Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca1-15-01325/USCOURTS-ca1-15-01325-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Elvin Torres-Estrada
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

Nos. 15-1324 

 15-1325 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 

v. 

ELVIN TORRES-ESTRADA, a/k/a Munecon, 

a/k/a Irvin, a/k/a Irving, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO 

[Hon. Juan M. Pérez-Giménez, U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Lynch, Selya, and Lipez, 

Circuit Judges. 

 Ezekiel E. Cortez for appellant. 

 Thomas F. Klumper, Assistant United States Attorney, Senior 

Appellate Counsel, with whom Nelson Pérez-Sosa, Assistant United 

States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, and Rosa Emilia 

Rodríguez-Vélez, United States Attorney, were on brief, for 

appellee. 

March 25, 2016 

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LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Elvin Torres-Estrada pleaded 

guilty on March 21, 2011, to two conspiracies. One was a 

conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute controlled 

substances within 1,000 feet of public housing, between about 1995 

and 2009. That conspiracy was charged on September 28, 2009, with 

a second superseding indictment filed on April 15, 2010. The 

second conspiracy was to import five kilograms or more of cocaine 

and one kilogram or more of heroin from the Dominican Republic, 

between about March 2005 and July 2009. That conspiracy was 

charged later, on February 9, 2011.

There is no need for an extensive discussion of facts. 

We give only a brief overview to explain the context for the issues 

of law. At the time of the 2009 indictment and 2010 second 

superseding indictment, Torres-Estrada was a fugitive. On June 7, 

2010, Torres-Estrada was arrested and ordered temporarily 

detained. Attorneys Raymond R. Granger and Edward V. Sapone filed 

a motion to appear pro hac vice on behalf of Torres-Estrada1 and 

represented him at a July 27, 2012, bail hearing along with local 

counsel Zelma Dávila Carrasquillo. On July 29, 2010, a local 

Puerto Rico attorney, Ramón García García ("García"), filed a 

notice to appear as counsel on behalf of Torres-Estrada along with 

 1 According to Torres-Estrada, in late 2009 and early 

2010, while he was a fugitive, he and an alleged co-conspirator 

met with Granger and Sapone. 

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Dávila Carrasquillo, Granger, and Sapone. Torres-Estrada says 

that his counsel did not actually coordinate their representation. 

After Granger and Sapone received a plea offer on 

September 20, 2010, from Assistant United States Attorney Timothy 

Henwood, plea negotiations ensued with Granger, Sapone, and García 

representing Torres-Estrada. According to Granger, García 

interfered with negotiations by, inter alia, making a counteroffer 

for a sentence lower than what Torres-Estrada had authorized, and 

communicating with the government without consulting with Granger 

or Sapone. On October 26, 2010, Granger, Sapone, and Dávila 

Carrasquillo withdrew from representing Torres-Estrada. Granger 

and Sapone's motion to withdraw stated that they were "lead 

counsel" and that "Torres-Estrada has advised us that he no longer 

wishes to utilize the services of our respective firms and has 

requested that we move to withdraw as counsel of record." 

Plea negotiations over the indictment as to the first 

conspiracy failed, with negotiations being cut off by the 

government when it realized Torres-Estrada was involved with the 

second conspiracy to import drugs from the Dominican Republic. 

That conspiracy had been charged on February 9, 2011, and it is 

clear the government cut off negotiations sometime before then. 

The March 2011 plea agreement, which led to this appeal, covered 

both conspiracies. Torres-Estrada was sentenced to 288 months of 

imprisonment for the conspiracy to possess with intent to 

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distribute various controlled substances, concurrent with a 

sentence of 120 months of imprisonment imposed for the importation 

conspiracy.

I. 

Torres-Estrada makes two arguments here on direct 

appeal. The first is that he is entitled to the benefit of the 

government's plea offer made in the first round of negotiations, 

though he had not accepted that offer. In his brief, TorresEstrada argues that he is the victim of ineffective assistance 

from García during plea negotiations and that Granger and Sapone 

had a conflict of interest. Cf. Missouri v. Frye, 132 S. Ct. 1399, 

1408 (2012); Lafler v. Cooper, 132 S. Ct. 1376, 1384–85 (2012). 

