Miranda-Gonzalez v. U.S., MIRANDA-GONZALE

• Citation: 181 F.3d 164
• Decision Date: 08 April 1999
• Docket Number: MIRANDA-GONZALE,P,No. 97-1200,97-1200
• Parties: (1st Cir. 1999) JESUSetitioner, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee. Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 164

181 F.3d 164 (1st Cir. 1999)

JESUS MIRANDA-GONZALEZ, Petitioner, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 97-1200

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

Heard April 8, 1999

Decided June 28, 1999

Rafael F. Castro-Lang for appellant.

Warren Vazquez, with whom Guillermo Gil, United States Attorney, Jorge E. Vega-Pacheco, Assistant United States Attorney, and Camille Velez-Rive, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief for appellee.

Before Boudin, Circuit Judge, Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge, and Lynch, Circuit Judge.

BOWNES, Senior Circuit Judge.

On April 5, 1993, Jesus Miranda-Gonzalez ("Miranda") pleaded guilty to one count of distributing cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1). The district court sentenced Miranda to a prison term of thirty-three months, followed by three years of supervised release, and a $ 5,000 fine.

Miranda subsequently filed a pro se motion seeking to vacate his plea under 28 U.S.C. 2255, which was later supplemented with a more detailed memorandum of law once he retained counsel. In these documents, Miranda maintained, inter alia, that he did not voluntarily and intelligently plead guilty because he was under the influence of certain prescription drugs at the time. In the alternative, he argued that his answers during the plea colloquy were so incoherent that they should have alerted the judge to postpone the plea and order a psychiatric evaluation.

The motion was referred to a magistrate judge, who, after conducting an extensive hearing, recommended that it be denied. The district court adopted the magistrate's findings and recommendations in their entirety and refused to grant the motion, ruling that Miranda had knowingly and intelligently entered his guilty plea. This appeal followed.

Because entering a guilty plea is a solemn act involving the waiver of several constitutional rights, principles of due process require that a plea "amount to a voluntary and 'intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.'" United States v. Cotal-Crespo, 47 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 1995) (citation omitted). Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure sets forth a detailed procedure for accepting a guilty plea to ensure that a defendant who pleads guilty does so with "an understanding of the nature of the charge and the consequences of his plea." Id. (quoting McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 467, 22 L. Ed. 2d 418, 89 S. Ct. 1166 (1969)).

A defendant who pleads guilty to an offense and later attempts to wipe the slate clean bears a heavy burden, for he "possesses no absolute right to retract his plea." United States v. Pellerito, 878 F.2d 1535, 1537 (1st Cir. 1989). A guilty plea will not be set aside where a defendant has had a change of heart simply because he now believes the case against him has become weaker or because he is not satisfied with the sentence he has received. When, as now, a defendant wishes to have his plea declared invalid due to his use of prescription medication or illicit drugs, "the mere fact that [he] took potentially mood-altering medication is not sufficient to vitiate his plea." Id. at 1542. Rather, he must show "that the medication affected his rationality." Id. We review de novo the district court's legal conclusions in denying the 2255 motion, and we defer to any findings of fact unless clearly erroneous.

In United States v. Parra-Ibanez, 936 F.2d 588 (1st Cir. 1991), we imposed on district judges a duty to conduct a more searching inquiry into the contemporaneous effects of medication on a defendant's ability to render a knowing and intelligent plea when they are alerted to the fact that a defendant has recently ingested drugs. Accord United States v. Cole, 813 F.2d 43, 46-47 (3d Cir. 1987). Confronted with a situation in which the district court ignored obvious signs of a possible mind-altering influence, we remanded the case for further factfinding by the district court as to the chemical properties of the medication and the defendant's particular medicinal regimen. See 936 F.2d at 598. Arguing that his guilty plea is similarly suspect, Miranda seeks to shoehorn his situation into our holding in Parra-Ibanez. But try as he might, it does not fit.

Unlike in Parra-Ibanez, once put on notice that Miranda had been taking Xanax and Ativan, the court here conducted an extended colloquy to ascertain Miranda's reasons for taking the medications, the frequency with which he took them, the dosage of each, and the effects of the drugs on his cognitive functions during the change of plea hearing:

THE COURT: Have you taken any medicine, pills, drugs or alcoholic beverages in the past 24 hours?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes. I'm taking Xanax and Ativan.

THE COURT: What's that for?

THE DEFENDANT: For my nerves so I can relax.

THE COURT: Now, when was the last time that you have these pills?

THE DEFENDANT: I take them in the morning and in the evening.

THE COURT: So last night you took these pills?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, this morning.

THE COURT: And this morning?

THE DEFENDANT: And this morning.

THE COURT: Now, this Ativan and Xanax, with "X", Xanax, that's an anthiolithic [sic], that is, to sort of calm your nerves, isn't it?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

THE COURT: And does that in any way cloud[] your thinking or put[] you drowsy or make[] you drowsy or in any way impair your mental process?

THE DEFENDANT: Sometimes I have blackouts.

THE COURT: But now let me -- let's talk about now, today, now. You took those pills this morning, and my question to you is whether those pills have in any way affected your capability or ability to understand today's proceedings.

THE DEFENDANT: No.

THE COURT: They don't affect you? You have to voice your answer.

THE DEFENDANT: No, no, no.

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