United States v. Espinoza-Baza, No. 09-10398 (9th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted on two counts of violating 8 U.S.C. 1326, which prohibited a deported alien from reentering the United States without the consent of the U.S. Attorney General. Defendant appealed from his conviction and from his subsequent sentence of 96 months imprisonment. The court held that the district court acted within its discretion when it excluded defendant's minimally relevant evidence at issue, which presented the potential for jury confusion and which could have resulted in a verdict premised on mere speculation. The court also held that because the trial record contained nothing more than a mere scintilla of evidence of derivative citizenship, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it found the requisite evidentiary foundation lacking and refused to instruct the jury pursuant to that theory. The court further held that the district court did not err by upwardly adjusting defendant's sentence pursuant to a multiple count enhancement and that defendant's sentence was both substantively and procedurally reasonable. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.
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