Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-00043/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-00043-2/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Abraham Beltran-Moreno
Plaintiff
United States of America
Defendant

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

United States of America, 

Plaintiff-Respondent, 

vs. 

Abraham Beltran-Moreno, 

Defendant-Movant. 

No. CR05-0546-05-PHX-NVW

No. CV10-0043-PHX-NVW (ECV) 

United States of America, 

Plaintiff-Respondent, 

vs. 

Jose Angel Beltran-Moreno, 

Defendant-Movant.

No. CR05-0546-03-PHX-NVW 

No. CV10-0205-PHX-NVW (JRI) 

ORDER 

On December 12, 2011, this Court issued an order denying habeas relief for both 

Defendants. That order contained an error. The final substantive paragraph contained 

the following sentence: “Moreover, if the government had successfully appealed the 

sentences, the result could not have been an increase in the sentences to the true statutory 

maximum.” This sentence should have concluded instead with “true statutory 

minimum.” The Court’s previous orders (CV10-0043-PHX-NVW (ECV), Doc. 15; 

CV10-0205-PHX-NVW (JRI), Doc. 19) are therefore VACATED and SUPERSEDED by 

the following opinion, which corrects the above-noted mistake. 

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* * * 

Before the Court in No. CV10-0043-PHX-NVW (ECV) is Abraham BeltranMoreno’s Amended Motion Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to Vacate, Set Aside or Correct 

Sentence by a Person in Federal Custody (Doc. 7); Magistrate Judge Edward C. Voss’s 

Report and Recommendation recommending denial of Beltran-Moreno’s motion 

(Doc. 13); and Beltran-Moreno’s objections to the report and recommendation (Doc. 14). 

Also before the Court in No. CV10-0205-PHX-NVW (JRI) is Jose Angel BeltranMoreno’s Amended Motion Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to Vacate, Set Aside or Correct 

Sentence by a Person in Federal Custody (Doc. 5); Magistrate Judge Jay R. Irwin’s 

Report and Recommendation recommending denial of Beltran-Moreno’s motion 

(Doc. 12); and Beltran-Moreno’s objections to the report and recommendation (Doc. 17). 

The Court will overrule Movants’ objections to their respective Report and 

Recommendations, accept both Report and Recommendations, and clarify the 

circumstances of Movants’ sentencings. 

First, the Court has considered Movants’ objections and reviewed each Report and 

Recommendation de novo. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b); 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) (stating that 

the Court must make a de novo determination of those portions of the Report and 

Recommendation to which specific objections are made). Abraham Beltran-Moreno’s1

objection to Magistrate Judge Voss’s Report and Recommendation specifically 

references this Court’s statement at a January 11, 2007 hearing, “I see a 2255 written in 

capital letters, red ink, and bold.” However, that statement does not support Abraham 

Beltran-Moreno’s motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. The January 11, 

2007 hearing was intended to be a change-of-plea hearing as part of a plea bargain. In an 

attempt to establish an adequate factual basis for the guilty plea, the Court thoroughly 

questioned Abraham Beltran-Moreno about his involvement in the crimes to which he 

intended to plead guilty. Abraham Beltran-Moreno’s answers were often evasive or 

 1

 No. CV10-0043-PHX-NVW (ECV). 

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incomplete, and the Court eventually concluded that it could not establish an adequate 

factual basis for a guilty plea. Without such a factual basis, the Court concluded that the 

plea bargain could not go forward. The remark about “a 2255 written in capital letters, 

red ink, and bold” simply referred to the lack of an adequate factual basis to support a 

guilty plea; it does not indicate that Abraham Beltran-Moreno’s current motion under 28 

U.S.C. §2255 is well-founded. 

Having reviewed the Report and Recommendations and considered the objections 

thereto, the Court agrees with the magistrate judges’ determinations in both cases, accepts 

their recommended decisions within the meaning of Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b), and overrules 

each Movant’s objections. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) (stating that the district court “may 

accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by 

the magistrate”). 

