United States v. Perez-Valencia

The panel qualified its use of the word "all" regarding the delegation of duties in the event of the District Attorney's absence to refer to “the routine standard daily functions of a prosecutor's office, which does not include administrative matters involving budgets, personnel,” or certain unique matters.

After oral argument, the Ninth Circuit remanded this case for further proceedings to determine the exact nature of District Attorney Michael Ramos's delegation of authority to Assistant District Attorney Dennis Christy. The panel’s concern was that Ramos's delegation of authority only gave Christy the authority to apply for wiretaps, but Christy was actually “running the office.” The record developed on remand found that Ramos's delegation of authority was prescribed by an adopted policy setting forth a line of succession in the case of absences. In his absence, Ramos delegated these powers to Christy only, and the powers that Ramos reserved were exceptions to daily, routine activities of a prosecutor's office and were not delegated to anyone else. After seeing the complete record, the Ninth Circuit qualified its use of “all” in its previous opinion when referring to the functions of the prosecutor’s office. The panel concluded that its use of the term “all” referred to “the routine standard daily functions of a prosecutor’s office, which does not include administrative matters involving budgets, personnel, or even the unique penalty decision in a capital case." AFFIRMED.