United States v. Martinez-Rios

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
• Decided: January 26, 2023
• Docket: 22-2067
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Appellate Case: 22-2067 Document: 010110804197 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT January 26, 2023 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. Nos. 22-2067, 22-2068 (D.C. Nos. 2:21-CR-01478-MIS-1 & CRUZ JOSE MARTINEZ-RIOS, 2:16-CR-00468-MIS-1) (D.N.M.) Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________

Before PHILLIPS, MURPHY, and EID, Circuit Judges. _________________________________

Appellant Cruz Jose Martinez-Rios appeals two judgments against him.

The first is a fifty-seven-month sentence for reentry of a removed alien. The

second is an eight-month sentence for violating the terms of supervised release

by committing that same crime. Martinez-Rios admitted his guilt for both

offenses. He does not provide actionable grounds for an appeal, and his

appellate counsel filed a brief under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967).

* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously to honor Appellant’s request for a decision on the briefs without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore submitted without oral argument. Appellate Case: 22-2067 Document: 010110804197 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 2

We agree with Martinez-Rios’s counsel that no non-frivolous grounds for an

appeal exist. We thus grant counsel’s motion to withdraw, and we dismiss these

appeals.

BACKGROUND

Cruz Jose Martinez-Rios has a long criminal history. In 2009, he sexually

assaulted an eighteen-year-old individual, for which a state court sentenced him

to seventy-seven months’ incarceration and ten years’ conditional release. In

2015, he unlawfully entered the United States in Grant County, New Mexico,

for which a district court sentenced him to eight months’ imprisonment and

three years’ supervised release. In 2021, he again unlawfully entered the United

States in Hidalgo County, New Mexico. The district court sentenced

Martinez-Rios to fifty-seven months’ imprisonment for that crime. And because

the crime separately violated the terms of Martinez-Rios’s three-year

supervision, 1 the district court also sentenced him to a concurrent eight-month

sentence for the violation.

Martinez-Rios pled unconditionally guilty to his 2021 unlawful entry

without a plea agreement. At his plea hearing, Martinez-Rios (through an

1 Martinez-Rios was transferred to a state prison after his federal incarceration for his 2015 unlawful entry and was later deported in December 2020. His three-year term of supervised release did not begin to run until his release from state prison. See 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e) (“A term of supervised release does not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime unless the imprisonment is for a period of less than 30 consecutive days.”). 2 Appellate Case: 22-2067 Document: 010110804197 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 3

interpreter) admitted his guilt in open court, including that he was a “citizen[]

of Mexico” and yet came to “New Mexico after having been previously

deported.” Suppl. R. vol. 4, at 14-15. And he acknowledged that the

government could have proved his unlawful entry beyond a reasonable doubt.

He also admitted that he was satisfied with his counsel’s performance.

Martinez-Rios similarly admitted to violating the terms of his supervised

release. At the revocation and sentencing hearing, Martinez-Rios admitted to

the violation in open court. He asked the court for “forgiveness for having

jumped the fence” and promised “not [to] do it again.” Id. at 34-35. And he

again acknowledged his satisfaction with counsel. The court then sentenced

Martinez-Rios to fifty-seven months for the unlawful entry and eight months

for the violation; it also recommended that the government “begin removal

proceedings during the service of sentence.” Id. at 36-37. The government

heeded that advice and deported Martinez-Rios.

Martinez-Rios appealed his dual sentences. His appellate counsel filed a

brief under Anders, 386 U.S. 738, in which counsel asserted that no

non-frivolous grounds for appeal existed. Counsel contended that

Martinez-Rios’s guilty plea was valid and that only frivolous arguments

undermined the convictions and sentences. In response, Martinez-Rios filed a

letter, in which he suggested that his guilty plea to the 2021 unlawful entry may

have been invalid. For that, he claimed that he signed a guilty plea that

stipulated to a thirty-to-thirty-seven-month sentence but then had to re-sign

3 Appellate Case: 22-2067 Document: 010110804197 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 4

another plea without that stipulation. Martinez-Rios does not attack the validity

of the operative guilty plea or assert that he received deficient plea advice from

counsel. To the contrary, he admitted he “made many mistakes” that he

“regret[s]” and is “paying for.” Appellant’s Translated Resp. 1.

DISCUSSION

Martinez-Rios’s counsel filed an Anders brief. We analyze those briefs as

follows:

Under Anders, counsel must submit a brief to the client and the appellate court indicating any potential appealable issues based on the record. The client may then choose to submit arguments to the court. The Court must then conduct a full examination of the record to determine whether defendant’s claims are wholly frivolous. If the court concludes after such an examination that the appeal is frivolous, it may grant counsel’s motion to withdraw and may dismiss the appeal.

United States v. Calderon, 428 F.3d 928, 930 (10th Cir. 2005) (citing Anders,

386 U.S. at 744). As mentioned, counsel identified no non-frivolous grounds to

attack Martinez-Rios’s guilty plea and sentences. And Martinez-Rios’s

response also identified no non-frivolous grounds to attack his guilty plea.

We have thoroughly examined the record and agree with counsel that

only frivolous grounds exist for both appeals. Martinez-Rios pled

unconditionally guilty to unlawful entry, and he offers no reason to undercut

the validity of that plea. See Class v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 798, 805 (2018)

(“[A] valid guilty plea relinquishes any claim that would contradict the

admissions necessarily made upon entry of a voluntary plea of guilty.” (citation

4 Appellate Case: 22-2067 Document: 010110804197 Date Filed: 01/26/2023 Page: 5

and internal quotation marks omitted)). Nor do we see any reason that the

district court erred in sentencing Martinez-Rios. In fact, Martinez-Rios faced a

twenty-year statutory maximum for unlawfully entering the United States and a

two-year maximum sentence for violating his supervised release. See 8 U.S.C.

§ 1326(b)(2); 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). The district court chose lighter sentences

for both offenses, even though Martinez-Rios had an extensive criminal history.

And in all events, the district court recommended deporting Martinez-Rios

during his sentence, meaning he likely would not have served a full term of

incarceration in the United States whatever the sentence may have been.

CONCLUSION

We agree with Martinez-Rios’s counsel that no non-frivolous grounds for

an appeal exist. We thus grant counsel’s motion to withdraw, and we dismiss

these appeals.

Entered for the Court

Gregory A. Phillips Circuit Judge