Federal Defenders of New York Second Circuit Blog

plea allocution

Court reporter’s inability to provide a complete transcript of the guilty plea allocution does not, in itself, warrant vacating a guilty plea.

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United States v. Jiamez-Dolores, et al., No. 14-1840(L), 14-1842 (CON) (Circuit Judges:  Hall, Lynch, Chin). In addition to today’s decision in Elvin Hill, the Circuit also issued this Opinion in United States v. Jiamez-Dolores, et al. Incomplete transcript of the guilty plea.   Here, only a partial transcript of the Rule 11 colloquy was produced by … Read more

Money Disorder

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United States v. Garcia, No. 08-1621-cr (2d Cir. December 1, 2009) (Jacobs, Sack, Lynch, CJJ) In Cuellar v. United States, 128 S.Ct. 1994 (2008), the Court held that, for the crime of transportation money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i), the government most prove more than that the money was hidden during its transportation. Rather, … Read more

For Your Consideration

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United States v. Hardwick, No. 04-1369-cr (2d Cir. April 11, 2008) (Winter, Walker, Sotomayor, CJJ) Glen Hardwick was convicted after a jury trial of conspiracy to commit and aiding/abetting murder-for-hire in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1958. Virtually all of the evidence of the “consideration” element of the offense came from the plea allocution of … Read more

“Might” Makes Right

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United States v. Zhang, No. 05-6662-pr (2d Cir. October 23, 2007) (Winter, Cabranes, CJJ, Korman, DJ) During a plea allocution, advising a defendant that he might be deported was good enough, even though ICE believed that deportation was mandatory. Zhang, a chemist, manufactured and sold an illegal bodybuilding supplement, DNP. One of his customers died … Read more

Crawford’s Eleven

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United States v. Becker, Docket No. 06-1274-cr (2d Cir. September 13, 2007) (Calabresi, Parker, Wesley, CJJ) At Becker’s stock fraud trial, the government introduced into evidence the plea allocutions of eleven (yes, eleven) of his co-defendants, supposedly for the “limited purpose” of establishing that the conspiracy charged in the indictment existed. The Circuit concluded that … Read more