UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. IESÚS JUAN NIEVES-MELÉNDEZ, Defendant, Appellant.
No. 19-1331
United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
January 26, 2023
Kayatta, Howard, and Gelpí, Circuit Judges.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge]
Laura Maldonado Rodríguez for appellant.
Julia M. Meconiates, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, and Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.
I.
We assume familiarity with the record.1 Nieves pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute marijuana, in violation of
As part of the plea agreement he reached with the government in August 2018, Nieves admitted to possessing 87.23 grams of marijuana with the intent to distribute. However, the presentence investigation report (“PSR“) prepared by the U.S. Probation Office calculated his Sentencing Guidelines range based on a converted quantity of 39.2 kilograms of marijuana, which was the equivalent of all the drugs seized from the apartment in which Nieves and his three codefendants were arrested. Nieves urged the court three times to adopt the plea agreement‘s drug-quantity calculation over that of the PSR: first in his sentencing memorandum to the district court, then -- after the court ordered him to do so -- in a formal objection to the PSR, and finally during his sentencing hearing. In the first two instances, he argued that the court was not obligated to hold him accountable for all the drugs found in the apartment under the Guidelines. The Probation Office countered by arguing that it was entitled to factor in the total amount of drugs seized from the apartment under the “relevant conduct” provisions of
During the sentencing hearing, Nieves argued that the PSR amount was “not correct” and that -- as further explored below -- he never admitted to possessing the larger PSR quantity. The court explicitly said that it used the PSR calculation because “even though [the full drug quantity was] not charged, [it is] considered relevant conduct.”
B.
The district court‘s denial of Nieves‘s motion to withdraw his guilty plea is the other primary issue in this appeal. As noted above, Nieves pleaded guilty to two counts of the indictment against him in August 2018. As part of the plea agreement‘s factual stipulations, Nieves “acknowledge[d] that the possession of the . . . firearms [found in the apartment in which he was arrested] was in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime” and that “he possessed with intent to distribute 87.23 [grams] of [marijuana].” He also “acknowledge[d] . . . that he [was] pleading guilty freely and voluntarily because he is guilty.” Nieves further confirmed both that his plea was voluntary and that he agreed with the substance of the plea agreement‘s factual stipulations during the change-of-plea hearing.
Nevertheless, Nieves moved to withdraw his guilty plea nearly six months after this colloquy, at a hearing that originally was intended for his sentencing. Despite the fact that he had previously agreed twice to the substance of the plea agreement‘s factual stipulations, he told the district court that he was “at that [apartment] and I was sleeping there, but I am being judged for something that was happening of which I had no knowledge” and thus wished to withdraw his plea.2 Nieves further detailed in a written motion to the court that he sought the withdrawal because “he faces being sentenced for facts other than what he conceded in his plea” (i.e., the PSR‘s larger drug quantity), and that “[h]e did not understand that by pleading guilty to [the drug possession count] and accepting certain facts, that he would be pleading guilty to other alleged facts, and . . . sentenced accordingly.”
The district court denied this motion and, in doing so, adopted the government‘s
Ultimately, having denied Nieves‘s motion to withdraw his plea and relying on the PSR‘S Guidelines drug-quantity calculation, the district court sentenced Nieves to a total of 72 months of imprisonment for both of the charges to which he pleaded guilty. Because the combined sentence exceeded 66 months, the government concedes that the waiver-of-appeal provision in Nieves‘s plea agreement does not apply. This appeal followed.
II.
As noted above, Nieves argues that the district court erred both in denying his motion to withdraw his plea and in using the PSR‘s drug quantity in calculating his Guidelines range. We address each argument in turn.
A.
