USA V. JOHNNY MAGDALENO, No. 20-10390 (9th Cir. 2022)
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Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to 360 months in prison. At sentencing, the district court imposed a special condition of supervised release set forth in the parties’ plea agreement that prohibited Defendant from associating with any member of the Norteño or Nuestra Familia gangs. On appeal, Defendant argues that this condition violates his fundamental right to familial association because it does not exclude his siblings who might be gang members.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s imposition of the special condition. The court The declined the Government’s invitation to dismiss Defendant’s appeal based on the invited error doctrine. The panel wrote that the record does not suggest that Defendant either caused the alleged error intentionally or abandoned a known right. The court therefore treated the right as forfeited, as opposed to waived, and reviewed the district court’s decision to impose the gang condition for plain error.
The court wrote that Defendant’s relationship with a sibling or half sibling does not inherently constitute an “intimate relationship” with a “life partner,” child, or fiancée, and thus does not give rise to a “particularly significant liberty interest” that would require the district court to undertake additional procedural steps at sentencing.
The court rejected Defendant’s contention that the condition is substantively unreasonable. The panel explained that given Defendant’s history of coordinating and executing violent gang attacks, a prohibition on gang association does not constitute an unreasonable deprivation of liberty.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed the district court’s imposition of a special condition of supervised release set forth in the parties’ plea agreement that prohibits Johnny Magdaleno, a high-ranking member of the East Las Casitas Norteño street gang, from associating with any member of the Norteño or Nuestra Familia gangs, in a case in which Magdaleno, while incarcerated, orchestrated and directly participated in violent assaults against gang members who had violated the rules of Nuestra Familia, a prison gang to which Norteño members pledge loyalty. On appeal, Magdaleno argued that this condition violates his fundamental right to familial association because it does not exclude his siblings who might be gang members. The panel declined the Government’s invitation to dismiss Magdaleno’s appeal based on the invited error doctrine. The panel wrote that the record does not suggest that Magdaleno either caused the alleged error intentionally or abandoned a known right. The panel therefore treated the right as forfeited, as opposed to waived, and reviewed the district court’s decision to impose the gang condition for plain error. Magdaleno argued that the district court plainly erred by failing to comply with the enhanced procedural requirements that apply when a court imposes restrictions on a defendant’s UNITED STATES V. MAGDALENO 3 familial associations. The panel wrote that Magdaleno’s relationship with a sibling or half sibling does not inherently constitute an “intimate relationship” with a “life partner,” child, or fiancée, and thus does not give rise to a “particularly significant liberty interest” that would require the district court to undertake additional procedural steps at sentencing. The panel rejected Magdaleno’s contention that the condition is substantively unreasonable. The panel explained that given Magdaleno’s history of coordinating and executing violent gang attacks, a prohibition on gang association does not constitute an unreasonable deprivation of liberty.
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