United States v. Halamek, No. 19-10366 (9th Cir. 2021)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2423(a) (Count 1) and traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2423(b) (Count 2). The panel rejected defendant's evidentiary claims as meritless.
The panel affirmed the sentence on Count 1, vacated the sentence on Count 2, and remanded for resentencing. The panel concluded that the district court properly applied the custodial enhancement. However, the Government concedes that the case should be remanded for resentencing on Count 2 because the sentence exceeded the statutory maximum.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed a conviction for transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) (Count 1) and traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b) (Count 2), affirmed the sentence on Count 1, vacated the sentence on Count 2, and remanded for resentencing. The panel held that the district court did not plainly err by admitting pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 702 an FBI child forensic interviewer’s relevant and reliable expert testimony on the topic of grooming for sexual abuse. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 414 testimony about the defendant’s prior acts of child molestation. The panel held that the district court did not plainly err by applying a two-level sentence enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B) for committing the offense against a minor who was in the defendant’s “custody, care, or supervisory control.” Because, as the Government conceded, the 35-year sentence on Count 2 (which was concurrent to the 35-year sentence on Count 1) exceeded the 30-year statutory maximum for Count 2, the panel remanded for resentencing on that Count. The parties agreed that the district court should not have assigned criminal history UNITED STATES V. HALAMEK 3 points for the defendant’s prior Arizona conviction for custodial interference, which yielded a criminal history score of III rather than II. But applying plain-error analysis, the panel concluded that the defendant did not show that the error was prejudicial, because his Guidelines range would have been the same had the district court applied the correct criminal history score
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