United States v. Rodriguez-Gamboa, No. 19-50014 (9th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this Case
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order allowing defendant to withdraw her guilty plea to illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. 1326, vacated the dismissal of the information, and remanded for the district court to resolve the factual issue of whether geometric isomers of methamphetamine exist.
In Lorenzo v. Sessions, 902 F.3d 930 (9th Cir. 2018)(Lorenzo I), the panel held that the definition of methamphetamine applicable to convictions under 8 U.S.C. 11378 is broader than the definition of methamphetamine under the federal Controlled Substances Act. In this case, the panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing defendant to withdraw her guilty plea after Lorenzo I, because that decision effectively invalidated defendant's underlying removal. Lorenzo I was subsequently withdrawn and replaced with a non-precedential memorandum disposition, Lorenzo v. Whitaker, 752 F. App'x 482 (9th Cir. 2019) (Lorenzo II). Lorenzo II stated that the government is not foreclosed from raising in other cases the argument that any difference between California and federal law about the definition of methamphetamine is illusory.
The government contended that both California law and federal law prohibit the possession for sale of methamphetamine and its isomers, and thus they are identical. The panel declined the government's invitation to rewrite California law and noted that the government's argument required the panel to look beyond the statutory language to matters of organic chemistry. Rather, the panel reasoned that resolution of the factual issue of whether geometric isomers of methamphetamine exist has the potential to inform its disposition in this appeal and future cases.
Court Description: Immigration. The panel affirmed the district court’s order permitting the defendant to withdraw her guilty plea to illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326, vacated the district court’s dismissal of the indictment, and remanded to the district court for the limited purpose of resolving the factual issue of whether geometric isomers of methamphetamine exist. The removal that served as the predicate for the defendant’s § 1326 conviction was based on her prior conviction for possession of methamphetamine for sale in violation of California Health and Safety Code § 11378. Shortly after the defendant pleaded guilty to the § 1326 information, this court held in Lorenzo v. Sessions, 902 F.3d 930 (9th Cir. 2018) (Lorenzo I), that the definition of methamphetamine applicable to convictions under § 11378 is broader than the definition of methamphetamine under the federal Controlled Substances Act. The district court granted the defendant’s motion to withdraw her guilty plea and to dismiss the information in light of Lorenzo I. The panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the defendant to withdraw her guilty plea following Lorenzo I because that decision effectively invalidated her underlying removal. UNITED STATES V. RODRIGUEZ-GAMBOA 3 Following the defendant’s withdrawal of her guilty plea and the dismissal of the information, this court withdrew the opinion in Lorenzo I and replaced it with a non-precedential memorandum disposition, Lorenzo v. Whitaker, 752 F. App’x 482 (9th Cir. 2019) (Lorenzo II). Lorenzo II expressly stated that the government is not foreclosed from raising in other cases the argument that any difference between California and federal law about the definition of methamphetamine is illusory. The government argues that because both California and federal law prohibit possession for sale of methamphetamine and “its” isomers, they are identical, because the California statute is limited to those isomers of methamphetamine that actually exist and geometric isomers of methamphetamine do not. The panel declined the government’s invitation to rewrite California law, whose statutory scheme strongly suggests that the California legislature deliberately distinguished between the various isomers of controlled substances and expressly noted when its definitions were conditioned on the existence of a particular isomer. But because whether geometric isomers of methamphetamine exist is a factual issue that has the potential to inform the panel’s disposition of this appeal and future cases, and because the district court has never made a finding as to that factual issue, the panel remanded to the district court for the limited purpose of resolving that evidentiary issue in the first instance. The panel wrote that it will retain jurisdiction over the appeal and address its merits after the district court reports its factual findings. 4 UNITED STATES V. RODRIGUEZ-GAMBOA
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on August 27, 2020.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.