Court Opinion

ID: 9814666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 00:00:58.827618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:42:15.397275
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       AUG 31 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                       No.    21-10372

                Plaintiff-Appellee,             D.C. No.
                                                3:19-cr-00060-MMD-WGC-1
 v.

STEVEN BRYAN,                                   MEMORANDUM*

                Defendant-Appellant.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                            for the District of Nevada
                  Miranda M. Du, Chief District Judge, Presiding

                       Argued and Submitted July 18, 2023
                           San Francisco, California

Before: WARDLAW and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and RAYES,** District
Judge.

      Steven Bryan appeals his voluntary manslaughter conviction and sentence.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm. Because the parties are

familiar with the facts, we do not recount them here, except as necessary to provide

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The Honorable Douglas L. Rayes, United States District Judge for the
District of Arizona, sitting by designation.
context to our ruling.

      1. The district court did not abuse its discretion or violate Bryan’s Sixth

Amendment rights by precluding Bryan from impeaching L.M. with her arrest for

driving under the influence (DUI). See United States v. Evans, 728 F.3d 953, 959

(9th Cir. 2013) (reviewing exclusion of evidence for abuse of discretion and

whether a constitutional violation occurred de novo). Bryan sought to introduce

this evidence to suggest L.M. might have been incentivized to offer testimony

favorable to the Government’s case in exchange for assistance securing leniency

from Nevadan prosecuting authorities. Though the Sixth Amendment guarantees

criminal defendants the right to impeach witnesses by revealing possible biases,

see Gibbs v. Covello, 996 F.3d 596, 601 (9th Cir. 2021), trial judges may impose

reasonable limits on such cross-examination to, among other things, avoid wasting

time and confusing the jury with irrelevant or negligibly probative testimony, see

Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 679 (1986). To determine whether a

limitation on cross-examination violated a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights,

we first assess whether the excluded evidence is relevant and, if it is, we ask

whether other legitimate interests outweighed the defendant’s interest in presenting

the evidence and whether the exclusion of the evidence left the jury with sufficient

information upon which to assess the witness’ credibility. United States v. James,

139 F.3d 709, 713 (9th Cir. 1998).

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      Bryan’s argument fails at the first step because L.M.’s DUI arrest was not

relevant or probative of potential bias, given there is no evidence the Government

promised L.M. anything in exchange for her testimony, and L.M. provided her

account to the FBI over a year before her arrest. A jury could not reasonably

suspect bias based on L.M.’s unrelated DUI arrest by a non-federal prosecuting

authority that occurred over a year after she told her story to investigators. See

United States v. Beardslee, 197 F.3d 378, 383 n.1 (9th Cir. 1999) (affirming the

district court’s refusal to permit cross-examination into a witness’ probationary

status where there was no evidence suggesting the witness’ probationary status

rendered him particularly subject to undue pressure from the government).

      2. Assuming, arguendo, that the district court erred by admitting a

Facebook message Bryan sent to his daughter asking if she thought he was capable

of extreme violence, the error was harmless because “it is more probable than not

that the error did not materially affect the verdict.” United States v. Waters, 627

F.3d 345, 358 (9th Cir. 2010). The Facebook message came up three times during

trial: once during Bryan’s cross-examination, once during his re-direct, and once

during the Government’s closing argument. Though the Government used the

Facebook message as a rhetorical device during its closing argument, it did not

make the Facebook message a centerpiece of its case, and ample evidence supports

the jury’s verdict.

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      3. The district court did not abuse its discretion by overruling Bryan’s

objection that the Government had misstated evidence during its closing argument.

“[T]he prosecution is allowed to argue reasonable inferences based on the

evidence,” United States. v. Sayetsitty, 107 F.3d 1405, 1409 (9th Cir. 1997), as the

Government did here. The Government accurately summarized the firearms

expert’s testimony that, pulling the trigger at his fastest speed, he could fire an AR-

15 21 times in four seconds. The Government then argued the jury could infer

someone who is not a firearms expert could do so in under ten seconds. This

inference is reasonable, especially considering Bryan fired the shots around

3:00am after consuming five alcoholic drinks. The district court did not err by

permitting the Government to argue reasonable inferences from this evidence.

      4. The district court’s self-defense instruction was not plainly erroneous.

See United States v. Nobari, 574 F.3d 1065, 1080 (9th Cir. 2009) (reviewing jury

instructions for plain error absent a timely objection below). The district court

instructed the jury on self-defense and gave a general unanimity instruction.

Ordinarily, a general unanimity instruction suffices. United States v. Kim, 196

F.3d 1079, 1082 (9th Cir. 1999). A specific unanimity instruction is necessary

only when “there is a genuine possibility of jury confusion or that a conviction

may occur as the result of different jurors concluding that the defendant committed

different acts.” United States v. Chen Chiang Liu, 631 F.3d 993, 1000 (9th Cir.

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2011). Nothing in the record suggests such confusion. The one-count indictment

was based on a single event and was not broad, ambiguous, or factually complex.