Additionally, the Court of Appeals’ opinion in the direct appeals of Movants’ 

convictions suggests the need for a clarification about prior proceedings in this Court that 

led to the unique circumstances of Movants’ sentences. See United States v. BeltranMoreno, 556 F.3d 913 (9th Cir. 2009). The Court of Appeals’ opinion stated: 

After pleading guilty to a multiple-count indictment charging, 

inter alia, two independent firearms counts under 18 U.S.C. 

§ 924(c), Jose and Abraham Beltran-Moreno benefitted from 

the district court’s erroneous construction of that statute at 

sentencing. They should have quit while they were ahead. 

As the Supreme Court made clear fifteen years ago in Deal v. 

United States, 508 U.S. 129 (1993), when the government 

charges more than one § 924(c) offense in a single 

indictment, each additional count is to be treated as a “second 

or subsequent conviction” for purposes of 18 U.S.C. 

§ 924(c)(1)(c)(I) and therefore carries a mandatory minimum 

sentence of twenty-five years. Because § 924(c)(1)(D)(ii) 

requires that “no term of imprisonment imposed on a person 

under this subsection shall run concurrently with any other 

term of imprisonment imposed,” each independent § 924(c) 

count in the indictment imposes a consecutive sentence in 

addition to any other sentence imposed, either under § 924(c) 

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or under any other counts for which the defendant has been 

convicted. 

In this case, the defendants pled guilty to various drug 

offenses that, taken together, imposed a mandatory minimum 

sentence of ten years. They also pled guilty to two § 924(c) 

charges, the first of which required a mandatory minimum 

sentence of five years and the second of which required an 

additional sentence of twenty-five years. Because the statute 

does not allow any of these sentences to run concurrently, the 

mandatory minimum sentence for both defendants was forty 

years in prison. 

The district court, however, was not familiar with Deal. 

Accordingly, despite the government’s argument for a fortyyear minimum sentence, the court held, quite understandably, 

that multiple § 924(c) counts in a single indictment do not 

trigger the “second or subsequent” provision. As a result, the 

court added only two five-year sentences — as opposed to a 

five-year sentence and a twenty-five-year sentence — to the 

ten-year minimum required by the drug offenses. This was 

error, the result of which was the calculation of a mandatory 

minimum sentence of twenty years, which was twenty years 

lower than that required by statute, a sentence that would 

seem quite reasonable, but for the Court’s decision in Deal. 

Id. at 915 (footnote and certain citations omitted). 

This account of the previous proceedings before this Court is incomplete. On 

March 8, 2007, Movants appeared before this Court at a status conference, at which time 

their respective attorneys unexpectedly informed the Court that Movants had decided to 

plead guilty. The Court asked the parties if they could return later that same day for a 

change-of-plea hearing, and all parties agreed. When the parties returned, less than an 

hour later, for the change-of-plea hearing, the Court informed them: 

I have not yet gone through and calculated what the 

maximum sentences are for each of these offenses, of which I 

must advise the defendants in the plea hearing. And rather 

than keeping you waiting further, we will simply go through 

it and I would like to have the benefit of all counsel’s 

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concurrence in those calculations rather than keeping you 

waiting longer while I figured them out at the risk of possibly 

making a mistake. 

A valid guilty plea requires the Court to inform the defendant, among other things, of 

“any maximum possible penalty, including imprisonment, fine, and term of supervised 

release.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(b)(1)(H). When it came time to inform Movants of their 

maximum possible sentences, the Court stated, “Now, Counsel, as I said, I did not 

calculate the maximum penalties,” and asked counsel for the United States whether he 

had those calculations at hand. Counsel for the United States replied, “I do, Your Honor. 

