Court Opinion

ID: 9414635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 15:00:31.606258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:54.463023
License: Public Domain

22-420-cr
     United States v. Halliburton

                                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                        FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                            SUMMARY ORDER

     RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION
     TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS
     GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT=S
     LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH
     THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
     ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY
     CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT
     REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

 1           At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the
 2   Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the
 3   2nd day of August, two thousand twenty-three.
 4
 5   Present:
 6               DENNY CHIN,
 7               SUSAN L. CARNEY,
 8               EUNICE C. LEE,
 9                     Circuit Judges.
10   _____________________________________
11
12   UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
13
14                             Appellee,
15                    v.                                                   22-420-cr
16
17   KEITH HALLIBURTON,
18
19                     Defendant-Appellant. ∗
20   _______________________________
21
22   For Defendant-Appellant:                     Elizabeth Latif, Law Offices of Elizabeth A. Latif
23                                                PLLC, West Hartford, CT.
24
25   For Appellee:                                Kedar S. Bhatia, Jacob R. Fiddelman, and David
26                                                Abramowicz, Assistant United States Attorneys, Of
27                                                Counsel, for Damian Williams, United States Attorney
28                                                for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY.

     ∗
         The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the caption as set forth above.

                                                        1
 1          Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of

 2   New York (Rakoff, J.).

 3

 4          UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

 5   DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

 6          Defendant-appellant Keith Halliburton pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and to

 7   possess with intent to distribute mixtures and substances containing a detectable amount of heroin,

 8   in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 841(b)(1)(C), and was sentenced principally to 144 months

 9   in prison. On appeal, Halliburton argues that the district court erred by failing to establish a

10   factual basis for his guilty plea. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts,

11   procedural history, and arguments on appeal, which we discuss only as necessary to explain our

12   decision.

13          In July 2020, Halliburton contacted an undercover FBI agent, who was posing as a heroin

14   supplier, to purchase heroin.   After agreeing on a meeting time and location, Halliburton sent co-

15   defendant Jeremiah Young to procure the drugs from the undercover agent.        On August 7, 2020,

16   Young met with the agent and procured the sham heroin.       Shortly after, police pulled Young over

17   and arrested him.   Following his arrest, Young told the agents that he went to the meeting place

18   to recover heroin on Halliburton’s behalf.        Halliburton was subsequently arrested, and the

19   government charged him—and Young—with conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to

20   distribute at least one kilogram of heroin.    At his plea hearing on October 19, 2021, Halliburton

21   admitted guilt and described his conduct in his own words, stating that between July and August

22   2020, he “sent an individual to New York to pick up drugs,” including heroin, and knew that what

23   he was doing was “illegal and wrong.”         App’x at 35–36. After the plea hearing but prior to

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 1   sentencing, discovery materials produced by the government revealed that Young had previously

 2   been an FBI informant in matters unrelated to this case.

 3          Halliburton now argues, for the first time on appeal, that the district court erred because

 4   the record did not establish a factual basis for his guilty plea.    Specifically, Halliburton asserts

 5   that Young’s status as an FBI informant in other cases creates a factual issue as to whether a true

 6   conspiracy between Halliburton and Young existed in this case.        Halliburton argues that because

 7   the record “does not provide a sufficient factual basis to conclude that [] Halliburton conspired

 8   with a non-government cooperator,” his plea and sentence must be vacated.         Appellant’s Br. at 7.

