United States v. Velez-Luciano

814 F.3d 553, 2016 WL 759876
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedFebruary 25, 2016
Docket14-1738P
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 814 F.3d 553 (United States v. Velez-Luciano) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First 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. Velez-Luciano, 814 F.3d 553, 2016 WL 759876 (1st Cir. 2016).

Opinion

SOROKIN, District Judge.

After pleading guilty to one count of possession of child pornography, appellant Nelson Vélezr-Lueiano (‘Vélez-Luciano”) received a sentence of ten years in prison followed by fifteen years of supervised release. The terms of his supervised release included multiple conditions, some of which he challenges in this appeal. Because Vé-lez-Luciano’s plea agreement included an applicable waiver of appeal provision, a heightened standard of review applies. With one exception, Vélez-Luciano cannot satisfy this standard for the challenged conditions. We thus vacate that one condition, affirm the rest, and remand the case to the district court for resentencing, limited solely to the vacated condition.

I. Background

A. Facts

Because this appeal follows a conviction via guilty plea, we draw the facts from the plea colloquy and sentencing materials. United States v. Whitlow, 714 F.3d 41, 42 (1st Cir.2013). In July 2007, Vélez-Luciano began working for Dorado, Puerto Rico as a Music Teacher and the Director of the Municipal Band. In early 2012, Nereida Jiménez, the mother of a seventeen-year-old female student of Vé-lez-Luciano referred to as “JRJ,” complained to police that Vélez-Luciano had requested that JRJ send him nude photos of herself, and had sexually abused JRJ. Vélez-Luciano had been living with Jimenez and JRJ for approximately seven months at that point, and on March 21, 2012, Jimenez obtained an Order of Protection and Eviction against Vélez-Luci-ano.

Law enforcement investigated the allegations and discovered that Vélez-Luciano began providing special treatment to JRJ at least as far back as January 2010, and began having sexual contact with her— including intercourse — in May 2010, when she was fifteen. Vélez-Luciano had sex with JRJ multiple times since, including during JRJ’s lunch periods. Around this time, JRJ began, at Vélez-Luciano’s request, taking photos of herself and sending them to him. JRJ estimated that she sent approximately sixty photos, ranging from partially nude to fully nude, to VéleznLuci-ano. Investigators found three images of JRJ, all focused on her genitals, on Vélez-Luciano’s computer. Additionally, Vélez-Luciano had sexually explicit conversations, via both text messaging and Face-book messaging, with JRJ. He also directed JRJ to view pornographic websites so that she could learn what Vélez-Luciano wanted to do with her, but the record indicates that she did not look at the web sites.

The investigation further revealed that Vélez-Luciano abused a second female, a *557 fifteen-year-old referred to as “VMCH.” 1 In 2008, when she was eleven, Vélez-Luci-ano recruited VMCH, who has a mental age three years behind her actual age, into the band. He began sexually abusing her in 2010, when she was fourteen. These encounters took place in the music band room. Additionally, Vélez-Luciano encouraged VMCH to view a pornographic website contained animated cartoon engaging in sexual conduct with each other, and she did so. Vélez-Luciano wanted VMCH to learn from the cartoons so that she would do with him what the cartoon characters did with each other. Finally, Vé-lez-Luciano engaged in a threesome with both VMCH and JRJ in the music band room, providing them each with baton twirler outfits and directing them on what to do, culminating in sexual relations.

B. Prior Proceedings

On April 25, 2012, a grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico indicted Vélez-Lu-ciano on two counts of producing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), and one count of possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). On May 10, 2013, pursuant to an agreement with the government, he pled guilty to the possession count; the government subsequently dismissed the two production counts. The deal recommended a ten-year term of imprisonment, and contained no other agreements or recommendations regarding the sentence. It said nothing about the duration or conditions of Vélez-Luciano’s supervised release, but did recite the statutory maximum period of supervised release. It also contained a waiver of appeal provision, which read: “The defendant hereby acknowledges that should the Court sentence him or her to the agreed-upon specific sentence, or agreed-upon sentencing range, the defendant agrees to waive and permanently surrender his or her right to appeal the judgment and sentence in this case.”

At a change of plea hearing before a magistrate judge that same day, the magistrate judge reviewed the parameters of the agreement — including the conduct alleged, the rights waived pursuant to the agreement, and the recommended sentence — with Vélez-Luciano. The magistrate judge specifically informed Vélez-Luciano that he faced a term of at least five years of supervised release following his incarceration. At another part of the colloquy, the magistrate judge focused specifically on making sure that Vélez-Luci-ano understood the appellate waiver. 2 Upon completing the required change of plea colloquy, the magistrate judge found that Vélez-Luciano was competent to plead guilty, that Vélez-Luciano was aware of the nature of the charged conduct and the impact of pleading guilty, and that the plea was knowing and voluntary. He *558 issued a Report and Recommendation that the district court accept Vélez-Luciano’s plea, and the district court did so on June 3, 2013.

On June 11, 2014, the Probation Office issued its Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”). Among other content, the PSR recommended that the district court impose twenty-two special conditions of supervised release applicable to sex offenders, It did not provide any specific reasoning supporting these recommendations. Vélez-Luciano did not object to any of these conditions in his sentencing memorandum.

Vélez-Luciano’s sentencing hearing occurred the next day. After handling preliminary matters, the district court imposed the ten-year term of imprisonment recommended by the plea agreement. The district court, without explanation, also sentenced Vélez-Luciano to fifteen years of supervised release, with several conditions attached. These conditions included both the thirteen standard conditions of supervised release and the special conditions of supervision that the PSR recommended. Vélez-Luciano did not object to any of these conditions at the sentencing hearing.

C. This Appeal

Vélez-Luciano raises two general issues on appeal. First, he argues that the waiver of appeal provision in his plea agreement does not cover an appellate challenge to his supervised release conditions. Next, he challenges, broadly speaking, four categories of these conditions: sexual offender treatment; internet access; contact with minor children; and access to pornography. After oral argument, the government informed us via a

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Bluebook (online)
814 F.3d 553, 2016 WL 759876, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-velez-luciano-ca1-2016.