United States Ninth Circuit

In a prosecution of a property owner stemming from his renting houses he owned near the United States-Mexico border to an alien smuggling organization knowing that they would be used as load houses to conceal and later transfer recently arrived aliens, the convictions are affirmed, where: 1) the strong circumstantial evidence presented at trial sufficed for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that non-testifying material witnesses were illegal aliens; 2) a reasonable jury could find sufficient specific evidence linking the defendant to intentionally aiding the cross-border transportation of the named material witnesses before they were dropped off in the United States.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/01/2012
• Published 02/01/2012

Judges

• Tallman

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Knut S. Johnson, Paul L. Starita