Monday, July 29, 2019

7/29/19: Supervised release decision - "frequent" means more than once

In United States v. Ochoa, --- F.3d ---, No. 18-10383 (9th Cir. 2019), the Court reversed in part and affirmed in part the district court’s finding that the defendant violated his supervised release.

The special condition at issue prohibited him from frequenting a place whose primary purpose is to provide access to material depicting and/or describing sexually explicit conduct.

The Court reversed the district court’s finding that the defendant violated the condition by visiting an adult-themed business once.  Looking to the dictionary definition, it said "frequent" must be more than once.

Otherwise, the Court rejected the defendant's claim that the condition was unconstitutionally over-broad and vague.  It held the condition was not meaningfully distinguishable from the one it approved in United States v. Gnirke, 775 F.3d 1155, 1166 (9th Cir. 2015).