The latter part of this argument was modified at oral argument. 

See infra note 2. The other argument is that the district court 

judge was required to recuse himself. 

A. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel 

Torres-Estrada executed a waiver of appeal as part of 

his March 21, 2011, plea agreement. The waiver states: "The 

defendant hereby agrees that if this Honorable Court accepts this 

agreement and sentences [him] according to its terms and 

conditions, defendant waives and surrenders [his] right to appeal 

the conviction and sentence in this case." We find that he has 

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waived his appeal of the ineffective assistance of counsel ("IAC") 

claim.2

As an initial matter, Torres-Estrada failed to address 

the waiver of appeal clause in his opening brief, which would 

ordinarily be enough to enforce that waiver. See United States v. 

Arroyo-Blas, 783 F.3d 361, 367 (1st Cir. 2015). In his reply 

brief, Torres-Estrada first implies that he was caught by surprise 

in learning that the government would attempt to enforce the 

waiver.3 That was because as of October 14, 2014, it was the 

written policy of the Department of Justice ("DOJ") not to enforce 

waivers of appeal involving IAC claims under certain conditions. 

The memorandum to which Torres-Estrada refers states, in relevant 

part, that "[f]or cases in which a defendant's ineffective 

assistance claim would be barred by a previously executed waiver, 

prosecutors should decline to enforce the waiver when defense 

counsel rendered ineffective assistance resulting in prejudice or 

 2 At oral argument, Torres-Estrada's counsel conceded that 

he had no claim of an actual conflict of interest against Granger 

and Sapone. Further, Torres-Estrada develops no argument 

explaining how a potential conflict could have affected the 2010 

plea negotiations, given that Torres-Estrada is seeking the plea 

offer that Granger and Sapone received and were negotiating prior 

to their withdrawal. We understand the remaining claim to be an 

IAC claim against García, but not a conflict of interest claim. 

3 This reminds us of the film Casablanca, where Captain 

Renault purports to be "shocked, shocked to find that gambling is 

going on" in Rick's casino. 

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when the defendant's ineffective assistance claim raises a serious 

debatable issue that a court should resolve." 

The government, in turn, correctly reminds us that such 

a policy, promulgated after the plea agreement in this case, 

creates no rights in defendants and that courts typically play no 

role in the prosecutorial choices made by the DOJ. See, e.g., 

United States v. Craveiro, 907 F.2d 260, 263–64 (1st Cir. 1990). 

Torres-Estrada next points to the district court's 

statement at sentencing that he could appeal the IAC issue. 

Torres-Estrada does not argue that he was not fully advised of the 

waiver of appeal clause when entering his plea. The district court 

"judge's statement at sentencing," made nearly four years after 

Torres-Estrada's guilty plea, "does not serve to invalidate 

[Torres-Estrada]'s earlier waiver." Sotirion v. United States, 

617 F.3d 27, 35 (1st Cir. 2010). Interpretation of the waiver of 

appeal clause is for the court of appeals, and the district court's 

comments, at least under these circumstances, do not excuse TorresEstrada from compliance with the agreement he signed. See United 

States v. Gil-Quezada, 445 F.3d 33, 36–37 (1st Cir. 2006); United 

States v. Teeter, 257 F.3d 14, 25 (1st Cir. 2001). 

Torres-Estrada attempts to use Sotirion to argue that 

the government waived any argument that the waiver of appeal clause 

can be enforced, based on the government's failure to respond to 

the district court's statement at sentencing. We reject the 

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argument. In Sotirion, the court's discussion of government waiver 

related to the government's failure to raise a procedural default 

defense to a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 petition in the district court. 617 

F.3d at 32. Sotirion held that the government waived the 

procedural default argument and then reached the merits of the 

waiver of appeal argument. Id. at 32–33. As Torres-Estrada's 

attempted direct appeal here does not come to us on review of a 

§ 2255 petition and the question of government waiver in Sotirion 

is distinct from what is before us, we decline to extend Sotirion's 

holding.

