United States v. Mohammad Miah , 593 F. App'x 741 ( 2015 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 25 2015
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 13-10190
Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 1:11-cr-00002-RVM-2
v.
MEMORANDUM*
MOHAMMAD JAHANGIR MIAH,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of the Northern Mariana Islands
Ramona V. Manglona, Chief District Judge, Presiding
Submitted February 19, 2015**
Honolulu, Hawaii
Before: CLIFTON, N.R. SMITH, and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges.
Mohammad Miah appeals his sentence after pleading guilty to one count of
conspiracy to unlawfully produce and transfer identification documents. Prior to
sentencing, the district court found Miah to have breached his plea agreement by
engaging in illegal activity—specifically, by participating in a scheme to cash
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
stolen checks. Miah contends that, at his breach-of-plea hearing, the district court
ran afoul of the Confrontation Clause and improperly applied the hearsay
exception for statements against interest when it admitted out-of-court statements
of a co-conspirator in the check-cashing scheme. Because neither argument is
meritorious, we affirm.
Miah acknowledges that our review is limited to plain error with respect to
his Confrontation Clause claim because he did not make a Confrontation Clause
objection in the district court. Under that standard, we may only reverse when an
error is “clear” or “obvious.” See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734
(1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). Miah acknowledges that no court has
found the Confrontation Clause to apply to breach-of-plea hearings and that this
court has held that the Confrontation Clause does not apply in analogous contexts
such as hearings on sentencing and revocation of supervised release. See United
States v. Littlesun, 444 F.3d 1196, 1198-1200 (9th Cir. 2006); United States v.
Hall, 419 F.3d 980, 985-86 (9th Cir. 2005). Thus, it is not clear or obvious that
admitting the co-conspirator’s out-of-court statements at Miah’s breach-of-plea
hearing violated the Confrontation Clause.
Miah did make a hearsay objection in the district court, so we review the
district court’s hearsay ruling for an abuse of discretion. See United States v. JDT,
762 F.3d 984, 1003 (9th Cir. 2014). Because the challenged statements were both
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solidly inculpatory and corroborated by recordings in which Miah communicated
with the declarant regarding checks and the exchange of money, the district court
did not abuse its discretion when it admitted them as statements against interest
under Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3). See United States v. Johnson, 767 F.3d
815, 825 (9th Cir. 2014); United States v. Slaughter, 891 F.2d 691, 698 (9th Cir.
1989).
AFFIRMED.
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