United States v. Green

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · 2025 · Criminal Law

Criminal LawEvidenceSelective enforcementSentencingDiscoveryselective enforcementrace discriminationdiscovery motion

Facts

Green, who is Black, used Instagram to communicate with an undercover officer posing as a 16-year-old girl and was later convicted of attempted sex trafficking of a minor and attempted sexual enticement of a minor. Before trial, he sought discovery to pursue a race-based selective enforcement claim against the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force. To support discovery, he identified six other federal cases from the Southern District of California over the prior ten years involving the same statutes, social-media sting operations, and Black male defendants. The district court denied discovery, finding the showing too limited, and later sentenced Green to 144 months after rejecting his claim that a higher sentence would create unwarranted disparity with 14 other defendants.

Issue

Did the district court abuse its discretion by denying Green discovery to pursue a selective enforcement claim under the standard described in United States v. Sellers? Did the district court procedurally err at sentencing by failing to consider Green's unwarranted sentencing disparity argument under § 3553(a)(6)?

Rule

For selective enforcement discovery, unlike selective prosecution discovery, a defendant need not produce evidence that similarly situated persons of another race were not investigated or arrested, but must present something more than mere speculation; what suffices varies by case, and the district court has discretion to allow discovery based on the reliability and strength of the defendant's showing. A sentencing court must consider the § 3553(a) factors, including unwarranted disparities, but need not mechanically address each factor and may reject a disparity argument when the proposed comparators are not similarly situated.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In Phoenix, Devon Price is charged after a county-federal task force used an online decoy account in a prostitution investigation. Before trial, Devon seeks discovery on a race-based selective enforcement claim and argues he should receive discovery only if he can meet the same threshold required for selective prosecution claims.

How should the district court evaluate Devon's discovery request?

Explanation. For selective enforcement, the court should not import the stricter selective-prosecution discovery standard. The governing rule is that the defendant need not identify similarly situated people of another race who were not investigated or arrested, but must offer something more than mere speculation. The district court has discretion to assess the reliability and strength of the showing. (Derived from United States v. Green (n.d.).)