United States v. Hill

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 4 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 25-5003 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 1:24-cr-00026-DKW-1 v. MEMORANDUM* DUSTIN HILL, Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii Derrick Kahala Watson, District Judge, Presiding Submitted July 29, 2026** Before: McKEOWN, TALLMAN, and MENDOZA, JR., Circuit Judges.

Dustin Hill appeals from the district court’s judgment and challenges the court’s imposition of a special condition of supervised release following his guilty- plea conviction for sexual exploitation of a child in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(a) and (e). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we vacate in

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. part and remand.

Hill challenges Special Condition No. 5, which requires him to participate in a sex offender assessment and treatment, and states that his “probation officer . . . will supervise [his] participation in the program (provider, location, modality, duration, and intensity).” The government concedes, and we agree, that this provision impermissibly delegates to the probation officer the “power to decide the nature or extent of [Hill’s] punishment.” United States v. Nishida, 53 F.4th 1144, 1155 (9th Cir. 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted). Because this plain error affects Hill’s substantial rights, see id. at 1152-53, we vacate Special Condition No. 5 and remand for resentencing so that the district court can clarify the scope of authority delegated to the probation officer consistent with our decision in Nishida.

VACATED in part and REMANDED for resentencing.

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