United States v. Gonzalez, No. 15-50483 (9th Cir. 2018)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed Defendant Gonzalez, Luviano, and Ayala's convictions and sentences for conspiracy to deprive a visitor to the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail of his civil rights in violation of 18 U.S.C. 241; violating his civil rights in violation of 18 U.S.C. 242; and falsifying reports to obstruct an investigation in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1519. Gonzalez was a sergeant with the LA County Sheriff's Department and the other two defendants were deputies under his supervision. A jury found defendants guilty of violating the visitor's civil rights and falsifying reports to conceal the wrongdoing.
The panel held that there was sufficient evidence to convict Gonzalez and Ayala of conspiracy under section 241 and for the substantive offense of willfully depriving the visitor of his right to be free from the use of excessive force; the evidence was sufficient to convict Ayala and Luviano for falsifying reports under section 1519; defendants' challenge to the district court's denial of their request to dismiss a juror was rejected; there was no plain error in the jury instructions; the government did not commit misconduct during closing argument; and Ayala's challenge to her sentence was rejected.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed convictions and sentences for conspiracy to deprive a visitor to the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail of his civil rights (18 U.S.C. § 241), violating his civil rights (18 U.S.C. § 242), and falsifying reports to obstruct an investigation (18 U.S.C. § 1519), arising from the brutal beating by a group of law enforcement officers of Gabriel Carrillo while he was handcuffed. * The Honorable John M. Rogers, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. UNITED STATES V. GONZALEZ 3 The panel rejected Sergeant Eric Gonzalez’s and Deputy Sussie Ayala’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting their conspiracy convictions under § 241. The panel affirmed those convictions regardless of whether there was sufficient evidence to support the first object of the charged conspiracy (deprivation of Carrillo’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from the use of excessive force), since it is undisputed that sufficient evidence exists to support the second object (deprivation of Carrillo’s due process right not to be prosecuted on the basis of falsified evidence). The panel also rejected Gonzalez’s and Ayala’s sufficiency-of- the-evidence challenge to their convictions for the substantive offense of willfully depriving Carrillo of his right to be free from the use of excessive force, which were predicated on Pinkerton liability. The panel rejected Ayala’s and Deputy Fernando Luviano’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support their § 1519 convictions. The panel held that viewed in the light most favorable to the government, the evidence introduced at trial amply supported the convictions. The panel rejected the argument that § 1519 applies only to financial records or documents, not to reports prepared by law enforcement officers. The panel held that § 1519 prohibits not just the alteration of existing documents, but also the creation of false documents. The panel rejected Luviano’s and Ayala’s argument that the government failed to prove that they acted with the requisite intent. Rejecting all three defendants’ challenge to the district court’s denial of their request to dismiss a juror shortly after the trial began, the panel held that the record does not warrant a finding of either implied or actual bias. 4 UNITED STATES V. GONZALEZ The panel held that the district court did not commit plain error by failing to include a proximate-cause requirement in its instruction on a provision of § 242 that increases the maximum term of imprisonment “if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section.” The panel held that the government did not commit misconduct during closing argument by inviting the jury to credit as true something that Gonzalez’s own lawyer asserted was true. The panel rejected Ayala’s contention that her sentence is substantively unreasonable.
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