United States v. Williams
| Decision Date | 23 September 2013 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 11–4826–cr. |
| Citation | 733 F.3d 448 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Glenford E. WILLIAMS, aka Sealed Defendant 1, aka Glenford Emmanuel Williams, aka Glenford Williams, aka Glenford Brookes, Defendant–Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Andrea L. Surratt (Brian A. Jacobs, on the brief), Assistant United States Attorneys, for Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, N.Y., for Appellee.
Yuanchung Lee, Federal Defenders of New York, New York, N.Y., for Defendant–Appellant.
Before: SACK, CHIN, AND LOHIER, Circuit Judges.
Glenford Williams had been deported 1 from the United States in September of 1996 by order of the then-United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) 2 following a conviction for the commission of an aggravated felony under New York state law. Until his deportation, Williams, a citizen of St. Kitts, had been a lawful resident of the United States. He returned to the United States shortly after and was arrested in 1999 for an unrelated offense.
Under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), any person who has been deported and “thereafter ... enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States” is guilty of illegal reentry. Although the INS learned of his 1999 arrest in 2002, Williams was not arrested for illegal reentry until 2010. Williams argues that he was “found in” the United States in 2002 and that the five-year statute of limitations then began to run on his reentry offense and had expired by the time of his 2010 arrest and indictment. He separately argues that, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d), the assistance of counsel provided at the deportation hearings underlying his 1996 deportation was ineffective.
The facts leading up to Williams's deportation, and ultimately to this appeal of his illegal reentry conviction, are as follows:
Travel to U.S.
Williams was born in St. Christopher and Nevis, known more commonly as St. Kitts,3 in the British West Indies, in 1956. He came to the United States at age seventeen. He became a lawful resident in 1983 upon marrying an American citizen. They had three children together.
In September 1989, after entering into a cooperation agreement with the government, Williams was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Maine of conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. Williams was sentenced principally to 27 months' imprisonment, which was at the bottom of the Guidelines range.
As a result of Williams's conviction, the INS initiated removal proceedings against him. An Immigration Judge (“IJ”) ordered that Williams be deported, which he was on September 13, 1996. Shortly thereafter, though, he surreptitiously returned to the United States.
On February 7, 1999, Williams was arrested by the New York Police Department (“NYPD”) in Manhattan for driving with a forged license. He was arraigned on February 8, 1999, and released on his own recognizance. On March 2, 1999, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. The NYPD tried on March 8 and June 11, 1999, to locate Williams in order to arrest him, but was unsuccessful.
Williams went to the Department of Motor Vehicles shortly after his arrest, on February 17, 1999, to reinstate his driver's license, and avers that he believed—erroneously, he admits—that in light of his actions to reinstate his license, the case against him had been resolved. Williams also asserts that from 1999 through 2010, he “lived continuously, openly, and under his true identity” in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Appellant's Br. at 19.
In February of 2002, a law enforcement specialist with the INS learned of Williams's 1999 arrest in the United States, which, as is evident, took place nearly three years after he was deported. The specialist acquired this information through a process known as “validation,” which involves periodic updating of the National Crime Information Center database. The government acknowledges that the documents in Williams's file reflect that it was validated on February 17, 2002, and therefore contained information about his 1999 arrest.
According to the government, there are about twenty specialists who perform validation on approximately 280,000 records each year. It was standard procedure at the time for an officer, upon discovering records of an arrest, to forward the information to an INS agent for review. The INS agent would then typically determine whether to forward the information to a field office for investigation and, potentially, prosecution. There is no evidence in the record that the information uncovered about Williams's 1999 arrest was forwarded pursuant to this process.
The record reflects that no attempt was made to locate Williams until Autumn 2010. Then, Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) officials arrested approximately 100 deported persons in what was termed as “Sweeps Week.” At that point, an ICE officer conducted a search of public databases that showed that Williams had been in a traffic accident in 2008 and revealed evidence of several summonses for parking violations directed to Williams between 2008 and 2010. The databases contained possible addresses for Williams. Williams was apprehended at one of these addresses in the Bronx in November 2010. He was indicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and charged with illegal reentry in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a)(2) and (b)(2).
Williams moved to dismiss the indictment, challenging it on two grounds. First, in light of the fact that a five-year limitations period governs an illegal reentry offense, 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a), Williams argued that the statute of limitations had run. He argued that his crime was completed for limitations purposes in 2002 when the INS validation process revealed that he was arrested in the United States in 1999, thereby placing his 2010 arrest and indictment well outside of the five-year limitations period.
The government responded that the offense had not been completed because immigration authorities did not locate Williams in 2002, at which time it had evidence only of his general whereabouts three years before, and that he had therefore not been “found in” the United States at the time. The government also argued that even if the statute of limitations had begun to run in 2002, the statute was tolled until Williams's arrest in 2010 because Williams was fleeing from justice within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 3290.
Second, Williams collaterally attacked his 1996 deportation order, arguing that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at the deportation proceeding. Williams based this attack in part on the fact that his counsel failed to highlight to the IJ the extent to which Williams had cooperated with the government in connection with his 1989 drug conviction.
The government opposed this claim, too, arguing that Williams had not been prejudiced by his counsel's error because, among other things, the IJ had copies of records, including the Presentence Report, containing descriptions of the extent of Williams's cooperation in the case and the IJ referred generally to those records.
On August 5, 2011, the district court (P. Kevin Castel, Judge ) issued an unpublished memorandum and order denying Williams's motion. See United States v. Williams, No. 10–cr–1081 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 5, 2011). The district court concluded that the statute of limitations had been tolled under 18 U.S.C. § 3290 because Williams had been fleeing from justice. Id., slip op. at 6. The district court based this conclusion on, among other things, the fact that after Williams's 1999 arrest, he failed to make contact with law enforcement authorities or make an appearance to resolve the charges against him. Id.
The district court also concluded that Williams had not demonstrated that his immigration counsel provided ineffective assistance in the deportation hearings. Id. at 7–10. The court concluded that Williams's cooperation had been raised before the IJ because the Presentence Report was cited by counsel in the proceeding and read into the record. Id. at 9–10. Williams therefore could not demonstrate prejudice arising from his counsel's alleged ineffectiveness.
On September 20, 2011, the district court conducted a bench trial based on stipulated facts concerning Williams's 1989 drug conviction, 1996 deportation, 1999 traffic arrest, and 2010 illegal reentry arrest. The court found Williams guilty of illegal reentry pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a)(2) and (b)(2).
On November 10, 2011, the district court sentenced Williams principally to 24 months' imprisonment.
Williams appeals.
Interpretations of statutes are pure questions of law, and we therefore review de novo Williams's claim that he was “found in” the United States in 2002 within the meaning of sections 1326(a) and (b)(2). United States v. Delis, 558 F.3d 177, 180 (2d Cir.2009).
With regard to Williams's section 1326(d) ineffective assistance claim, we review the district court's factual findings for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. United States v. Cerna, 603 F.3d 32, 39 (2d Cir.2010).
Under section 1326(a), any person who has been deported and “thereafter ... enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in, the United States” is guilty of illegal reentry. The issue on this appeal is when Williams's offense of being “found in” the United States was completed and, based upon that date, whether the statute of limitations had run at the time of his 2010 arrest.
Williams's illegal reentry offense is governed by the five-year statute of...
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