Would you like me to go down the list by count?” The Court responded, “Yes, would 

you, please. And then I will rely on your recitation and ask the defendants whether they 

understand that.” When counsel for the United States came to the second § 924(c) count 

— the one which would carry a mandatory 25-year minimum sentence under Deal — 

counsel stated, “The mandatory minimum term is five years.” Relying in part on this 

information, Movants pled guilty. 

Movants were sentenced on July 25, 2007. The Presentence Investigation Report 

noted the 25-year minimum sentence for a second or subsequent § 924(c) offense. 

Counsel representing the United States at the sentencing2

 argued for the 25-year 

minimum, but prudently noted, “[A]t the time of the change of plea, I’m not sure the 

defendants were notified of that, of the mandatory minimum.” The Court was similarly 

concerned, eventually concluding, “I think if I read the statute [to require the 25-year 

minimum sentence], we would have to set aside these guilty pleas.” Because the Court 

relied on the government’s inaccurate representation about the mandatory minimum 

sentence at the change-of-plea hearing, the government invited the error that Movants 

were not informed at the change-of-plea hearing of the maximum potential sentences. 

 2

 Different attorneys represented the United States at the change-of-plea hearing 

and Movants’ sentencing. Counsel representing the United States at Movants’ sentencing 

had not appeared at the change-of-plea hearing. 

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Because Movants could only be sentenced within the maximum penalties of which they 

had been informed, the government was left to either set aside the guilty pleas — and 

thus likely proceed to a three to four week trial for the last two of fourteen original 

defendants in this matter — or accept Movants being sentenced to terms that were below 

the mandatory minimums. Therefore, in these circumstances, the Court did not impose 

the mandatory 25-year minimum sentence. 

Without this background explaining the circumstances resulting in Movants’ 

sentences, the Court of Appeals suggested that Movants’ “appellate counsel . . . exhibited 

anything but good sense” by choosing to appeal sentences which were more lenient than 

the mandatory minimum under Deal. Beltran-Moreno, 556 F.3d at 917. However, in 

these specific circumstances, appellate counsels’ decisions to honor their clients’ 

instructions to appeal their sentences are explicable. In light of the background explained 

above, it becomes clear that “the government[’s decision to] . . . exercise[] its discretion 

not to seek on appeal the additional years of incarceration for which the statute 

provides[]” likely was not done “out of a sense of justice or mercy,” id., but rather out of 

recognition that the unlawfully low sentences resulted from the government’s error at the 

change-of-plea hearing. Moreover, if the government had successfully appealed the 

sentences, the result could not have been an increase in the sentences to the true statutory 

minimum. At most, the government would have succeeded in invalidating Movants’ 

guilty pleas, which would have required the government to either secure Movants’ guilty 

pleas again or proceed to trial. Had the Court of Appeals been aware of this background 

information,3 it might have forborne any criticism of appellate counsel. 

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED in No. CV 10-0043-PHX-NVW (ECV) that: 

1. Magistrate Judge Edward C. Voss’s Report and Recommendation (Doc. 13) 

is accepted. 

 3

 The narrow issue raised on appeal did not give Movants occasion to discuss this 

procedural history; the government’s brief did not inform the Court of Appeals of it 

either. 

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2. Abraham Beltran-Moreno’s Amended Motion Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to 

Vacate, Set Aside or Correct Sentence by a Person in Federal Custody 

(Doc. 7) is denied and dismissed. 

3. The Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment denying the motion and 

terminate this action. 

4. A certificate of appealability is denied. 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED in No. CV 10-0205-PHX-NVW (JRI) that: 

1. Magistrate Judge Jay R. Irwin’s Report and Recommendation 

recommending denial of Beltran-Moreno’s motion (Doc. 12) is accepted. 

2. Jose Angel Beltran-Moreno’s Amended Motion Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to 

Vacate, Set Aside or Correct Sentence by a Person in Federal Custody 

(Doc. 5) is denied and dismissed. 

3. The Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment denying the motion and 

terminate this action. 

4. A certificate of appealability is denied. 

Dated this 18th day of January, 2012. 

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