Court Opinion

ID: 9499659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:53:56.909631+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:38.510985
License: Public Domain

CALLAHAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I question whether the government agents violated 18 U.S.C. § 5033 of the Juvenile Delinquency Act (“JDA”) in their processing of C.M. in as many ways as the majority states, but I agree with the majority’s implicit determination that the alleged violations did not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. See United States v. D.L., 453 F.3d 1115, 1125 (9th Cir.2006). I disagree, however, with the majority’s determination that the alleged *506violations, were prejudicial and with its directions that the juvenile information must be dismissed. I read our precedent as requiring not only a determination of whether the violations contributed to the juvenile’s statements, but also whether the improperly procured statements were harmless. Here, the improperly procured statements were harmless, but even if this conclusion were in doubt, our precedents direct that the proper remedy is a remand. D.L., 453 F.3d at 1126-27; United States v. RRA-A, 229 F.3d 737, 747 (9th Cir.2000); United States v. Doe (Doe II), 862 F.2d 776, 781 (9th Cir.1988).
I '
Accepting that the record supports a determination that the Government’s violations of the JDA were a cause of C.M.’s statements, the remaining issue is whether the procurement of the confession, which was not admitted or referred to at C.M.’s trial, was harmless or prejudicial. The majority concludes that it was prejudicial because C.M.’s statements that he was aware that the occupants of the vehicle were illegal immigrants and that he was driving the vehicle in order to reduce the fee he would have to pay for being smuggled into the United States were set forth in the declaration of the agent supporting the juvenile information. The majority, however, fails to give any weight to the other evidence that supported the initiation of proceedings.
This evidence included that C.M. drove up to a border patrol check point at 4:25 a.m. Although C.M. initially stopped at the check point, he then rapidly accelerated away from the check point, without authority to leave. The agent activated a controlled tire deflation device, and the vehicle, with two flattened tires, came to a stop one-half mile from the check point. The driver of the vehicle was identified as wearing something orange and when C.M. was discovered hiding in some nearby brush after abandoning the vehicle, he was wearing a shirt with orange sleeves. C.M. had on his person the keyless remote entry for the abandoned vehicle. In addition, three passengers that the border agent had spotted crouched in the back of the vehicle were also discovered hiding nearby and they testified that they were attempting to enter the United States illegally. When C.M.’s fingerprints were taken, he was identified as having failed to yield at a border check point four months earlier. Thus, the Government had sufficient evidence on which to initiate juvenile proceedings without the mention of C.M.’s confession.
The majority cites Doe II as supporting its conclusion that “the government’s reliance on the fruits of its misconduct to initiate proceedings against C.M. was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” but the facts in Doe II were very different. There, although the Government did not use Doe’s statements in its case-in-chief, the statements were introduced through defense cross-examination of a Government agent. 862 F.2d at 778. This use of the statements is the predicate on which the court determined that the statutory violations “must be said to have prejudiced Doe.”1 Id. at 781. Indeed, the fact that the statements were used at trial was criti*507cal to the disposition of the case as the panel split three ways on the appropriate remedy. Judge Tang thought the violations were so egregious that the panel should direct the dismissal of the charges. Id. at 782. Judge Farris, the author of the opinion, remanded the matter to the district court to determine whether the violations of the JDA “prejudiced Doe’s defense.” Id. at 781. Judge Wallace was of the opinion that the record demonstrated that Doe suffered no prejudice.2 Id. at 782. As the use of the juvenile’s statement at trial in Doe II did not mandate the dismissal of the juvenile information, it follows that in this case the use of the statement in a preliminary statement by an agent, but not at trial, should not mandate the dismissal of the juvenile information.3
The majority attempts to bolster its determination of prejudice by arguing that the Government’s failure to follow the JDA erodes “the comprehensive system of juvenile justice that Congress has established through the federal juvenile laws.” This concern, however, must be balanced with the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Morrison, 449 U.S. 361, 101 S.Ct. 665, 66 L.Ed.2d 564 (1981). Judge Alarcon explained in his concurring and dissenting opinion in D.L.:
In Morrison, the Court held that when the Government has improperly obtained incriminating information from an accused “the remedy characteristically imposed is not to dismiss the indictment but to suppress the evidence or to order a new trial if the evidence has been wrongfully admitted and the defendant convicted.” Id. Here, the District Court dutifully complied with Morrison by excluding Jose’s statements. The Supreme Court instructed in Morrison that where evidence has been obtained in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments, “[t]he remedy in the criminal proceeding is limited to denying the fruits of the transgression.” Id. at 366[, 101 S.Ct. 665], The Court also stated:
Our numerous precedents ordering the exclusion of such illegally obtained evidence assume implicitly that the remedy does not extend to barring the prosecution altogether. So drastic a step might advance marginally some of the ends served by exclusionary rules, but it would also increase to an intolerable degree interference with the public interest in having the guilty brought to book.
*508Id. at 366 n. 3[, 101 S.Ct. 665] (quoting United States v. Blue, 384 U.S. 251, 255, 86 S.Ct. 1416, 16 L.Ed.2d 510 (1966)).
453 F.3d at 1133. The majority’s focus on the alleged egregiousness of the agents’ failures to comply with the provisions of the JDA, majority opinion at page 504, does not justify its failure to adhere to the Supreme Court’s admonition in Morrison.
My review of the record indicates that the district court correctly determined that on balance, the violations did not require the dismissal of the juvenile information when it stated:
Obviously, the prejudice would stem principally from the use of any such confession, but that is absent here since there is no evidence being received of his confession. And there is not any other prejudice or constitutional violation arising simply from the other conduct attributed to the border patrol agents; that is the consulate issue and the delay in mirandizing Mr. M.
This ruling does not reward the Government for failing to abide by the JDA. Rather, as the Government recognized, the misconduct deprived it of the use of C.M.’s statements at trial. Where, however, the Government proves its case at trial beyond a reasonable doubt without the use of, or reference to, the juvenile’s statement, justice does not require that the guilty defendant be absolved just because he is a juvenile.
II
Even if there was some question as to whether the violations of the JDA were prejudicial, the appropriate remedy is a remand, not an order vacating the adjudication of delinquency and dismissing the juvenile information. In D.L. we stated that “where the record does not satisfy us, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a violation of the JDA was harmless, a remand to the district court is appropriate.” 453 F.3d at 1126 (emphasis omitted). In RRA-A, even though we found that RRA’s confession “was the primary basis of evidence on which she was convicted,” and should have been suppressed, we reversed and remanded, but did not direct the dismissal of the juvenile information. 229 F.3d at 747. Similarly, in Doe TV we determined that the improperly obtained statements used against Doe “were highly prejudicial and should have been suppressed,” but we did not direct the dismissal of the juvenile information, but reversed and remanded “for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.” 219 F.3d at 1018. Also in Doe II, when the statements were introduced through cross-examination, we nonetheless remanded “for the district court to make all findings relevant to a determination of whether the government’s violations of the notice and speedy arraignment provisions of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act prejudiced Doe’s defense.” 862 F.2d at 781.4
Based on these precedents — where the use of statements procured in violation of the JDA were clearly more adverse to the defendants than the statement in this case was to C.M. — the proper remedy is a remand, not the vacation of the juvenile information. Moreover, the district court on the remand should focus, as we held in Doe II, on whether the violations prejudiced C.M.’s defense.
For the foregoing reasons I dissent. I would affirm C.M.’s conviction because the violations of the JDA did not prejudice *509C.M.’s defense to the juvenile information. Moreover, even if I had some question as to whether the violations were harmless, our precedent instructs that the appropriate remedy is a remand for the district court to consider the appropriate remedy, not a direction to vacate the adjudication of delinquency and dismiss the juvenile information.