 9          Halliburton did not identify this claimed error before the district court and thus we review

10   for plain error.    See United States v. Murphy, 942 F.3d 73, 84 (2d Cir. 2019).         To satisfy the

11   plain error standard, Halliburton must establish that “(1) there was error, (2) the error was plain,

12   . . . (3) the error prejudicially affected his substantial rights” and “(4) the error seriously affected

13   the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.”    United States v. Lloyd, 901

14   F.3d 111, 119 (2d Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).

15          Here, Halliburton claims that he meets the first prong of the plain error standard because

16   the record did not establish a factual basis for his plea.      Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure

17   11(b)(3) states that: “Before entering judgment on a guilty plea, the court must determine that there

18   is a factual basis for the plea.”   To do so, a court must “assure itself simply that the conduct to

19   which the defendant admits is in fact an offense under the statutory provision under which he is

20   pleading guilty.”    United States v. Garcia, 587 F.3d 509, 514 (2d Cir. 2009) (internal quotation

21   marks omitted).     Thus, “so long as the facts relied on are placed on the record at the time of the

22   plea, the district court, in determining whether there was a factual basis for the plea, is free to rely

23   on any facts at its disposal—not just the admissions of the defendant.”     United States v. Torrellas,

                                                        3
1    455 F.3d 96, 99 (2d Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted).     As relevant to Halliburton’s

2    appeal, conspiracy convictions require that there have been knowing agreement between at least

3    two culpable co-conspirators.     United States v. Carlton, 442 F.3d 802, 811 (2d Cir. 2006).     To

4    participate in a conspiracy, a co-conspirator cannot be acting as a government agent because “a

5    ‘person who enters into such an agreement while acting as an agent of the government, either

6    directly or as a confidential informant, lacks the criminal intent necessary to render him a bona

 7   fide co-conspirator.’”     Id. (quoting United States v. Vazquez, 113 F.3d 383, 387 (2d Cir. 1997)

 8   (emphasis in original)).

 9          Halliburton argues that, in light of Young’s history of being a government cooperator in

10   other cases, “[t]he record at the time of the plea did not establish that [Young] was not acting as

11   such during the conspiracy, and therefore, there was not a sufficient factual basis for the plea.”

12   Appellant’s Br. at 8–9. This argument is unpersuasive for three main reasons.        First, and most

13   importantly, the district court asked Halliburton at the plea proceeding to describe in his “own

14   words” what conduct made him “guilty of th[e] crime,” App’x at 35, and Halliburton responded

15   by saying that he “sent an individual to New York to pick up drugs,” including heroin.     Id. at 35–

16   36.   We have held that a defendant’s plea colloquy following the execution of a plea agreement

17   can provide a permissible source for ascertaining the factual basis for the plea, and Halliburton’s

18   admission did so here at least as to his own intent. See United States v. Smith, 160 F.3d 117, 121

19   n.2 (2d Cir. 1998).        Second, nothing in the record indicates that Young was acting as a

20   government agent when he drove to New York at Halliburton’s direction.                  Indeed, the

21   government expressly told Halliburton’s counsel that Young was not a cooperator in the charged

22   drug transaction.   See App’x at 90 (“Neither Young nor [Halliburton] gave the FBI contact prior

23   notice about the narcotics transaction charged in this case nor sought prior authorization to conduct

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1    the transaction.”).    Third and finally, Halliburton does not point to any Circuit caselaw that, in

2    the words of the government, would require district courts to “conduct a searching review that

3    identifies, considers, and rules out all possible defenses,” such as whether a co-conspirator has

4    previously cooperated. Appellee’s Br. at 20.            And, at a minimum, Halliburton fails to cite any

5    other precedent indicating that district courts plainly err when they rely on representations made

6    by defendants during plea colloquies.            For these reasons, the district court did not err in

7    concluding that the record established a factual basis for the plea, and thus Halliburton fails to

 8   meet the first prong of the plain error analysis, and we need not address the remaining plain error

 9   prongs. 1

10           We have considered Halliburton’s other arguments and find them to be without merit.

11   Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

12                                                               FOR THE COURT:
13                                                               Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk

     1
       It bears mentioning, however, that Halliburton does not address at all the fourth plain error prong—the
     effect of any error on the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the proceedings—in his opening brief.
     While he does so in his reply brief, it is “well-settled” that this Court “will not usually entertain an argument
     made for the first time in a reply brief.” United States v. Sampson, 898 F.3d 287, 314 (2d Cir. 2018).

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