United States Ninth Circuit

A sentence for illegal reentry following deportation is vacated where: 1) a decision to depart four levels downward was a legal error as it was based on a legally erroneous premise that a prior conviction qualified for a twelve-level enhancement; and 2) a disjunctive guilty plea did not "unequivocally establish" that defendant committed a drug trafficking crime for purposes of a sentence enhancement.

Appellate Information

• Argued 02/16/2006
• Decided 08/01/2006
• Published 08/01/2006

Judges

• Before J. CLIFFORD WALLACE, MICHAEL DALY HAWKINS, and SIDNEY R. THOMAS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Donald W. Searles, Fenwick & West LLP, San Francisco, CA, for defendant-appellant Julio Almazan-Becerra., Barbara J. Valliere, Assistant United States Attorney, San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiff-appellee.