. The opinion states: "[i]f the prosecution resulted from the confession and the confession came in part as a result of Doe's isolation from family, friends, representatives of his country or an attorney, then the statutory violations must be said to have prejudiced Doe.” 862 F.2d at 781. Although not clear of ambiguity, I do not read this sentence as holding that the procurement of a statement from a juvenile in violation of the JDA necessarily means that a subsequent conviction must be vacated where, as here, the statement is not admitted or referred to at the trial.

. Judge Wallace's reasoning is particularly relevant to this case. He explained that the court was faced
with the effect of a nonconstitutional statutory violation on the decision to charge and prosecute. We must therefore consider whether Doe's post-arrest statements substantially influenced the decision to charge and prosecute Doe, or whether we have grave doubts that this decision was free from the substantial influence of Doe’s statements. Neither of these tests is met in this case. The government expressly stipulated that it would not use these statements at trial. It would not have pursued Doe's prosecution without believing that there was a good chance of obtaining a conviction without that evidence. Doe's post-arrest statements, therefore, could not have substantially influenced the decision to charge and prosecute. For the same reasons, I have no grave doubts that the decision to charge and prosecute Doe was free from the substantial influence of the government’s statutory violations.
862 F.2d at 783.

. The other cases relied upon by the majority similarly concern the use at trial of statements procured in violation of the JDA. In United States v. Doe (Doe IV), 219 F.3d 1009, 1013 (9th Cir.2000), the juvenile's statements were used at trial. In RRA-A, the court determined that "RRA's confession was the primary basis of evidence on which she was convicted.” 229 F.3d at 747.

. I recognize that there is language in Doe II that is repeated in RRA-A that "we have the discretion to reverse or to order more limited remedies.” Doe II, 862 F.2d at 780; RRA-A, 229 F.3d at 747. I do not question this statement of the breadth of our options, but read the specific remedies ordered in those cases as guiding what we should do in this case.