United States v. Juwan Ferguson

MEMORANDUM

Defendant-Appellant Juwan Ferguson appeals a judgment following a jury verdict convicting him of voluntary manslaughter, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1112 . Finding Defendant subject to the federal “three strikes” law, 18 U.S.C. § 3559 (c)(1)(A), the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California imposed a life sentence. Because the parties are familiar with the factual and procedural history of this case, we repeat only those facts necessary to resolve the issues raised on appeal. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742 . We affirm Ferguson’s conviction but vacate his sentence and remand to the district court for re-sentencing.

I. Defendant’s Conviction

We apply a four-part test to determine if the district court erred under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) in permitting the government to introduce Defendant’s 1998 state court conviction:

United States v. Corona, 34 F.3d 876, 881 (9th Cir.1994) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). We have held that “[t]he greater is the dissimilarity of the two offenses, the more tenuous is the relevance.” United States v. Hernandez-Miranda, 601 F.2d 1104, 1109 (9th Cir.1979).…