United States v. Sergio Rodriguez-Mepfords

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION MAY 16 2011
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 10-50263
Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 3:07-cr-02089-WQH-1
v.
MEMORANDUM *
SERGIO RODRIGUEZ-MEPFORDS
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of California
William Q. Hayes, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted March 11, 2011
Pasadena, California
Before: B. FLETCHER, WARDLAW, and KAVANAUGH,** Circuit Judges.
At his supervised-release hearing, Sergio Rodriguez-Mepfords admitted that
he had violated two conditions of his supervised release – a prohibition on illegally
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Brett M. Kavanaugh, Circuit Judge for the District of
Columbia Circuit, sitting by designation.
reentering the United States after being deported and a prohibition on committing a
crime in the United States. The government had apparently told Rodriguez-
Mepfords before the hearing that it would recommend a six-month sentence for
those violations.
The district court accepted Rodriguez-Mepfords’s admissions without
warning him that the maximum possible sentence for revocation of his supervised
release was two years. After accepting the admissions and then hearing the
government’s sentencing recommendation of six months’ imprisonment, the
district court indicated that it would likely impose a sentence longer than the six
months recommended by the government. Rodriguez-Mepfords then attempted to
withdraw his admissions of violations.
The district court denied Rodriguez-Mepfords’s motion to withdraw his
admissions, revoked his supervised release, and sentenced him to 12 months in
prison.
When the district court denied the withdrawal motion, it did not state the
legal standard it was applying. When a district court fails to state the legal
standard it is applying, “we must conclude it abused its discretion.” United States
v. Hinkson, 585 F.3d 1247, 1262 (9th Cir. 2009).
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We therefore must vacate and remand the district court’s decision revoking
Rodriguez-Mepfords’s supervised release. On remand, the district court should
state and apply the “fair and just reason” standard, cf. Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(d), the
legal standard which both Rodriguez-Mepfords and the government agree is proper
in this context.
VACATED AND REMANDED.
3