United States v. Galvin Gibson

MEMORANDUM

Defendants-Appellants Galvin Gibson (“Gibson”) and Vagan Adzhemyan (“Ad-zhemyan”) appeal their convictions for kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap under 18 U.S.C. § 1201 . We have jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3742 and 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

1. The district court permissibly excluded Defendants’ justification defense. A party seeking to assert a justification defense must make a pretrial offer of proof establishing that “(1) he was under unlawful and present threat of death or serious bodily injury; (2) he did riot recklessly place himself in a situation where he would be forced to engage in criminal conduct; (3) he had no reasonable legal alternative; and (4) there was a direct causal relationship between the criminal action and the avoidance of the threatened harm.” United States v. Gomez, 92 F.3d 770, 775 (9th Cir.1996) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Defendants did not make the required showing because 1) even though there was evidence of a murder-for-hire plot, Adzhemyan learned about it four or five months before the kidnapping, received no threats, much less any recent and specific threats, and was not under surveillance; 2)…