United States v. Mohamud, No. 14-30217 (9th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted of attempting to detonate a large bomb during the annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland, Oregon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2332a(a)(2)(A). The court concluded that the district court properly rejected defendant's entrapment defense as a matter of law where the court could not say that no reasonable jury could have concluded that defendant was predisposed to commit the charged offense. The court rejected defendant's alternative argument that the government overreached in its "sting" and violated due process. The court explained that, while the government's conduct in this case was quite aggressive at times, it fell short of a due process violation. The court also concluded that, under the circumstances of this case, the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress premised on the late supplemental Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), 50 U.S.C. 1881a, notice. In this case, defendant cannot demonstrate prejudice and the district court found that the late disclosure was not due to prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, the court concluded that the application of section 702 of the FISA did not violate the Fourth Amendment under the particular facts of this case. The court held that there is no warrant required to intercept overseas foreign national's communications or to intercept U.S. person's communications incidentally. Furthermore, assuming that defendant had a Fourth Amendment right in the incidentally collected communications, the search at issue was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Under the third-party doctrine, defendant had a reduced expectation of privacy in his communications to third parties. The applied targeting and minimization procedures adequately protected defendant's diminished privacy interest, in light of the government’s compelling interest in national security. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed Mohamed Osman Mohamud’s conviction for attempting to detonate a large bomb during the annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in downtown Portland, Oregon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2332a(a)(2)(A). The panel held that the district court properly rejected Mohamud’s defense of entrapment as a matter of law. The panel could not say that no reasonable jury could have concluded that Mohamud was predisposed to commit the charged offense. Rejecting Mohamud’s alternative argument that the case should be dismissed because the government overreached in its “sting,” the panel wrote that while the government’s conduct was quite aggressive at times, it fell short of a due process violation. The panel held that, under the circumstances of this case, the district court did not err in denying Mohamud’s motion to suppress, based on tardy disclosure, information collected pursuant to § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. The panel wrote that Mohamud cannot demonstrate prejudice, and that the district court did not err in finding that the late disclosure was not due to prosecutorial misconduct. The panel held that the § 702 acquisition of Mohamud’s email communications did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The panel noted that all this case involved was UNITED STATES V. MOHAMUD 3 the targeting of an overseas foreign national under § 702, through which Mohamud’s email communications were incidentally collected. The panel held that no warrant was required to intercept the overseas foreign national’s communications or to intercept a U.S. person’s communications incidentally. Assuming that Mohamud had a Fourth Amendment right in the incidentally collected communications, the panel held that the search was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The panel wrote that declassified facts foreclosed the argument that the discovery in this case strayed from protecting the country from a terrorist threat into the conduct of foreign affairs. Because no retention and querying of the incidentally- collected communications is at issue in this case, an argument regarding reasonableness was outside the scope of this court’s review. The panel held that under the third-party doctrine, Mohamud had a reduced expectation of privacy in his communications to third parties. The panel held that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court-approved targeting and minimization procedures, which were followed in practice, sufficiently protected Mohamud’s privacy interest, in light of the government’s compelling interest in national security.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.