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Archive | plea allocution

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2016

Court reporter’s inability to provide a complete transcript of the guilty plea allocution does not, in itself, warrant vacating a guilty plea.

United States v. Jiamez-Dolores, et al., No. 14-1840(L), 14-1842 (CON) (Circuit Judges:  Hall, Lynch, Chin).

In addition to today’s decision in Elvin Hill, the Circuit also issued this Opinion in United States v. Jiamez-Dolores, et al.

Incomplete transcript of the guilty plea.   Here, only a partial transcript of the Rule 11 colloquy was produced by the court reporter. “Both the government and the defendant agree[d] that a considerable portion of the transcript of the Rule 11 proceedings is unavailable despite their diligent efforts to locate it.” Op. at 3. Missing from the transcript were the parts of the Rule 11 proceeding that would have concerned inquiries about the defendant’s competence, his knowing waiver of various trial and constitutional rights, and his understanding of the nature of  the charges.

The defendant argued that “the absence of a complete transcript makes it impossible for this Court to determine whether …

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Categories: plea allocution, Rule 10(c), Rule 11

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Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Money Disorder

United States v. Garcia, No. 08-1621-cr (2d Cir. December 1, 2009) (Jacobs, Sack, Lynch, CJJ)

In Cuellar v. United States, 128 S.Ct. 1994 (2008), the Court held that, for the crime of transportation money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i), the government most prove more than that the money was hidden during its transportation. Rather, it must prove that the “purpose,” not merely the effect, of the transportation was to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership or control of the money. Thus, the government must prove not just how the money was moved, but why it was moved. The Second Circuit has held that this holding applies equally to “transaction” money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 956(a)(1)(B)(i), which makes it a crime to engage in certain financial transactions, including the transfer or delivery of cash, for those same purposes.

Here, the court held that, in light of these …

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Categories: money laundering, plain error, plea allocution, Uncategorized

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Saturday, April 12th, 2008

For Your Consideration

United States v. Hardwick, No. 04-1369-cr (2d Cir. April 11, 2008) (Winter, Walker, Sotomayor, CJJ)

Glen Hardwick was convicted after a jury trial of conspiracy to commit and aiding/abetting murder-for-hire in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1958. Virtually all of the evidence of the “consideration” element of the offense came from the plea allocution of Hardwick’s brother, which was admitted into evidence over objection, although not a Confrontation Clause objection. The appellate court held that this Sixth Amendment violation was plain error, but that there was legally sufficient evidence on this element. It accordingly did not reverse the conviction; it vacated and remanded for a new trial.

Facts: Most of the action here involved Glenn Hardwick’s brother, Stacey, who had an ongoing drug and gun trafficking relationship with an undercover police officer. At one point, Stacey contacted the UC and asked him to kill someone who had pulled a gun …

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Categories: Crawford, plea allocution, sufficiency, Uncategorized

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Friday, October 26th, 2007

“Might” Makes Right

United States v. Zhang, No. 05-6662-pr (2d Cir. October 23, 2007) (Winter, Cabranes, CJJ, Korman, DJ)

During a plea allocution, advising a defendant that he might be deported was good enough, even though ICE believed that deportation was mandatory.

Zhang, a chemist, manufactured and sold an illegal bodybuilding supplement, DNP. One of his customers died after taking Zhang’s concoction, while another was in a coma for ten days. Zhang ultimately pled guilty to one count of mail fraud. During the plea allocution, the prosecutor stated that Zhang was subject to “possible” deportation as a result of the plea. The magistrate judge echoed this, saying that the plea “could” result in his deportation. Similar equivocal statements about the possibility of deportation were made by the prosecutor and district judge at Zhang’s sentencing.

Once sentenced, however, Zhang was served a notice by ICE indicating that he faced mandatory deportation as a result …

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Categories: plea allocution, Rule 11, Uncategorized

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Friday, September 28th, 2007

Crawford’s Eleven

United States v. Becker, Docket No. 06-1274-cr (2d Cir. September 13, 2007) (Calabresi, Parker, Wesley, CJJ)

At Becker’s stock fraud trial, the government introduced into evidence the plea allocutions of eleven (yes, eleven) of his co-defendants, supposedly for the “limited purpose” of establishing that the conspiracy charged in the indictment existed. The Circuit concluded that this was a Confrontation Clause violation under Crawford and, for the first time, found that such a violation was not harmless.

The court rejected the government’s claim that the district court’s limiting instructions cured the error, finding that the sheer number of allocutions and their repetitive nature suggested that the conspiracy was widespread, “making it plausible for the jury to assume that Becker was a participant simply by association with” the other conspirators, despite the instructions. In addition, the content of the allocutions was “far reaching and detailed” and significantly undermined Becker’s defense that his …

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Categories: 2255, Confrontation Clause, Crawford, harmless error, law of the case, plea allocution, Sixth Amendment, Teague, Uncategorized

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Categories: 2255, Confrontation Clause, Crawford, harmless error, law of the case, plea allocution, Sixth Amendment, Teague, Uncategorized

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