*Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that this opinion should not be

published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstancesset forth in 5

TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

For the Fifth Circuit

No. 98-40161

Summary Calendar

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

VERSUS

ESTEBAN MANZANARES-TORRES,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. B-97-CR-433-1

January 20, 1999

Before WISDOM, JONES, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Esteban Manzanares-Torres pleaded guilty to being present in the United States, without

permission, following deportation, in violation of 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a), (b). The district court

sentenced him to a 16-month term of imprisonment, to be followed by a three-year term of

supervised release. Manzanares-Torres timely filed this appeal, in which he argues that his

conviction must be reversed because the record of the guilty plea proceedings is insufficient to

allow for meaningful appellate review. He asserts that we cannot evaluate, by reviewing the

rearraignment record, his personal responses to the district court’s questions and cannot discern
 

2 Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969).

2

whether he understood the rights he was waiving. Furthermore, he contends that this error is not

harmless because he is being denied his statutory right to appeal. Manzanares-Torres’s

contentions are without merit. We affirm.

In the instant case, the district court conducted Manzanares-Torres’s rearraignment

simultaneously with several other defendants. The district court stated on the record that it would

conduct the proceedings in Spanish because the defendants and the attorneys understood Spanish

and that the interpreter would translate the proceedings into English for transcription. The district

court stated on the record that each defendant indicated that he wanted the proceedings to be

conducted in Spanish. The district court asked for objections from counsel, and the court

received no objections. The district court stated on the record that it would follow a procedure in

which it would elicit a response from each individual defendant and that the record would show

the response. The district court stated on the record that “[i]t would be incumbent upon counsel

to show the record that the Court is in error.” All counsel agreed to this procedure. The district

court, after most of its inquiries, stated for the record that each defendant had answered in the

affirmative or in the negative. The district court did not elicit individual responses from each of

the defendants for all the inquiries required by Rule 11. The district court did, however, obtain on

the record individual responses from the defendants when it asked them whether they understood

what they were being accused of doing, when it explained the potential penalty that the

defendants faced, and when it read the actual charges against each defendant. The district court

obtained an individual plea of guilty from Manzanares-Torres and obtained an individual response

from him regarding his agreement with the Government on a credit for his acceptance of

responsibility.

A guilty plea involves the waiver of several constitutional rights, and thus, it must be

intelligent and voluntary.2 Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 requires the district court to follow certain

procedures in determining whether a defendant’s guilty plea is made knowingly and voluntarily. 
 

3 United States v. Johnson, 1 F.3d 296, 298 (5th Cir. 1993) (en banc).

 

4 See id.

3

We employ a two-part “harmless error” analysis to determine whether the district court has

complied with Rule 11: (1) whether the sentencing court varied from the procedures required by

Rule 11; and (2) if so, whether such variance affected the defendant’s substantial rights.3 In the

instant case, Manzanares-Torres does not contend that the district court varied from the

procedures required by Rule 11. He does not contend that his plea was not voluntary. He does

not contend that he did not understand the proceedings or a specific right he was waiving. He

does not contend that he did not understand the nature of the charge or the potential sentence he

faced. Manzanares-Torres contends only that the record of the rearraignment proceedings is

insufficient for this court to determine whether he understood the rights he was waiving. Our

review of the instant Rule 11 colloquy does not reveal a variance in the procedures required by

Rule 11 that affected Manzanares-Torres’s substantial rights.4 Manzanares-Torres has therefore

failed to identify any error, harmless or otherwise, in the Rule 11 proceedings conducted by the

district court.

AFFIRMED.