.
           I’ve been told that each of you is giving
       up your right to have the charges presented to
       the grand jury. You’re agreeing that, instead,
                    USA V. MEDINA-LUNA                    5

       the United States can file these charges by
       typing up a different type of document, this
       Information, and simply filing it with the
       Court.
           So I want to make sure that’s what you
       want to do, and I want to make sure that you
       are doing so intelligently and voluntarily.

    The magistrate judge then asked Defendant’s lawyer
whether she had advised him of the “right to the grand jury
and the significance of the waiver.” Counsel responded,
“Yes, your Honor.” After that, the judge asked Defendant
whether, in fact, he wished to waive his right to have the
charge presented to the grand jury. Through an interpreter,
Defendant replied, “Yes, your Honor.” The judge asked,
“Before you made this decision, did you have enough time
to talk to your attorney about the grand jury and your
waiver?” Defendant answered, “Yes, your Honor.” He then
stated that he had no questions about the waiver and that he
had not been pressured by anyone in any way to give up his
right to an indictment.
    A few months after waiving indictment, Defendant
pleaded guilty. He entered an open, unconditional plea with
no plea agreement.
    The government calculated the Guideline range as 63–
78 months. Defendant requested a four-level downward
departure under Sentencing Guideline Manual § 5K2.12
because of his motivation to enter the United States to
provide emotional support to his daughter, who had suffered
a severe trauma. He calculated a Guideline range of 41–51
months. Probation recommended 63 months in custody; the
United States recommended a downward variance to 57
6                    USA V. MEDINA-LUNA

months in recognition of the circumstances motivating
Defendant; and Defendant sought 41 months.
    The district court calculated the Guideline range as 63–
78 months. After considering the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)
factors, the court varied downward and sentenced Defendant
to 41 months. This timely appeal followed.
                        DISCUSSION
    A. The Waiver of an Indictment Is Nonjurisdictional.
    Defendant challenges the validity of his waiver of an
indictment, but we must first decide whether he waived
appeal of the issue. We determine de novo the question
whether Defendant has waived appeal of an issue. United
States v. Watson, 582 F.3d 974, 981 (9th Cir. 2009). Here,
Defendant pleaded guilty unconditionally, without a plea
agreement and without preserving identified issues for
appeal in writing as permitted by Federal Rule of Criminal
Procedure 11(a)(2).      “[A]n unconditional guilty plea
constitutes a waiver of the right to appeal all
nonjurisdictional antecedent rulings and cures all antecedent
constitutional defects.” United States v. Chavez-Diaz, 949
F.3d 1202, 1206 (9th Cir. 2020) (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted). The specific question presented
here is whether the failure to secure a valid waiver of
indictment is a nonjurisdictional defect.
       1. Miller v. Gammie Provides the Applicable Test.
    In United States v. Travis, 735 F.2d 1129 (9th Cir. 1984),
we considered a challenge to a defendant’s waiver of
indictment following the defendant’s guilty plea. We stated
that the “claimed defect is jurisdictional.” Id. at 1131. As a
three-judge panel, we may recognize that decision as
overruled if it is clearly irreconcilable with a later precedent
                    USA V. MEDINA-LUNA                      7

from the Supreme Court of the United States. Miller v.
Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 899–900 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc).
As discussed below, it is.
    We pause to observe that, unfortunately, confusion has
arisen about whether Miller itself has been overruled in part.
We briefly addressed this topic in Rieman v. Vazquez, No.
22-56054, 2024 WL 927667, at *4 n.1 (9th Cir. March 5,
2024), as amended (April 2, 2024). We take this opportunity
to provide more context.
    In a few cases, we have cited Miller and erroneously
appended an unexplained notation that Miller has been
“overruled on other grounds by Sanchez v. Mayorkas, 593
U.S. 409 (2021).” E.g., Punchbowl, Inc. v. AJ Press, LLC,
90 F.4th 1022, 1031 (9th Cir. 2024); United States v.
Eckford, 77 F.4th 1228, 1233 (9th Cir. 2023), cert. denied,
144 S. Ct. 521 (2023). By contrast, in dozens of our recent
cases, we have used the proper citation formatting for Miller,
with no reference to Sanchez or to Miller’s having been
overruled. E.g., Coria v. Garland, No. 22-970, 2024 WL
1164863, at *2 (9th Cir. Mar. 19, 2024); McBurnie v. RAC
Acceptance E., LLC, No. 22-16868, 2024 WL 1101845, at
*4 (9th Cir. Mar. 14, 2024); Jamgotchian v. Ferraro, 93 F.4th
1150, 1160 (9th Cir. 2024).
    The confusion arises from a red flag placed on Miller by
Westlaw, due to Westlaw’s misreading of our decision in
Hernandez v. Garland, 47 F.4th 908 (9th Cir. 2022), as
amended (Sept. 14, 2022). Hernandez was an immigration
case in which we applied Miller’s test and recognized that
the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Sanchez had
overruled a series of our older cases. Westlaw misread our
decision as having held that Miller itself was overruled.
Westlaw’s shallow reading of Hernandez was perhaps
8                   USA V. MEDINA-LUNA

understandable at first glance because the opinion assumed
that the reader understood Miller, and the citation to it does
not follow immediately after the phrase “effectively
overruled our precedent” in the opening paragraphs:

