United States v. Claudillo-Marquez

165 F. App'x 43
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJanuary 30, 2006
DocketNo. 05-4102-CR
StatusPublished

This text of 165 F. App'x 43 (United States v. Claudillo-Marquez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Claudillo-Marquez, 165 F. App'x 43 (2d Cir. 2006).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the district court’s judgment of conviction, entered on October 28, 2004, and the court’s order, entered on July 19, 2005, declining to resentence the defendant after a remand pursuant to United States v. Crosby, 397 F.3d 103 (2d Cir.2005), are hereby AFFIRMED.

Defendant Victor Caudillo-Marquez appeals his conviction, entered on a conditional guilty plea, to being found in the United States after deportation subsequent to an aggravated felony conviction. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a), 1326(b)(2). He asserts that (1) the district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the indictment in this case because the Section 1326 charge was based on a deportation order obtained in violation of due process; (2) the underlying aggravated felony conviction was unconstitutionally obtained; and (3) his 77-month prison sentence is unreasonable because it is (a) based on an unconstitutional and erroneous application of [45]*45the Sentencing Guidelines, and (b) excessively harsh. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and the record on appeal, which we reference only as necessary to explain our decision.

1. The Due Process Challenge to the Underlying Deportation Order

Caudillo-Marquez claims that the indictment in this case should have been dismissed because it was based on a deportation order entered in violation of due process. The district court denied Caudillo-Marquez’s dismissal motion, finding that he failed to satisfy the administrative exhaustion predicate established by 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d)(1). We review de novo the district court’s refusal to dismiss the indictment. See United States v. Copeland, 376 F.3d 61, 66 (2d Cir.2004); United States v. Leyland, 277 F.3d 628, 631 (2d Cir.2002).

A criminal defendant’s right to raise a collateral challenge to a deportation order underlying a Section 1326 prosecution is subject to statutory limitations. Specifically, the defendant must demonstrate that (1) he “exhausted any administrative remedies that may have been available to seek relief against the order; (2) the deportation proceedings at which the order was issued improperly deprived [him] the opportunity for judicial review; and (3) the entry of the order was fundamentally unfair.” 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d). This court has ruled that “[statutory exhaustion requirements such as that set forth in § 1326(d) are mandatory, and courts are not free to dispense with them.” United States v. Gonzalez-Roque, 301 F.3d 39, 47 (2d Cir.2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nevertheless, a failure to exhaust bars collateral review “only where an alien’s waiver of administrative review was knowing and intelligent.” United States v. Sosa, 387 F.3d 131, 136 (2d Cir.2004).

In this case, the district court carefully reviewed the record of Caudillo-Marquez’s deportation hearing before an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) and concluded that, on a number of occasions, Caudillo-Marquez was specifically advised of his right to appeal any adverse ruling of the IJ and that his decision not to pursue appeal was knowing and intelligent. We review these findings for clear error, see United States v. Calderon, 391 F.3d 370, 375 (2d Cir.2004), and find none in this case.

The district court’s findings are amply supported by the record. The circumstances here at issue are not akin to those in United States v. Sosa, 387 F.3d at 136, where we concluded that an IJ’s failure to inform an alien of his right to INA § 212(c) relief precluded a finding of knowing and intelligent waiver of review. Nor is this case analogous to United States v. Calderon, 391 F.3d at 375, in which an IJ appeared to have affirmatively misled an alien as to his eligibility for a form of relief. Here, the IJ clearly informed Caudillo-Marquez that, under INA § 212(c), he was eligible for relief from deportation on his 1995 burglary conviction. Nevertheless, the IJ ruled that under INA § 240A, Caudillo-Marquez was not eligible for such relief on his post-1996 convictions. Further, the IJ concluded that an alien could not secure relief under both statutes, which would be necessary for CaudilloMarquez to avoid deportation. These circumstances do not reflect the IJ misinforming or misleading Caudillo-Marquez as to his eligibility for Section 212(c) relief in a way that excuses his failure to pursue administrative or judicial review. They simply reflect a litigant receiving an adverse ruling at one stage of an administrative process that he knows he has a right to appeal for further review. CaudilloMarquez had repeatedly been advised of his right to counsel, the potentially serious [46]*46consequences of his deportation hearing, and his right to appeal the result of that hearing. He nevertheless stated, in response to an IJ inquiry, that he did not wish to pursue his right to appeal the deportation order to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Therefore, the district court correctly concluded that, under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d)(1), Caudillo-Marquez had not exhausted his administrative remedies and could not raise a collateral due process challenge to his deportation order as a ground for dismissal of his criminal indictment.3

2. The Underlying Burglary Conviction

Caudillo-Marquez submits that the 1995 California felony conviction for burglary, which aggravated his Section 1326 conviction and exposed him to a higher sentencing maximum, was unconstitutionally obtained because his counsel had been ineffective and his guilty plea had not been knowing and voluntary. This challenge is not properly before us on this appeal. Rather, it is the proper subject of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, subject to the filing limitations imposed by 28 U.S.C. §§ 2254 and 2244(d)(1).

More to the point, the argument is foreclosed by Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 496, 114 S.Ct. 1732, 128 L.Ed.2d 517 (1994), which holds that the only basis for a collateral attack to a prior conviction used to enhance a sentence is denial of the right to appointed counsel as articulated in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). To the extent Caudillo-Marquez asserts that Apprendi v. New Jersey,

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Related

Gideon v. Wainwright
372 U.S. 335 (Supreme Court, 1963)
Almendarez-Torres v. United States
523 U.S. 224 (Supreme Court, 1998)
Apprendi v. New Jersey
530 U.S. 466 (Supreme Court, 2000)
United States v. Booker
543 U.S. 220 (Supreme Court, 2004)
Shepard v. United States
544 U.S. 13 (Supreme Court, 2005)
United States v. Wilfred Walker Leyland
277 F.3d 628 (Second Circuit, 2002)
United States v. Sergio Fuentes-Rivera
323 F.3d 869 (Eleventh Circuit, 2003)
United States v. Ariel Vargas-Garnica
332 F.3d 471 (Seventh Circuit, 2003)
United States v. Esly Pereira-Salmeron
337 F.3d 1148 (Ninth Circuit, 2003)
United States v. Rene Mauricio Sosa
387 F.3d 131 (Second Circuit, 2004)
United States v. Vitalio Calderon
391 F.3d 370 (Second Circuit, 2004)
United States v. Daniel Lee Fleming
397 F.3d 95 (Second Circuit, 2005)
United States v. Jerome Crosby
397 F.3d 103 (Second Circuit, 2005)
United States v. Estrada
428 F.3d 387 (Second Circuit, 2005)
Custis v. United States
511 U.S. 485 (Supreme Court, 1994)

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Bluebook (online)
165 F. App'x 43, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-claudillo-marquez-ca2-2006.