United States v. Dan Wallen, 19-30098

Background

Dan Calvert Wallen shot three adolescent grizzly bears and was charged with three counts of unlawfully taking a threatened species.
At a bench trial the magistrate found Wallen not credible and concluded he did not act in subjective good faith self-defense; Wallen was convicted; the district court affirmed.
On first appeal this Court held the magistrate had applied an objective good-faith standard rather than the required subjective standard and remanded. United States v. Wallen, 874 F.3d 620 (9th Cir. 2017).
On retrial (same record, same magistrate) the magistrate again rejected self-defense, treating the adverse credibility finding as dispositive and disregarding other evidence relevant to the objective reasonableness of Wallen’s belief; district court again affirmed.
This panel held the magistrate erred as a matter of law by refusing to consider non-testimonial evidence relevant to whether Wallen subjectively held a good-faith belief (i.e., objective reasonableness bears on subjective belief); but on de novo sufficiency review the panel concluded the evidence nevertheless sufficed to convict.
Judge VanDyke concurred, agreeing with reversal but warning that a judge retrier must not treat the Court’s sufficiency finding as license to summarily reconvict without applying the full beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Government)	Defendant's Argument (Wallen)	Held
Whether the magistrate lawfully treated an adverse credibility finding as dispositive and therefore excluded other evidence of state of mind when assessing subjective good-faith self-defense	Credibility finding defeats the self-defense claim; other evidence was irrelevant to credibility and may be disregarded	Even if credibility is impaired, objective evidence (e.g., wife’s perceptions, circumstances) is relevant to whether Wallen subjectively believed force was necessary	Error: magistrate cannot treat credibility alone as dispositive; must consider other evidence bearing on objective reasonableness and thus on subjective belief; remanded
Whether there was sufficient evidence to sustain the convictions	Evidence (Wallen’s inconsistent statements; original account that he fired to frighten a bear eating chickens) supports conviction	Insufficient evidence to prove lack of subjective good-faith belief beyond a reasonable doubt	On de novo review, there is sufficient evidence to convict (court so holds even while remanding for correct legal analysis)
Standard of appellate review of magistrate’s decision in this misdemeanor bench-trial context	District court’s affirmation reviewed but Court of Appeals applies same standard as district without deference; legal conclusions reviewed de novo	N/A (defendant benefits from de novo review of legal error)	Legal conclusions are reviewed de novo; panel did not disturb magistrate’s factual findings but reversed for legal error in analysis

Key Cases Cited

United States v. Wallen, 874 F.3d 620 (9th Cir. 2017) (prior panel ruling that subjective good-faith standard governs self-defense analysis)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979) (standard for sufficiency of the evidence review)
United States v. Clavette, 135 F.3d 1308 (9th Cir. 1998) (appellate review of sufficiency of evidence)