United States v. Perez-Perez

── United States v. Perez-Perez ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Date: May 27, 2026 Category: Non Direct Criminal Case: 26-30035 Document: 73-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/27/2026 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 26-30035 FILED May 27, 2026 ____________ Lyle W. Cayce United States of America, Clerk Plaintiff—Appellee, versus Maximiliano Perez-Perez, Defendant—Appellant. ______________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana USDC No. 1:25-CR-371-1 ______________________________ Before Smith, Willett, and Ramirez, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: * Maximiliano Perez-Perez appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to revoke a magistrate judge’s order for Perez-Perez’s detention pending trial on a charge of assaulting a federal officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111. He argues that the district court erred in concluding that no conditions could reasonably assure his appearance at trial and that it required _____________________ * This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5. Case: 26-30035 Document: 73-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/27/2026 No. 26-30035 him to prove he would not flee instead of requiring the government to prove he posed a substantial risk of flight. We AFFIRM. I. “When reviewing a district court’s determination that pretrial detention is necessary, ‘our scope of review is limited.’” United States v. Esquivel-Bataz, 155 F.4th 491, 493 (5th Cir. 2025) (quoting United States v. Fortna, 769 F.2d 243, 250 (5th Cir. 1985)). “Absent an error of law, we must uphold a district court order [of pretrial detention] ‘if it is supported by the proceedings below,’ a deferential standard of review that we equate to the abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v. Rueben, 974 F.2d 580, 586 (5th Cir. 1992) (quoting United States v. Hare, 873 F.2d 796, 798 (5th Cir. 1989)). “On appeal, the question becomes whether the evidence as a whole supports the conclusions of the proceedings below.” Id. In this case, we find that it does. II. At the detention hearing, the government’s witness testified that officers “received information from a confidential source, in reference to a work van that had previously been stopped for transporting illegal aliens[,]” including the make and model of the van. When officers stopped the van, it had an out-of-state license plate and the driver, Perez-Perez, could not provide officers with a driver’s license or identification card. Perez-Perez failed to comply with instructions to exit the van, and after officers forcibly removed him, he attempted to flee on foot, struggled with officers who detained him, and bit the hand of the officer who was trying to handcuff him, breaking the skin and drawing blood. The government’s witness also testified that Perez-Perez later admitted to officers that he was a citizen of Mexico and that he had entered the United States without inspection about three years earlier. But there was no criminal or immigration history linked