United States of America v. Maria Andrea Gonzalez

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
MARIA ANDREA GONZALEZ, et al.,
Defendant-Appellant.
Nos. 19-30270, 20-30000
20-30018, 20-30044
D.C. Nos. 1:18-cr-02039-SAB-1
1:18-cr-02039-SAB-3
1:18-cr-02039-SAB-2
1:18-cr-02039-SAB-4
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Washington
Stanley A. Bastian, Chief District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted September 1, 2021
Seattle, Washington
Before: HAWKINS, TASHIMA, and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.
Maria Andrea Gonzalez, Brooklyn Marie Hernandez-Proctor, Nicole Lee
Sunny Cloud, and Latisha Lavern Birdsong (collectively “Defendants”) were state
and federal inmates housed at Yakima County Jail (“Yakima”). While there,
Defendants sexually assaulted a fellow federal inmate. They were charged with
violating 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a)(1) and (2), conditionally pled guilty, and were
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
FILED
SEP 13 2021
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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sentenced. Now, Defendants appeal the denial of their motions to dismiss their
indictments and their criminal judgments, arguing that federal jurisdiction was
lacking under Section 2241(a) and that Congress overreached in Section 2241(a) by
criminalizing their conduct at a state jail. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291, and we affirm.
We review de novo both the denial of a motion to dismiss an indictment,
United States v. Marguet-Pillardo, 560 F.3d 1078, 1081 (9th Cir. 2009), and a
challenge to a criminal statute for unconstitutional overreach of congressional
authority, United States v. Mujahid, 799 F.3d 1228, 1232 (9th Cir. 2015).
Defendants argue that the government has not met the jurisdictional element
of Section 2241(a), which proscribes sexual assault at facilities “in which persons
are held in custody by direction of or pursuant to a contract or agreement with the
head of any Federal department or agency.” 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a) (emphasis added).
Accordingly, the government needed to show that Yakima is a “facility in which
persons are held in custody” either (1) “by direction of . . . the head of any Federal
department or agency,” or (2) “pursuant to a contract or agreement with the head of
any Federal department or agency.” Id. Because Yakima is a facility where persons,
namely the victim, were held in federal custody by direction of the United States
Marshal Service, the government has met the jurisdictional element of Section
2241(a).

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Defendants also argue that 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a) is unconstitutional as applied
to them. In Mujahid, we held that Section 2241 is facially constitutional because it
is
“a ‘necessary and proper’ means of exercising the federal authority that
permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their
violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those
imprisoned, and to maintain the security of those who are not
imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of
others.”
Mujahid, 799 F.3d at 1235–36 (quoting United States v. Comstock, 560 U.S. 126,
149 (2010)).
For the same reasons described in Mujahid, Section 2241(a) is constitutional
as applied to Defendants—individuals in state and federal custody who sexually
assaulted another federal inmate at the same facility. See Mujahid, 799 F.3d at 1235–
36 (weighing the factors set forth in Comstock to determine whether Section 2241 is
within the scope of Congress’s authority). The federal government plainly has an
interest in protecting federal inmates from sexual abuse. See also United States v.
Pacheco, 977 F.3d 764, 769 (9th Cir. 2020) (“The evolution of [18 U.S.C. §§ 2241–
2244] over time affirms Congress’s intent to broadly protect federal detainees from
sexual abuse.”).
AFFIRMED.

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