“When the issue is preserved, ‘we review the district court‘s denial of . . . a motion [to withdraw a guilty plea] solely for abuse of discretion.‘” United States v. Williams, 48 F.4th 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2022) (quoting United States v. Flete-Garcia, 925 F.3d 17, 24 (1st Cir. 2019)). Despite this standard being “highly deferential,” United States v. Vázquez-Martínez, 812 F.3d 18, 26 (1st Cir. 2016) (quoting United States v. Santiago-Rivera, 744 F.3d 229, 234 (1st Cir. 2014)), our review also recognizes that the district court‘s discretion “may be ‘somewhat more limited’ when one of [
Because Nieves attempted to withdraw his guilty plea after the court‘s prior acceptance thereof, he had the burden of “show[ing] a fair and just reason for requesting the withdrawal.”
(1) whether the original plea was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary and in compliance with Rule 11, (2) the
strength of the reason for withdrawal, (3) the timing of the motion to withdraw, (4) whether the defendant has a serious claim of actual innocence, (5) whether the parties had reached (or breached) a plea agreement, and (6) whether the government would suffer prejudice if withdrawal is permitted.
Id. Nevertheless, “[d]espite its permissive nature, th[e] [fair and just reason] standard ‘does not endow [a defendant] with an unfettered right to retract a guilty plea.‘” Flete-Garcia, 925 F.3d at 24 (third alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Merritt, 755 F.3d 6, 9 (1st Cir. 2014)). Indeed, “‘buyer‘s remorse’ is not a valid basis on which to dissolve a plea agreement and ‘the fact that a defendant finds himself faced with a stiffer sentence than he had anticipated is not a fair and just reason for abandoning a guilty plea.‘” Moreno-Espada v. United States, 666 F.3d 60, 67 (1st Cir. 2012) (second quoting United States v. Mercedes Mercedes, 428 F.3d 355, 359 (1st Cir. 2005)).
On appeal, Nieves claims that the district court abused its discretion in denying his motion to withdraw his plea because it discredited what he characterizes as his repeated claims of innocence and failed to ascertain whether Nieves “understood that the court could find that he possessed a greater amount of drugs” than the quantity specified in the plea agreement.3 We address each claim in turn.
i.
As a preliminary point, and as Nieves acknowledges himself, “the timing of [his]
guilty pleas and withdrawal attempts counsel against permitting withdrawal, especially when a defendant has received an unfavorable PSR. See, e.g., id. (“[W]e look skeptically on motions to withdraw which follow closely on the heels of the issuance of an unfavorable PSR, as was the case here.“); United States v. Santiago Miranda, 654 F.3d 130, 132-134, 140 (1st Cir. 2011) (finding that, when a defendant moved to withdraw his guilty plea over two months after his entry thereof and after he had received an unfavorable PSR, “[t]hese circumstances suggest that it was a recalculation of risks and benefits -- not involuntariness -- that produced [his] change of heart“); United States v. Pagan-Ortega, 372 F.3d 22, 31 (1st Cir. 2004) (“The two month lag between the plea hearing and appellant‘s motion to withdraw places it well within the area of vulnerability because of untimeliness.“).
This rationale applies with even stronger force to the nearly six-month delay in Nieves‘s case, especially given that Nieves appears to have at least partly linked his desire to withdraw his plea to the larger drug quantity the PSR attributed to him. He informed the district court after a colloquy the court had with his counsel about his withdrawal request that “what I would like to have happened is for the plea agreement to be complied with, with respect to the 66 months.”
Simply put, the motive behind Nieves‘s attempt to withdraw his plea appears to be his objection to being held responsible for a larger drug quantity than the plea agreement specified, a fact which -- as the district court informed him during the change-of-plea hearing -- could only become clear once he was furnished with the PSR in the months after his guilty plea. Cf. United States v. Fernández-Santos, 856 F.3d 10, 18 (1st Cir. 2017) (“The timing of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea is important, as we have said before, because it is ‘highly probative of motive.‘” (quoting United States v. Doyle, 981 F.2d 591, 595 (1st Cir. 1992))). As further explored below, that alone will not suffice as a “fair and just reason” for withdrawal in the absence of other factors mentioned in our case law.
ii.
