Opinion ID: 3190891
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motion to Dismiss or Withdraw Plea

Text: On March 19, 2013, Martínez-Hernández, through Rivera, filed a motion to dismiss or withdraw his guilty plea. Though the motion would have been timely if filed under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35, the motion did not purport to be filed under Rule 35, nor did it meet the rule's other requirements. On appeal, Martínez-Hernández tries to recharacterize the motion and says it was a Motion for Reconsideration of the court's earlier ruling that no conflict of interest arose out of counsel's involvement with case 01-379. In the motion, Martínez-Hernández stated that Torres had not informed him or the court of a potential conflict of interest stemming from her participation as a supervising U.S. Attorney in the prosecution of one of the Indictments filed against the defendant and that the prosecution failed to notify the Court and the Defendant that Counsel was the prosecuting attorney of - 10 - record in one of the cases bargained away as part of the plea agreement reached in this case. The case with which MartínezHernández claims Torres was involved had been disposed of by the plea and dismissed on August 28, 2012, prior to sentencing. Martínez-Hernández filed a notice of appeal5 on the same day he filed his motion to dismiss or withdraw his guilty plea. The government opposed the motion on May 7, 2013, arguing on the merits that the February 2005 and February 2007 motions were the only instances in which Torres had appeared in relation to case 01-379. The government said that there is no evidence to suggest that Attorney Torres had any involvement with these cases while employed by the USAO, and therefore, there can be no conflict of interest implicit in her representation of the defendant. In addition, on May 9, 2013, attorneys Castro and Torres filed informative motions explaining the history of their legal 5 This appeal was docketed as Court of Appeals docket number 13-1450. Martínez-Hernández then asked this court to hold his appeal in abeyance while the district court ruled on his pending motion. After we denied his motion to hold his appeal in abeyance, Martínez-Hernández filed a motion to reconsider, which we granted, holding the 13-1450 appeal in abeyance pending the district court's ruling on his post-judgment motion. In a September 12, 2013, order, responding to the motion to reconsider, we wrote, [c]onstruing appellant's post-judgment motion filed in the district court on March 19, 2013 as a timely motion for rehearing or reconsideration, it would appear that that motion rendered appellant's judgment of conviction non-final and, thus, suspended the running of the appeal period . . . . This order was making an assumption for purposes of holding an appeal in abeyance, not making a ruling on whether the March 19, 2013, motion was an appropriate motion for reconsideration. - 11 - representation of Martínez-Hernández, as described earlier. Unfortunately, the government did not argue that the so-called Motion to Dismiss or Withdraw Plea did not comply with Rule 35 or that a motion to withdraw a plea could be made after sentencing only through direct appeal or collateral attack. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(e). On May 10, 2013, Rivera filed a motion to withdraw his appearance because the defendant's family will be retaining a new counsel. Attorney Rafael F. Castro Lang filed a notice of appearance on June 7, 2013, and is counsel on this appeal.