US v. Yu
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed
The First Circuit affirmed Haoyang Yu’s conviction for possessing a stolen trade secret relating to a microchip design, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and claims of unconstitutional selective enforcement and prosecution based on his Chinese ethnicity. The court also adopted the Seventh Circuit’s view that a defendant need prove selective-enforcement claims only by a preponderance of the evidence, explicitly declining to apply the higher “clear evidence” standard used by several other circuits.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
What evidentiary burden applies to an equal-protection selective-enforcement claim in federal criminal cases.
Circuit Positions
Selective-enforcement claims must satisfy Armstrong’s heightened “clear evidence” standard.
Selective-enforcement claims are governed by the ordinary preponderance-of-the-evidence standard applicable to equal-protection claims.
Conflict Summary
Several circuits require a defendant to produce “clear evidence” (a heightened Armstrong standard) to establish discriminatory effect and purpose for selective-enforcement claims, while the Seventh Circuit—and now the First Circuit—hold that the ordinary civil preponderance-of-the-evidence standard governs. The Ninth and Tenth Circuits have cited the clear-evidence test approvingly, further entrenching the divide.