Even beyond the timing issues, we are unpersuaded that the claims that Nieves raises constitute “fair and just reason[s]” for withdrawal. First, his purported innocence claim is belied both by his own admissions to the district court during his allocution and by the plea agreement to which he voluntarily agreed. We acknowledge that Nieves made multiple, consistent statements that he did not live in the apartment in which he was arrested. Perhaps most significantly, he explained to the district court that he told his counsel prior to signing the plea agreement that “I couldn‘t admit possession of all those items because that‘s not my home,” that “I am not going to sign anything admitting that I was doing anything [in the apartment], because what I was doing was sleeping” and, when asked about his desire to withdraw his plea, that “I accepted responsibility because, yes, I was at that place and I was sleeping there, but I am being judged for something that was happening of which I had no knowledge.”
But these statements alone do not suffice for an innocence claim. We have long
More generally, the district court was entitled to rely on Nieves‘s statements under oath when faced with inconsistencies between them and his later protestations of innocence. Cf. Santiago Miranda, 654 F.3d at 138 (noting that “a defendant‘s ‘declarations in open court carry a strong presumption of verity‘” on which the district court is entitled to rely (quoting Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 74 (1977))). We will not disturb the district court‘s decision to credit Nieves‘s statements in his plea colloquy absent “highly specific [allegations of infirmities] accompanied by some independent corroboration.” United States v. Pulido, 566 F.3d 52, 59-60 (1st Cir. 2009) (emphasis omitted) (quoting United States v. Butt, 731 F.2d 75, 80 n.5 (1st Cir. 1984)). And Nieves makes no such showing here. While he pointed the district court to the fact that “there is no mention of me in the surveillance or anything because I don‘t live there,” a lack of evidence that Nieves resided in the apartment does not constitute independent corroboration of the conclusion that Nieves had no knowledge of the guns or drugs found therein. To his credit, Nieves also more plausibly points to his objection to the PSR, in which he stated that “[p]olice found controlled substances in the apartment but did not find any in the room where [Nieves] was sleeping, much less on his person nor on or under the bed.” But that statement is belied
iii.
We are equally unpersuaded by Nieves‘s contention that he “was not fully advised that he could be held accountable for a greater amount of drugs” than the “250 grams of [marijuana]” upon which the plea agreement based its Guidelines calculation. While a defendant‘s “knowledge of the consequences of a guilty plea” is a “core concern[] of Rule 11” to which we pay heightened attention on abuse of discretion review, we nevertheless find Nieves‘s argument unavailing because it is flatly contradicted by the record. Williams, 48 F.4th at 6 (first quoting United States v. Cotal-Crespo, 47 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 1995)). The plea agreement noted that Nieves understood that the district court had sole discretion over his sentence, that the court was “not bound by the plea agreement or the sentencing calculations and recommendations contained [therein],” and that the court had the right to reject the plea agreement. At his change-of-plea hearing, the court also explicitly asked Nieves whether he understood (1) “that the terms of the plea agreement are recommendations to the Court,” (2) “that I can impose a sentence on you, as to Count Three, the drug count, which is less severe or more severe than the sentence you may anticipate, or even the sentence being recommended in the plea agreement,” (3) “that[,] as to Count Three, the drug count, I won‘t be able to determine what the [G]uideline sentence for your case will be until after I receive a pre-sentence investigation report,” and -- perhaps most significantly -- (4) “that the sentence that I may impose upon [you] may be different from any estimate that [counsel] may have given you and even different from what is being recommended in the plea agreement.” Nieves responded that he understood each of these ramifications. And the district court also conducted an extensive colloquy with Nieves to ensure that he was both competent to plead guilty and understood the suite of rights that he was voluntarily forfeiting by doing so. See Pagan-Ortega, 372 F.3d at 29 (“Our review of the court‘s dialogue with appellant reveals that the court clearly and comprehensively explained both the rights he was foregoing, as required under Rule 11(b), as well as the precise charges and sentencing details. We have every reason to accord credit to appellant‘s affirmative responses . . . .“).
