United States v. Sanchez

── United States v. Sanchez ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: May 12, 2026 Category: General FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 23-2533 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 1:21-cr-00238- BLW-1 v. ANDRES SANCHEZ, OPINION Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Idaho B. Lynn Winmill, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted February 3, 2025 Portland, Oregon Filed May 12, 2026 Before: Carlos T. Bea, Lucy H. Koh, and Jennifer Sung, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Sung; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge Bea 2 USA V. SANCHEZ SUMMARY* Criminal Law The panel reversed the district court’s denial of Andres Sanchez’s motion for a new trial, and remanded for a new trial, in a case in which a jury convicted Sanchez on six counts of preparing and presenting false and fraudulent tax returns. Sanchez argued that the presence of a racially biased juror during deliberations violated his Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury. It was undisputed that a racially biased juror was present during most of the jury deliberations and that this juror made racially biased comments during deliberations. The district court excused the biased juror and accepted the verdict from an 11-member jury. The district court denied Sanchez’s motion for mistrial before the verdict and his motion for new trial after the verdict. When determining whether Sanchez was prejudiced by the racially biased juror’s presence, the district court applied the standard set forth in United States v. Sarkisian, 197 F.3d 966 (9th Cir. 1999)—whether other jurors’ exposure to the biased juror’s prejudicial comments so affected the jury’s ability to consider the totality of the evidence fairly that it tainted the verdict. The district court concluded that the juror’s comments did not taint the verdict. * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.  USA V. SANCHEZ 3 The panel (1) held that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard; (2) rejected Sanchez’s argument that the district court should have applied Dyer v. Calderon, 151 F.3d 970 (9th Cir. 1998) (en banc), under which the presence of a biased juror is structural error; and (3) held that when the presence of a racially biased juror is discovered or a juror is found to have made a racially biased statement, but the juror is excused before trial court accepts a verdict, the correct standard is the one set forth in United States v. Remmer, 347 U.S. 227 (1954), under which there is a heavy presumption of prejudice. Applying the Remmer standard, the panel concluded that the Government did not effectively rebut the strong presumption and evidence that the racially biased juror’s presence prejudiced Sanchez. Sanchez is therefore entitled to a new trial. Judge Bea concurred with the majority’s opinion that Dyer v. Calderon’s structural error standard does not apply but dissented from the majority’s reversal of the district court’s denial of Sanchez’s motion for a new trial. He wrote that the majority (1) rejected this court’s binding precedent in Sarkisian to conclude the district court applied an incorrect legal standard; (2) incorrectly extended Remmer’s presumption of prejudice to situations where, absent any outside contact to or from the jury itself, a racially biased juror participates in some jury deliberations but is removed from the jury following a report of misconduct by a juror to the judge and before the