Court Opinion

ID: 9480085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:37:46.871269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:28.602285
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM A. NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
with whom GOODWIN, Chief Judge, joins, concurring:
I concur in the judgment remanding Fernandez’s claim that he received multiple punishments for engaging in a single transaction to the panel for further consideration in light of United States v. Palafox, 764 F.2d 558 (1985). I write separately only because the en banc opinion offers no explanation for our remand to the original panel, which has already considered the Palafox issue at length. United States v. Fernandez-Angulo, 863 F.2d 1449, 1451-55 (9th Cir.1988). If I were a member of that panel, I would be puzzled as to why the en banc panel found the treatment of the Palafox issue deficient. The opinion simply offers no explanation.
I offer as an explanation the fact that the panel relied on the “difference of several hours between the distribution of the sample and the consummation of the underlying transaction” in determining that the drug transaction, which involved the same people and place, could be separated into two transactions. Id. at 1452-53. The panel assumed that appellant left the scene of the transaction for three hours. Id. at *15181451. However, the evidentiary record fails to show how far the appellant went or how long he was gone. Thus it appears that the panel mistakenly based its Palafox analysis on a fact that finds no support in the record.