While neither the plea agreement nor the district court explicitly mentioned the potential for discrepancies in drug-quantity calculation between the plea agreement and PSR, Nieves cites to no case law suggesting any requirement of such a specific warning. In the context of that absence, we cannot say that the district court was required to find that Nieves‘s ostensible lack of understanding of the sentencing consequences of his plea provided a “fair and just reason” for withdrawal, especially since both the plea agreement and the district court made it abundantly clear to Nieves that he could be sentenced in a manner that would not accord with the terms of the agreement.
Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Nieves‘s motion to withdraw his guilty plea.
B.
Nieves also asserts that the district court erred in adopting the PSR‘s
Under
Here, the district court explicitly stated that “if you take all the controlled substances that were found [in the apartment] and convert them into marijuana . . . even though they are not charged, they are considered relevant conduct.” Relying in part on a Guidelines application note for
But Nieves forfeited this argument. As noted above, Nieves argued in his sentencing memorandum and in his formal objection to the PSR that the district court was not obligated to factor in the apartment-wide quantity in calculating his Sentencing Guidelines range. But “a litigant has an obligation to spell out its arguments squarely and distinctly” before the district court, United States v. Diggins, 36 F.4th 302, 319 (1st Cir. 2022) (quoting Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17), and a claim of error must be “sufficiently specific to call the district court‘s attention to the asserted error,” United States v. Soto-Soto, 855 F.3d 445, 448 n.1 (1st Cir. 2017). Relevantly to Nieves‘s case, “arguments cannot be interchanged at will” on appeal. United States v. Ríos-Hernández, 645 F.3d 456, 462 (1st Cir. 2011) (citing to United States v. Lilly, 13 F.3d 15, 17-18 & n.6 (1st Cir. 1994)). We do not agree that this argument sufficiently called the court‘s attention to ostensible error in applying
We subject unpreserved claims of error to plain error review. Under this exacting standard, Nieves must show “(1) that an error occurred (2) which was clear or obvious and which not only (3) affected [his] substantial rights, but also (4) seriously impaired the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Merced-García, 24 F.4th 76, 79-80 (1st Cir. 2022) (alteration in original)
We find, in turn, that the district court committed no clear or obvious error in attributing the apartment-wide drug amount to Nieves. It is true that -- as discussed above -- Nieves consistently stated that he was only a temporary visitor to the apartment. But he overlooks the fact that there was ample, unobjected-to evidence in the record linking him to drug trafficking activity. This evidence includes the ammunition, plastic bags, vials, and weight scales located in the room in which police found Nieves, and similar items that were found throughout the apartment. Our precedent suggests that these items are indicative of trafficking activity. Cf. United States v. Marín, 523 F.3d 24, 28 (1st Cir. 2008) (noting that a weapon, ammunition, drugs, paraphernalia, and cash all being stored in the same house was indicative of a weapon being used in furtherance of drug-trafficking activity). Furthermore, it is difficult to credit Nieves‘s argument when each of the infirmities that he specifies with respect to the PSR drug quantity would hypothetically apply with equal force to the 87.23 grams specified in the plea agreement. Yet Nieves does not challenge the factual basis for the 87.23 grams to which he pleaded guilty, and -- on the contrary -- affirmatively urged the district court to adopt this amount.
Fundamentally, the district court had to weigh the seized evidence against Nieves‘s proffered motive for being in the apartment in deciding whether to attribute the larger amount of drugs to him. The mere fact that the sum total of the evidence yielded conflicting signals does not suffice to illustrate clear or obvious error, especially when Nieves did not object to the PSR‘s description of the objects found in the room in which he was located. Cf. United States v. Takesian, 945 F.3d 553, 563 (1st Cir. 2019) (noting that, on plain error review, “if an error pressed by the appellant turns on ‘a factual finding [he] neglected to ask the district court to make, the error cannot be clear or obvious unless’ he shows that ‘the desired factual finding is the only one rationally supported by the record below‘” (alterations in original) (quoting United States v. Olivier-Diaz, 13 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1993))). We therefore find that the district court did not commit plain error in attributing the apartment-wide quantity of drugs to Nieves.
Affirmed.