And so, Torres-Estrada is left with an argument that his 

assertions meet the "miscarriage of justice" exception to 

enforcement of waivers of appeal, as discussed in Teeter. 257 

F.3d at 25–26 & n.9. However, Torres-Estrada explicitly says that 

he "is not challenging his sentence or his guilty plea or the Rule 

11 [of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure] inquiry at all," 

and that he "is not seeking to vacate his guilty plea." Further, 

other than pointing to the DOJ policy and the district court's 

statements at sentencing -- arguments that we have just rejected 

-- Torres-Estrada develops no argument explaining how a 

"miscarriage of justice" would result from enforcing the waiver of 

appeal clause. 

In any event, we cannot conclude that there would be a 

"miscarriage of justice" from enforcing the waiver of appeal clause 

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because even if we did not enforce the waiver of appeal clause, we 

would decline to hear Torres-Estrada's claims on direct appeal. 

The record underlying Torres-Estrada's arguments "is . . . not 

sufficiently developed to allow reasoned consideration of an 

ineffective assistance claim," and this is not the "rare case" 

where we will "review an ineffective assistance claim on direct 

appeal." United States v. LaPlante, 714 F.3d 641, 648 (1st Cir. 

2013); see United States v. Santiago-Rivera, 805 F.3d 396, 398 

(1st Cir. 2015) (explaining that "our general rule" is that IAC 

"claims must originally be presented to the district court as a 

collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2255" (quoting United States 

v. Colón–Torres, 382 F.3d 76, 84 (1st Cir. 2004))); United States 

v. Mala, 7 F.3d 1058, 1063 (1st Cir. 1993) ("We have held with a 

regularity bordering on the monotonous that fact-specific claims 

of ineffective assistance cannot make their debut on direct review 

of criminal convictions, but, rather, must originally be presented 

to, and acted upon by, the trial court."). 

B. Recusal 

Finally, we reject the argument that the district court 

judge erred when he denied Torres-Estrada's motion to recuse. 

Torres-Estrada argues that at least one communication4 between the 

 4 Torres-Estrada refers to "conversations," while the 

government contends that there appeared to be only one 

"conversation." 

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district court and the attorney for a government witness "created 

an appearance of impropriety." He points to emails between a 

government witness and the witness's attorney that suggest that 

the attorney had at least one communication with the district court 

about the scheduling of a hearing in New York in a matter separate 

from Torres-Estrada's case.5 Torres-Estrada filed a motion asking 

the district court to determine whether the emails created an 

appearance of partiality. The district court issued an order and 

opinion where it concluded that the emails did not create an 

appearance of partiality, and the district court declined to recuse 

itself. 

Under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), a judge "shall disqualify 

himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might 

reasonably be questioned." 28 U.S.C. § 455(a). "We review a 

ruling on a motion to recuse for abuse of discretion . . . ." 

United States v. Pulido, 566 F.3d 52, 62 (1st Cir. 2009). We "will 

sustain the district court's ruling 'unless we find that it cannot 

be defended as a rational conclusion supported by [a] reasonable 

reading of the record.'" Id. (alteration in original) (quoting 

United States v. Vázquez-Botet, 532 F.3d 37, 47 (1st Cir. 2008)). 

"Thus, an abuse of discretion will be found only if a reasonable 

 5 We note that many of the facts relating to this claim 

are in sealed filings, so we cannot detail them further. We have 

reviewed these filings and considered them in reaching our 

decision. 

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reading of the record fails to support the conclusion that the 

judge's impartiality was not subject to question." In re Bulger, 

710 F.3d 42, 45 (1st Cir. 2013). 

While "'in close cases doubts ordinarily ought to be 

resolved in favor of recusal[,]' . . . [t]his is not a close case." 

Pulido, 566 F.3d at 62 (quoting United States v. Snyder, 235 F.3d 

42, 46 (1st Cir. 2000)). Our review of the record leads us to 

conclude that any communication the district court had with the 

government witness's attorney did not call the district court's 

impartiality into question, and the district court did not abuse 

its discretion in deciding not to recuse itself. 

II. 

We affirm the court's decision not to recuse itself and 

otherwise dismiss the appeal. 

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