Further, the jury was given clear self-defense and general unanimity instructions,

and when polled after the verdict, each juror affirmed the verdict was his or her

true verdict.

      5. The district court’s lesser-included offense instructions were not plainly

erroneous. First- and second-degree murder both require malice aforethought; they

differ in that first-degree murder requires the killing be “willful, deliberate,

malicious, and premeditated,” or committed while perpetrating certain felony

offenses. 18 U.S.C. § 1111(a). An unpremeditated killing with malice

aforethought is second-degree murder. Id.; see United States v. Pineda-Doval, 614

F.3d 1019, 1037 (9th Cir. 2010). “To kill with malice aforethought means to kill

either deliberately or recklessly with extreme disregard for human life.” United

States v. Begay, 33 F.4th 1081, 1093 (9th Cir. 2022) (emphasis removed). The

district court’s first- and second-degree murder instructions correctly describe the

mens rea for both offenses.

      “If the defendant killed with the mental state required for murder (intent to

kill or recklessness with extreme disregard for human life), but the killing occurred

in the ‘heat of passion’ caused by adequate provocation, then the defendant is

guilty of voluntary manslaughter.” United States v. Paul, 37 F.3d 496, 499 (9th

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Cir. 1994). This is so “because a heat of passion and adequate provocation finding

‘negates the malice that would otherwise attach[.]’” Begay, 33 F.4th at 1088

(quoting Paul, 37 F.3d at 499). The district court’s voluntary manslaughter

instruction reflected these principles by describing a mens rea consistent with

second-degree murder, except that the killing took place during a sudden quarrel or

in heat of passion caused by adequate provocation.

      Finally, the difference between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter is

the manner in which malice is negated. “[T]he absence of malice in involuntary

manslaughter arises not because of provocation induced passion, but rather because

the offender’s mental state is not sufficiently culpable to meet the traditional

malice requirements.” Paul, 37 F.3d at 499 (quoting United States v. Browner,

889 F.2d 549, 553 (5th Cir. 1989)). “Thus, involuntary manslaughter is an

unintentional killing that ‘evinces a wanton or reckless disregard for human life but

not of the extreme nature that will support a finding of malice.’” Id. (quoting

United States. v. Lesina, 833 F.2d 156, 159 (9th Cir. 1987)). The district court

correctly instructed that involuntary manslaughter is an unlawful killing occurring

without malice aforethought or intent to kill because it results from “gross

negligence, defined as wanton or reckless disregard for human life.”

      6. Because Bryan has identified, at most, a single harmless evidentiary error

(the admission of the Facebook message), his argument that multiple trial errors

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cumulated to deprive him of due process, see United States v. Preston, 873 F.3d

829, 835 (9th Cir. 2017), necessarily fails.

      7. Sufficient evidence supports Bryan’s voluntary manslaughter conviction.

See United States v. Stewart, 420 F.3d 1007, 1014 (9th Cir. 2005) (reviewing de

novo the denial of a motion for acquittal based on insufficient evidence). “The

evidence is sufficient to support a conviction if, viewing the evidence in the light

most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the

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

Mincoff, 574 F.3d 1186, 1192 (9th Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Dearing,

504 F.3d 897, 900 (9th Cir. 2007)). Bryan argues no rational juror could have

found the Government met its burden to rebut self-defense beyond a reasonable

doubt. But Bryan’s self-defense claim was, at minimum, contradicted by L.M.’s

eyewitness testimony that, after two heated arguments with Kyle about money,

Bryan yelled “You’re dead,” returned to Kyle’s bedroom carrying an assault rifle,

and fatally shot him. Though Bryan contends L.M.’s testimony was unreliable,

witness credibility “is generally beyond the scope of review” in a sufficiency-of-

the-evidence challenge. Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 330 (1995).

      8. The district court did not abuse its discretion at sentencing by refusing to

vary downward based on Bryan’s policy disagreements with the Sentencing

Guidelines. See United States v. Kimbrew, 406 F.3d 1149, 1151 (9th Cir. 2011)

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(application of the Sentencing Guidelines is reviewed for an abuse of discretion).

Bryan argues the district court abused its discretion by failing to appreciate it had

discretion to vary from the Sentencing Guidelines under Kimbrough v. United

States, 552 U.S. 85 (2007). We disagree. The district court read and considered

the parties’ sentencing memoranda, in which Bryan made his policy arguments,

and it clearly understood it had discretion to vary from the Sentencing Guidelines

because it expressly found mitigating factors supported a sentence on the low end

of the guidelines range “but they do not warrant a variance.” The district court

adequately explained its reasons for the sentence, and nothing in the record shows

the district court failed to appreciate it had discretion to vary from the Sentencing

Guidelines if it deemed such variance appropriate. See United States v. Ayala-

Nicanor, 659 F.3d 744, 752 (9th Cir. 2011) (finding no sentencing error where the

record demonstrated the district court recognized its discretion to vary from the

Sentencing Guidelines).

      AFFIRMED.

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