United States v. Rodney Joseph, Jr., 465 F. App'x 690

Joseph and Motta were security-group members for illegal Honolulu gambling rooms and took over Taliese’s group in 2003.
On January 7, 2004, Joseph, Motta, and Gonsalves shot Taliese and another member; Taliese and one other died.
A jury convicted Joseph and Motta of racketeering activity, conspiracy, operating an illegal gambling room, murder and attempted murder in aid of racketeering, and Joseph of assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering.
Both defendants received life sentences and appealed on fifteen grounds.
The district court denied various motions, including requests for downward departures, recusal-related issues, venue transfer, evidentiary rulings, and privilege waivers, which the panel reviewed and affirmed.
The court addressed numerous challenges to trial procedures, evidentiary rulings, and the sufficiency of the enterprise and pattern of racketeering findings.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the VICAR mandatory minimum and downward departures were properly handled	Joseph and Motta contend district court erred in denying downward departures	Government argues there was little evidence of more than guilty pleas justifying departures	No abuse; district court properly declined downward departures
Ineffective assistance of counsel in Motta’s plea	Motta alleges counsel failed to advise about VICAR minimums	Counsel negotiated a reduced sentence and secured a downward departure; prejudice not shown	Counsel’s conduct reasonable; no prejudice shown
Whether the district court should have recused due to potential bias	Requests recusal based on exposure to PSRs and plea variants	No appearance of bias; recusal not required	No abuse; no disqualifying bias established
Venue transfer and pretrial publicity	Pretrial publicity harmed defendant’s right to fair trial	Careful jury selection and local publicity did not prejudice trial	No reversible error; venue transfer denial affirming trial integrity
Admissibility of Cambra evidence and police statements	Cambra statements and police-interview-derived evidence were improperly admitted	Statements admissible as non-testimonial or dying declarations; no prejudice	Admission proper; no prejudice established

Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540 (1994) (impartiality standard for recusal and bias)
Skilling v. United States, 130 S. Ct. 2896 (2010) (pretrial publicity and impartiality context)
Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52 (1985) (ineffective-assistance standard for guilty-plea decisions)
Hayes v. Ayers, 632 F.3d 500 (9th Cir. 2011) (prejudice and bias considerations in proceedings)
Goode, 814 F.2d 1353 (9th Cir. 1987) (trial court control over opening statements)
Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (1993) (waiver and timely objection principles in appellate review)
Perez, 116 F.3d 840 (9th Cir. 1997) (strategic waiver of objections on appeal)
Mancuso v. Olivarez, 292 F.3d 939 (9th Cir. 2002) (cumulative-constitutional-error principle)
Jernigan, 492 F.3d 1050 (9th Cir. 2007) (Brady-type evidence materiality in en banc context)