United States v. Jonathan Wells

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 19-10451 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. v. 5:18-cr-00567-

LHK-

JONATHAN WELLS,

Defendant-Appellant. OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Lucy H. Koh, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted October 18, 2021 San Francisco, California

Filed March 22, 2022

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Ronald M. Gould, and Carlos T. Bea, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Wallace; Dissent by Judge Bea SUMMARY *

Criminal Law

The panel dismissed in part an appeal from the district court’s judgment and order imposing sentence and conditions of supervised release, vacated the judgment in part, and remanded with instructions to the district court to clarify a special condition of supervised release to avoid a constitutional violation.

The panel wrote that because the language of the waiver of the right to appeal in the plea agreement is unambiguous, and the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived the right to appeal, the panel was obligated to enforce the waiver…