       [W]e hold that the Supreme Court’s recent
       decision in Sanchez v. Mayorkas, 141 S. Ct.
       1809 (2021), effectively overruled our
       precedent requiring that the benefits
       conferred by an alien’s immigration status be
       analyzed to determine if the alien had been
       “admitted in any status,” see Miller v.
       Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 893 (9th Cir. 2003)
       (en banc), and we conclude that under
       Sanchez and the plain language of the
       relevant immigration statutes, Hernandez’s
       [temporary protected status] does not
       constitute an admission under 8 U.S.C.
       § 1229b(a)(2).

Hernandez, 47 F.4th at 910.
    Westlaw’s reading of this shorthand summary was
clearly wrong. Miller was a § 1983 case that had nothing
whatsoever to do with immigration statutes. As the
remainder of Hernandez makes clear, Sanchez overruled
only a series of our immigration decisions. Hernandez, 47
F.4th at 913–14; see also Rieman, 2024 WL 927667, at *4
n.1 (“The Supreme Court’s decision in Sanchez did not
overrule any aspect of our decision in Miller.”) Nothing in
Sanchez speaks to any aspect of Miller, and no sensible
reading of Hernandez suggests that Miller has been
overruled, in whole or in part or on other grounds. As we
have repeatedly recognized in cases decided after Sanchez,
                         USA V. MEDINA-LUNA                              9

Miller remains good law in all respects. 1 We now proceed
to apply Miller.
         2. United States v. Travis Is No Longer Good Law.
    In United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625 (2002), the
Court held that defects in an indictment do not deprive a
court of jurisdiction, that is, the statutory or constitutional
power to adjudicate a case. Id. at 630–31. The Court
overruled a Fourth Circuit decision holding that the district
court had been “without jurisdiction” to impose a sentence
for an offense not charged in the indictment. Id. at 628–29.
The Supreme Court reasoned that—unlike true defects in
subject-matter jurisdiction—the grand jury right can be
waived pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 7(b).
Id. at 630–31.
    Accordingly, we overrule Travis to the extent that it
characterizes any defect in the waiver of indictment as
jurisdictional. Miller, 335 F.3d at 899–900. In doing so, we

1
  An overly formalistic reading of our circuit rules could suggest that our
cases are internally inconsistent as to the status of Miller: some cases
cite Miller with a notation that it has been overruled in part, and other
cases cite Miller without that notation. And, if we were faced with a true
intracircuit split, we ordinarily would have to call for rehearing en banc.
Atonio v. Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc., 810 F.2d 1477, 1479 (9th Cir.
1987) (en banc). We decline to read our circuit rules in such a draconian
fashion here, where the only “conflict” concerns the formatting of a
citation, akin to a typographical error. If an opinion erroneously cited a
precedent as having been decided in 1998, and other opinions correctly
cited the date of the precedent as 1989, we would not invoke our en banc
authority to resolve the “conflict.” Similarly, here, the clear error in
citation formatting in a few opinions does not present a true conflict that
requires us to call for rehearing en banc. Cf. Blanton v. Anzalone, 813
F.2d 1574, 1577 nn.1–2 (9th Cir. 1987) (describing clerical mistakes by
trial courts that may be corrected pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 60(a) as “blunders in execution”).
10                   USA V. MEDINA-LUNA

join the Fifth Circuit in relying on Cotton to hold that an
error in procuring a knowing and voluntary waiver of
indictment is “nonjurisdictional and [is] therefore waived by
[the defendant’s] subsequent guilty plea.” United States v.
Daughenbaugh, 549 F.3d 1010, 1012–13 (5th Cir. 2008).
“[B]ecause criminal defendants may waive the right to grand
jury indictment, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 7(b), a failure to
actually secure such a waiver does not affect a district court’s
power to hear a case.” Id. at 1012. Defendant’s
unconditional guilty plea, therefore, waived his right to
appeal any defect in the antecedent waiver of indictment.
     B. The Sentence Was Substantively Reasonable.
    We review for abuse of discretion the substantive
reasonableness of a sentence. United States v. Carty, 520
F.3d 984, 993 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc). On appeal,
Defendant does not challenge the accuracy of the district
court’s Guidelines calculation, which yielded a range of 63–
78 months of imprisonment. Rather, he challenges only the
substantive reasonableness of the 41-month sentence in view
of his family circumstances.
    The district court expressly acknowledged and listed the
statutory factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The court took
into account that Defendant’s stated family reason for
coming back to the United States was sincere and also
observed that Defendant had overcome an addiction to
methamphetamine. Those factors persuaded the court that a
downward variance was warranted. And the court imposed
the sentence that Defendant himself had requested. We see
no abuse of discretion.
   APPEAL DISMISSED IN PART and AFFIRMED
IN PART.