In United States v. Warren, --- F.4th ---, No. 20-10213 (9th Cir. 2021), the Court held that a judgment and commitment order was proper.
"In a one-count superseding information, the government charged Defendant Jeremy Warren with 'VIOLATION: 18 U.S.C. § 1594(C) - CONSPIRACY TO ENGAGE IN SEX TRAFFICKING OF A CHILD IN VIOLATION OF 18 U.S.C. § 1591(A)(1), (B)(2).'"
Warren argued the judgment and commitment order must be amended to remove references to the underlying substantive offense, 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1) and (b)(2).
The Court disagreed. "It is axiomatic that, to be found guilty of a federal conspiracy, one must agree with at least one other person to commit a substantive federal offense. Thus, although the judgment is not required to pinpoint the statute defining the substantive offense that is the object of the conspiracy, neither is it error for the judgment to include such a reference."
Final note, obviously, the Jeremy Warren from this case is not my law partner. I promised him I would say this.
Next, in United States v. Halamek, --- F.4th ---, No. 19-10366 (9th Cir. 2021), the Court affirmed a conviction for transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) (Count 1) and traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b) (Count 2), affirmed the sentence on Count 1, vacated the sentence on Count 2, and remanded for resentencing.
The Court ruled that admission of expert testimony on "grooming" was proper: "Our circuit appears not to have addressed the probative nature of expert testimony about grooming for child sexual abuse in a published opinion. However, several other circuit courts of appeal have held that admitting such testimony is not an abuse of discretion because the testimony “illuminate[s] how seemingly innocent conduct . . . could be part of a seduction technique. We find the reasoning of the opinions of our sister circuits persuasive."
The Court also rejected Halamek's challenge to the admission of Rule 414 evidence of his prior molestations.
Finally, the Court ruled on several sentencing claims and found that a criminal history calculation error was not plain error because the Guidelines would have been the same. "As described above, Halamek’s Guidelines range would have been the same had the district court applied the correct criminal history score of II. Therefore, we conclude that Halamek has not demonstrated plain error as to his criminal history points calculation."
