United States v. Vivian Tat

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 22-50240

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:14-cr-00702- v. ODW-

VIVIAN TAT,

OPINION

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Otis D. Wright II, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted October 5, 2023 Pasadena, California

Filed April 4, 2024

Before: Daniel P. Collins, Salvador Mendoza, Jr., and Roopali H. Desai, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Mendoza SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

In a case stemming from Vivian Tat’s involvement in a money-laundering scheme, the panel vacated the sentence imposed at resentencing and remanded for resentencing. The panel held that a criminal defendant’s failure to challenge specific aspects of her initial sentence on a prior appeal does not waive her right to challenge comparable aspects of a newly imposed sentence following de novo resentencing. The panel held that the district court erred in applying an organizer/leader enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1 for two reasons: (1) contrary to…