Court Opinion

ID: 9564428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:00:26.14721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:24.270178
License: Public Domain

GRABER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and specially concurring in part:
I concur in most of the majority opinion and concur in the judgment. But I respectfully disagree with the majority’s description of our holding in United States v. Hernandez, 105 F.3d 1330 (9th Cir.1997). There, we held that mode-of-entry evidence was insufficient to corroborate a defendant’s admission that he was an alien. Id. at 1333. We are bound by the holdings of Hernandez. See generally Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889 (9th Cir.2003) (en banc). We recognize an exception to that *952rule when a holding is “made casually and without analysis, ... uttered in passing without due consideration of the alternatives, or where it is merely a prelude to another legal issue that commands the panel’s full attention.” V.S. ex rel. A.O. v. Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High Sch. Dist, 484 F.3d 1230, 1232 n. 1 (9th Cir.2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). That exception does not apply here: The Hernandez panel expressly considered whether mode-of-entry evidence was sufficient, held that it was not, and explained its reasoning. 105 F.3d at 1333.
I nevertheless reach the same conclusion as the majority, because I read the Hernandez holding as encompassing only mode-of-entry evidence admitted by the defendant. In Hernandez, the only evidence presented concerning the defendant’s mode of entry was the defendant’s own admission. See id. at 1331 (noting that “Hernandez told [the government agent] that he had entered the United States by scaling the border fence with Mexico”). In other words, in Hernandez the mode-of-entry evidence was not independent corroboration; instead, it was just part of the defendant’s admission. Here, by contrast, the government introduced testimony from two witnesses, one who saw Defendant scale the fences and another who found Defendant hiding in the bushes with torn clothes and bloody hands. That distinction is significant because the purposes of the corroboration rule are to avoid prosecutions based on insufficient investigation and to avoid creating incentives for abusive tactics in eliciting admissions. See Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 488-89, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964).