United States Ninth Circuit

Conviction for assault resulting in serious bodily injury on an Indian reservation is vacated and remanded, where the district court: 1) abused its discretion when it admitted an unauthenticated Certificate of Indian Blood issued by the Colorado River Indian Tribes as evidence that the defendant has tribal or federal government recognition as an Indian and the error was not harmless; but 2) did not deny the defendant his right to present a defense by denying his motion in limine to exclude references to polygraph evidence; and 3) did not commit plain error by applying a sentence enhancement for infliction of a permanent or life threatening bodily injury.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/14/2013
• Published 03/14/2013

Judges

• RAWLINSON

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel