United States v. Mercedes-De la Cruz ( 2015 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 14-1186
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
CECILIO MERCEDES-DE LA CRUZ,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Torruella and Selya, Circuit Judges.
Daniel N. Marx, with whom Robert E. Toone, Michele L.
Adelman, Shrutih Ramlochan-Tewarie, and Foley Hoag LLP were on
brief, for appellant.
Susan Z. Jorgensen, Assistant United States Attorney,
with whom Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, and
Nelson Pérez-Sosa, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief,
Appellate Division, were on brief, for appellee.
May 26, 2015
LYNCH, Chief Judge. This is the rare case in which we
find on direct appeal that there was ineffective assistance of
defense counsel and so vacate a conviction and remand for further
proceedings.
Defendant Cecilio Mercedes-De La Cruz appeals his
conviction and sentence for conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute cocaine and possession with intent to distribute
cocaine. Mercedes' primary argument as to his conviction, made
under two doctrines, is that the government agents who arrested him
lacked probable cause to do so. First, Mercedes contends that the
failure of the district court to suppress incriminating statements
that he made shortly after the arrest was plain error. Second, he
argues that, in any event, the failure of his counsel to file a
timely motion to suppress that evidence was a blatant display of
ineffective assistance of counsel. Mercedes also challenges his
sentence, arguing that the district court (1) improperly increased
his sentence by making an unsupported finding that Mercedes was not
truthful at his sentencing hearing and (2) erroneously failed to
apply the safety valve under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f).
We agree with Mercedes' ineffective assistance of counsel
argument and need not reach the plain error issue, and so we vacate
his conviction and remand for further proceedings. The record is
sufficiently developed and the facts concerning the apparently
unjustified arrest and counsel's failure to move to suppress are
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sufficiently egregious as to warrant relief. We also reach the
issue of whether there was sentencing error, lest the error recur
or have some lingering effect in the event of retrial.
I.
On the evening of September 16, 2012, federal agents
conducted surveillance of a remote stretch of miles of coastline in
the southeast region of Puerto Rico suspected to be an area of drug
trafficking activity. The region was known to be a common
debarkation point for drug shipments. It is a mountainous rural
region with a lot of brush.
Customs and Border Patrol Agent Luis Capestany was
patrolling Puerto Rico State Road 901, which runs near the coast.
He encountered a white van "in three different locations in [a]
very small amount of driving distance," which he found suspicious.
A vehicle registry check revealed that the van was registered to
Jose Miguel Guzmán-De los Santos.1
Around 3:30 A.M., Capestany learned from his superiors
that there was a boat traveling toward the coast with its lights
out. A helicopter spied the vessel near a point on the coast
called Punta Toro. Capestany continued patrolling and encountered
1
Guzmán, a codefendant in this case, was convicted of
conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. He
appealed his conviction and sentence, see United States v. Guzmán-
De los Santos, No. 14-1209, but we dismissed the appeal after the
district court issued an order stating that it would dismiss the
indictment.
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a gold Hyundai station wagon with 19-inch nickel chrome rims at a
point where Road 901 intersected with a road going to the coast.
The vehicle turned onto Road 901 and began driving northbound.
Capestany found this suspicious in light of the time of night and
the remote nature of the area. He ran the Hyundai's plates and
discovered that they were registered to a Mazda.
Shortly afterward, Capestany saw three individuals run
from the direction of the beach and "spe[e]d off" along Road 901 in
a red two-door coupe. Capestany notified the other agents in the
area of the suspicious activity he had observed.
By that time, the vessel which the agents had been
monitoring had neared the coastline near Punta Toro. There is no
evidence there had been previous drug encounters on the Punta Toro
beach. Capestany called for backup, and he and seven other agents
eventually made their way down a gravel road toward Punta Toro.
They encountered approximately six residences along that road,
which were inhabited and "well kept."
Around 4:30 A.M., the agents encountered an abandoned red
Ford Excursion stuck at the end of the gravel road. There were
several containers of gasoline next to the vehicle, but the agents
did not find any people or contraband nearby at that time.
Capestany and five of the agents continued walking toward the shore
along a grass trail, while two of the agents, Wilfredo Vega-Flecha
and a municipal police officer, who were armed, stayed behind at
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the end of the gravel road to "mak[e] sure that nobody would try to
take that vehicle out."
Approximately half an hour later, in the darkness of the
early morning in an unlit area, the two agents next to the
Excursion heard a noise in a nearby wooded area. Vega had night-
vision goggles and used them to observe an individual -- later
identified as Mercedes -- walking out of the woods toward the
Excursion. He did not observe any weapons with the man.
Mercedes could not see the agents because it was still
dark. Vega testified that the two agents told Mercedes to stop,
and "[h]e raised his hands, and we placed him under arrest"
(emphasis added). The government does not dispute that Mercedes
was arrested immediately after Vega stopped him. There was no
Terry stop; there was, rather, an immediate arrest.
The other six officers eventually discovered 33 bundles
containing nearly 1000 kilograms of cocaine near a dry creek bed
about 100 feet away from the Excursion. The boat that had
apparently delivered the drugs was found abandoned in the sand with
its lights on. However, Vega and his partner did not know about
the discovery of the drugs or the boat at the time of Mercedes'
arrest. At trial on direct examination, Vega said only that he saw
Mercedes coming toward him, "told him to stop," and arrested him.
Vega did not mention any concern for officer safety. On cross-
examination, when asked why he arrested Mercedes, Vega replied:
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Well, first of all, he is in a place where
there is a vehicle that is presumed to be in
the drug trafficking. He doesn't know about
the place because he seems to be from another
places [sic]. I don't know him. For my
safety, I placed him under arrest.
Only after the arrest did the two officers search Mercedes; they
found a wallet with identification and $20 cash. They found no
weapons. They saw that Mercedes was wet from the waist down. Vega
asked Mercedes, "How many are you?" Mercedes did not respond, and
Vega asked him again. Mercedes said, "Four." Vega then asked
(again twice) how much Mercedes had been paid "to do this job."
Mercedes responded, "$1,000."
At that time, several other officers arrived on the
scene, and Vega instructed them to take Mercedes and "place him in
a cell at the Maunabo station house." Mercedes was later taken
from Maunabo to the Puerto Rico Police Marine Unit in Humacao, and
then to the main office of Homeland Security Investigations in
Miramar. Mercedes was handcuffed while in the vehicle.
Upon Mercedes' arrival in Miramar, a Homeland Security
investigator, Angel Ortiz, led Mercedes to a detention cell area.
At that point, Ortiz testified, Mercedes made "several spontaneous
statements" that he had "done this for $1,000" and that "he really
didn't know who the owners were of whatever it was that he was
doing." Ortiz stopped Mercedes from speaking because Ortiz had not
yet administered Mercedes his Miranda rights, nor had anyone else.
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Once the group reached a processing cell, Ortiz read
Mercedes his Miranda rights and had him sign forms indicating that
Mercedes understood his rights and would waive them. Ortiz then
interviewed Mercedes. Mercedes recounted that a person had
approached him on the previous day and asked him "if he wanted to
make $1,000"; that he had traveled to the coast in a van and helped
unload white sacks from the boat on the coast; and that all of the
men unloading the boat's cargo had run away when they saw a
helicopter approaching the vessel. Mercedes indicated that, after
he started running, the "next thing he knew [was] that two police
officers had apprehended him."
Mercedes and co-defendants Guzmán and Victor Manuel
Carela2 were indicted on September 27, 2012, on two charges:
conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and
possession with intent to distribute cocaine. The district court
issued a scheduling order requiring all motions to suppress to be
filed by "November 2, 2012 or, if the case is continued, no later
than fourteen (14) days before the trial date." Counsel for Guzmán
and Carela both filed motions to suppress statements their clients
had made during and after their arrests on the grounds that their
arrests were illegal. The co-defendants' motions were based on
very different facts far less favorable to those defendants than
2
Carela has also appealed his conviction and sentence.
See United States v. Carela, No. 14-1194.
-7-
the facts were as to Mercedes. The district court denied both
motions. Mercedes' counsel did not file a motion to suppress.
There were two trials in this case; the first began on
April 15, 2013. On the first day of that trial, before the jury
was brought into the courtroom, Mercedes' counsel referred to the
government's motion in limine, which had asked the court to
"preclude the defendants from presenting, at trial, any argument as
to the legality of their questioning by law enforcement officers."
In that motion, the government had repeated the district court's
observation (made in its ruling on the co-defendants' motions to
suppress) that Mercedes had waived his right to file a motion to
suppress by failing to file one by the court-imposed deadline.
Mercedes' counsel acknowledged that he had not filed a motion to
suppress, but stated that Mercedes "ha[d] waived no right" and
directed the court's attention to the Supreme Court's decision in
Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683 (1986).3
The district court asked Mercedes' counsel what the Crane
case "ha[d] to do with being late and not complying with the
Court's order." The court reminded counsel that, under the
pretrial order, all motions to suppress were required to be filed
14 days before trial. Mercedes' counsel replied that "[t]his is
3
Crane held that the circumstances surrounding a
defendant's confession are relevant to the confession's
credibility, as well as its voluntariness, and that the district
court's exclusion of testimony about those circumstances deprived
the defendant of his right to a fair trial. 476 U.S. at 687-91.
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not a motion to suppress" (emphasis added); he merely wished to
cross-examine the agents regarding the circumstances surrounding
Mercedes' confession.4 The court stated that such questioning
would be allowed.
The first trial ended with a hung jury on April 22, 2013.
The case was retried three weeks later, on May 13, 2013. At the
beginning of that trial, the court stated that "the . . . rulings
stand as to [the parties'] previous motions." Mercedes' counsel
told the court that "concerning the motion to suppress, we will
reiterate the case law we quoted the last time." At no point,
however, did counsel explain his failure to comply with the
district court's scheduling order or even request leave to file an
untimely motion to suppress.
The second jury convicted Mercedes on both counts in the
indictment. This appeal followed.
II.
Mercedes, through different counsel, argues on appeal
that there was no probable cause for his arrest and hence that the
inculpatory post-arrest statements he made to the agents must be
suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree. He also argues that his
trial attorney's failure to file a motion to suppress on those
4
Nonetheless, Mercedes' counsel challenged the lawfulness
of Mercedes' arrest in Rule 29 motions filed at the close of the
government's case in both trials. The court denied both motions
from the bench.
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grounds at any time constituted ineffective assistance of counsel
in violation of the Sixth Amendment.
We very "rarely review Sixth Amendment claims against
trial counsel raised initially on direct appeal." United States v.
LaPlante, 714 F.3d 641, 648 (1st Cir. 2013). That is, in part,
because such claims usually present factbound questions on which
the record is insufficiently developed -- questions about whether
counsel's challenged decisions were mistakes of a constitutional
magnitude or simply reasonable strategic choices that did not pan
out, and about whether any deficient performance actually made the
defendant worse off. See id.; United States v. Downs-Moses, 329
F.3d 253, 264-65 (1st Cir. 2003). However, the usual rule does not
apply if "the key facts are not in dispute" and the record is
"'sufficiently developed to allow a reasoned consideration'" of the
claim. Downs-Moses, 329 F.3d at 265 (quoting United States v.
Natanel, 938 F.2d 302, 309 (1st Cir. 1991)).
This is such an exceptional case. We have no difficulty
concluding on this record that Mercedes' trial counsel's failure to
file a timely motion to suppress amounted to constitutionally
deficient performance and that Mercedes was prejudiced as a
result.5
5
This case does not require us to consider the waiver-
related consequences of a failure to file a timely suppression
motion under the recently amended Federal Rule of Criminal
Procedure 12. See United States v. Anderson, 783 F.3d 727, 740-41
(8th Cir. 2015); United States v. Soto, 780 F.3d 689, 700-01 & n.2
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A. Legal Framework
"A convicted defendant's claim that counsel's assistance
was so defective as to require reversal of a conviction . . . has
two components." Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687
(1984). First, the defendant must show that counsel's performance
was objectively unreasonable "under prevailing professional norms."
Id. at 688. In making this assessment, courts must be "highly
deferential" and "indulge a strong presumption that . . . under the
circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound
trial strategy." Id. at 689 (internal quotation marks omitted);
accord Woods v. Donald, 135 S. Ct. 1372, 1375 (2015) (per curiam).
Second, the defendant must show that counsel's deficient
performance resulted in prejudice -- that is, "that there is a
reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional
errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different."
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694; accord Woods, 135 S. Ct. at 1375. In
this specific context, where the alleged ineffectiveness was the
failure to file a motion to suppress, in order to show prejudice
the defendant must "prove that his Fourth Amendment claim is
meritorious" and that there is a reasonable probability that the
(6th Cir. 2015). Here, Mercedes has argued that his counsel's
performance was constitutionally deficient precisely because he
failed to file such a motion. We can resolve that claim regardless
of whether the suppression claim itself was waived or forfeited.
Cf. Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365, 374 n.1 (1986).
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verdict would have been different had the challenged evidence been
excluded. Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365, 375 (1986).6
B. Performance
Defense counsel's failure to file a timely motion to
suppress Mercedes' post-arrest statements was objectively
unreasonable under prevailing professional norms. The adequacy of
the justification for Mercedes' very prompt arrest was an issue in
the case. Defense counsel knew that: he had questioned a
government witness at Mercedes' preliminary detention hearing about
the circumstances surrounding the arrest, asking if Mercedes had
"done anything wrong besides walking around close to a van." Both
of Mercedes' co-defendants, who had far less promising factual
grounds, filed timely motions to suppress. Yet counsel never filed
a motion to suppress on behalf of Mercedes, much less a timely one.
The government argues that this "may have been a
strategic choice," reasoning that counsel may have wanted instead
to cross-examine government witnesses about the circumstances
surrounding Mercedes' arrest. But Mercedes' counsel could have
6
Importantly, the prejudice inquiry does not require the
defendant to show that the unlawfully obtained evidence was
unreliable, or that its admission created a risk of convicting an
innocent person. "The 'prejudice' essential to a violation of the
Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel is not
being convicted though one is innocent, although that is the worst
kind; it is being convicted when one would have been acquitted, or
at least would have had a good shot at acquittal, had one been
competently represented." Owens v. United States, 387 F.3d 607,
610 (7th Cir. 2004) (Posner, J.).
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filed a timely motion to suppress Mercedes' post-arrest statements
and still conducted such cross-examination if the motion were
denied. The two courses of action were not mutually exclusive.7
See Johnson v. United States, 604 F.3d 1016, 1020-21 (7th Cir.
2010) (suggesting that counsel's failure to file a motion to
suppress evidence found in a car the defendant had borrowed may
have been unreasonable, and rejecting the argument that "it was a
better defense . . . for [the defendant] to claim a lack of
knowledge that the drugs were in the vehicle" because there was "no
inherent conflict between a trial defense based on [the
defendant's] lack of knowledge that the drugs were in the car, and
a motion to suppress contending that the search violated his
reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle"); Owens v. United
States, 387 F.3d 607, 608-09 (7th Cir. 2004) (finding that
counsel's decision to forfeit his client's standing to raise a
Fourth Amendment challenge to the search of a house where crack had
been discovered by denying that the client owned the house was
unreasonable because, "in the unlikely event that the motion
failed, the defense could change course and try to prove at trial
that it was not [defendant's] house after all").
7
Ironically, Crane, the case defense counsel cited at the
beginning of the first trial in attempting to explain his failure
to file a motion to suppress, featured just such a strategy:
defense counsel filed a motion to suppress the defendant's
confession on the ground that it was involuntary, and then, after
the motion was denied, tried to pursue lines of attack at trial
suggesting that the confession was unreliable and not credible,
even if not coerced. 476 U.S. at 684-86.
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What is more, a timely motion to suppress on the ground
that the agents did not have probable cause to arrest Mercedes
would quite likely have been meritorious. As Vega's testimony
confirmed, the only fact the agents knew about Mercedes at the time
of his arrest which indicated that he might be involved in criminal
activity was that he was in the same general area as a suspected
drug-smuggling venture.8
It is black-letter law that "[a]n individual's presence
in an area of expected criminal activity, standing alone, is not
enough to support a reasonable, particularized suspicion that the
person is committing a crime," Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119,
124 (2000) (citing Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979)), much less
a finding of probable cause, see, e.g., Ybarra v. Illinois, 444
U.S. 85, 90-91 (1979) (finding no probable cause when "the agents
knew nothing in particular about [the defendant], except that he
was present, along with several other customers, in a public tavern
at a time when the police had reason to believe that the bartender
would have heroin for sale"). Although presence in a "'high crime
area'" is a "relevant contextual consideration[]," at least in a
Terry analysis, Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124 (quoting Adams v.
Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 144 (1972)), not even that factor is
8
Vega testified that Mercedes was "in a place where there
is a vehicle that is presumed to be in the drug trafficking" and
that "he seem[ed] to be from another place[]." Vega also said that
he arrested Mercedes "[f]or [Vega's] safety" because he "d[idn't]
know him."
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applicable here. The location where Mercedes was found was hardly
a "high crime area." It was a large wooded area with trails near
a beach in rural Puerto Rico, and there were five or six "well
kept" houses nearby. The officers had no apparent basis on which
to conclude that Mercedes was not associated with those houses.
The government's argument that there was no other
reasonable outcome than a conclusion that there was probable cause
for the arrest is wrong, as well as being confused and
unpersuasive. It is confused because the government invokes the
"reasonable suspicion" standard utilized for a Terry stop, which
does not apply here. This was not a Terry stop. An arrest must be
supported by probable cause, see Kaupp v. Texas, 538 U.S. 626, 630
(2003) (per curiam), which is an "obviously" higher burden than
reasonable suspicion, Navarette v. California, 134 S. Ct. 1683,
1687 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). The argument is
unpersuasive because the government fails to identify any fact
known to the agents before the arrest that would have cast
suspicion on Mercedes besides the fact that he was in a "remote
area" that "had been the site of drug smuggling over the past
month." The government mistakenly argues the agents knew more
before the arrest: Mercedes "was found at the crime scene," "was
wet and sandy, indicating he had been on the beach," and was
walking toward "the getaway vehicle" early in the morning. But the
arresting agents did not know that Mercedes was wet until they
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"checked him out" after the arrest, and they did not know that the
area was a "crime scene" or that the Excursion was "the getaway
vehicle" until they discovered the drugs. At the time of the
arrest, they knew a vessel had been spotted coming toward the
coast, but they did not know there was cocaine inside or that
Mercedes was connected with the boat. "[A] search unlawful at its
inception may [not] be validated by what it turns up." Wong Sun v.
United States, 371 U.S. 471, 484 (1963). And if officer safety was
truly the issue, a Terry stop would have sufficed.
That a timely motion to suppress Mercedes' statements
would likely have been meritorious and without repercussion to
other defense strategies confutes any argument that counsel's
failure to file such a motion was professionally reasonable. See,
e.g., Gentry v. Sevier, 597 F.3d 838, 851-52 (7th Cir. 2010);
Owens, 387 F.3d at 608-09; State v. Reichenbach, 101 P.3d 80, 84,
87 (Wash. 2004); State v. Silvers, 587 N.W.2d 325, 334 (Neb. 1998);
Commonwealth v. Davis, 743 A.2d 946, 953 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1999).
In short, the government has not provided -- and the
record does not disclose -- any plausible strategic explanation for
counsel's failure to file a timely motion to suppress, and so we
conclude that his performance was constitutionally deficient. See
Kimmelman, 477 U.S. at 385-86 (finding counsel's failure to file
motion to suppress objectively unreasonable because the record
suggested "no better explanation" for his failure than "ignorance
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of the law" and "a complete lack of pretrial preparation"); Tice v.
Johnson, 647 F.3d 87, 106 (4th Cir. 2011) ("There is simply nothing
we can discern from the record that would excuse the defense team's
failure to move to suppress [the defendant's] confession."). The
mere inconvenience to defense counsel of having to meet a pretrial
schedule for filing motions is surely not enough.
C. Prejudice
We are also satisfied that there is a reasonable
probability that, had Mercedes' counsel filed a motion to suppress,
the outcome of the proceeding would have been different. As said,
had such a motion been filed, it likely would have succeeded, and
had it succeeded, many (perhaps all) of Mercedes' inculpatory
statements would have been excluded as "fruit of the poisonous
tree." See generally Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 602-04
(1975); Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 487-88; United States v. Stark, 499
F.3d 72, 76-77 (1st Cir. 2007).
The government's case against Mercedes was based almost
exclusively on those statements. Indeed, in the government's
closing argument, the prosecutor repeated that Mercedes had
admitted his involvement in the transaction nearly every time she
mentioned him, and she referred to scant other evidence of his
participation. Cf. United States v. Melvin, 730 F.3d 29, 40 (1st
Cir. 2013) (relying on prosecutor's closing argument to determine
whether improperly admitted testimony was sufficiently important to
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the government's case so as to require vacatur of the defendant's
conviction). There was no assertion that any of the other
defendants had identified Mercedes as involved in unloading the
cocaine. Exclusion of the post-arrest statements would likely have
eviscerated the government's case. See, e.g., Tice, 647 F.3d at
111; Reichenbach, 101 P.3d at 87.
III.
Our decision to vacate Mercedes' conviction might be
thought to render it unnecessary to reach his claims of sentencing
error. Nevertheless, to prevent possible recurrence, we think it
appropriate to add this coda regarding the sentence imposed by the
district court.
At sentencing, the defense contended that Mercedes should
be considered "a minor participant" for purposes of his Sentencing
Guidelines calculation because "there was no evidence whatsoever
that demonstrated that [he] in any way was a principal in this
case." Instead, Mercedes argued, he was "merely a workman." The
government disagreed, stating that Mercedes was "an integral part"
of "a $22 million convert [sic] offloading operation which required
individuals of trust." As support, the prosecutor pointed to
Mercedes' confession that "he was paid $1,000 and that . . . he was
involved in the offloading of the narcotics," and to the fact that
he ran away when he saw the helicopter, suggesting "that he knew
what he was doing was wrong."
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After counsel made these arguments, the district court
gave Mercedes an opportunity to allocute. The following colloquy
ensued:
THE DEFENDANT: Well, I would like to
say to you that, as far as I know, I don't
believe there is any evidence that makes me
responsible for that.
THE COURT: For what?
THE DEFENDANT: For the circumstances
that the Prosecutor is referring to, because
he did not see me with that. And if he didn't
see me with that and he doesn't have any
fingerprints of mine on that, he cannot make
me guilty of that.
THE COURT: But you were there.
THE DEFENDANT: I was on the road. A
policeman arrested me, and he took me. They
had a red truck.
THE COURT: That's not how I remember
the case, Mr. Mercedes. If I remember the
case, you were arrested right there as you
came out of the bushes with your hands up.
THE DEFENDANT: Well, that's the
version from the policeman that arrested me.
And he said three versions at the same time,
and none of them were justified. My attorney
asked him at what moment he had arrested me,
and he said he arrested me because he saw me
as a suspect around there.
On that day, the 17th of September,
2012, the sun came out around 6:13 in the
morning, and he said he had binoculars, night
vision goggles, and that he had arrested me at
6:00 in the morning. And at 6:30 in the
morning, if he has those night vision goggles
that he had arrested me at 6:30 -- but at 6:13
is when the sun came out. What can he do with
that on his face at that time in the morning,
at 6:30?
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I think it was verified that he was not
precise continuously as to that. And as to
everything else, those are things that I leave
at your sound discretion.
Thank you.
The district court granted the minor participant
reduction and calculated Mercedes' guidelines sentencing range as
121 to 151 months. The court then found that Mercedes had been
untruthful in his allocution:
Today Mr. Mercedes has indicated that
there is no evidence of his involvement in the
operation. He indicated that he was arrested
on the road.
Trial evidence demonstrated, however,
that Mr. Mercedes was arrested shortly after
the agents arrived, when he came out of the
bushes close to where the red [Excursion] was
and close to where the [33] bales of cocaine
were stashed.
He has not been truthful to the Court
today, and the sentence will reflect it.
The court sentenced Mercedes to 136 months in prison. We
conclude that there is a probability the district court
misunderstood the colloquy and so committed sentencing error.
The district court's decision to increase Mercedes'
sentence rested on an extremely doubtful finding that Mercedes was
untruthful in his allocution.9 As we read the record, Mercedes was
9
The government says the district court did not penalize
Mercedes because it did not impose an obstruction of justice
enhancement. That argument misses the mark. Mercedes has not
contested any enhancement under the guidelines, nor has he argued
he should have received a reduction (for example, for acceptance of
responsibility). Instead, as we read Mercedes' brief, he is
contesting the district court's decision to impose a more severe
sentence than it otherwise would have based on Mercedes' purported
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simply disputing (1) the version of events that the prosecutor
relayed at sentencing, which suggested that Mercedes was a major
player in the drug smuggling enterprise, and (2) parts of the
arresting agent's testimony. Mercedes did not contest his guilt at
sentencing. The district court's finding that Mercedes denied "his
involvement in the operation" is thus without support in the
record. Cf. United States v. Al-Rikabi, 606 F.3d 11, 14-16 (1st
Cir. 2010).10
Mercedes' limited proficiency in English, which is
apparent from the sentencing transcript, buttresses this
conclusion. Any perceived inaccuracies in Mercedes's allocution
were likely a result of the language barrier, not dishonesty on
Mercedes' part. Cf. Nadmid v. Holder, ___ F.3d ___, 2015 WL
1787066, at *3 (7th Cir. Apr. 21, 2015) (rejecting an immigration
judge's adverse credibility finding with respect to an asylum
applicant whose "answers suggest[ed] that translation problems
ha[d] made it difficult [for him] to understand the questions posed
to him"); Ramsameachire v. Ashcroft, 357 F.3d 169, 180 (2d Cir.
2004) (noting that statements made by an alien who may not
understand English "should be considered less reliable").
dishonesty during his allocution.
10
We note that the court's decision not to apply the safety
valve, which Mercedes also challenges on appeal, was dubious. We
leave the safety valve issue for the district court to resolve in
the first instance should it recur on remand.
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Sentencing courts should exercise great caution before penalizing
a defendant with limited proficiency in English based on arguably
ambiguous statements.
IV.
We vacate Mercedes' conviction and sentence and remand
this case for further proceedings.
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