Rodriguez v. United States
| Decision Date | 13 December 2017 |
| Docket Number | 94 Cr. 313 (CSH),14 Civ. 4628 (CSH),14 Civ. 4846 (CSH) |
| Parties | JAIME RODRIGUEZ, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. STEVEN CAMACHO, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
MEMORANDUM AND OPINION ON PETITIONS FOR HABEAS CORPUS
Jaime Rodriguez and Steven Camacho (collectively "Petitioners") are currently in federal custody following their conviction on criminal charges in this Court. They have filed timely petitions for habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Respondent United States of America opposes the petitions. This opinion resolves them.
In May 1994, a grand jury in this District returned a 73-count indictment, 94 Cr. 313, charging 17 individuals, including Petitioners, with, among other crimes, participating in a racketeering enterprise called "C&C," in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961 and 1962(c). As the complex multi-defendant case went forward, the ranks of defendants were thinned by individual guilty pleas and cooperation agreements. The indictment was superseded repeatedly.
As described in the indictment, in the early 1990s C&C was a violent organization that sold its own brand of heroin in a several-block-square section of the Bronx, New York City, and also extorted "rent" from other drug dealers wishing to sell heroin in C&C's territory. C&C employed a security force which patrolled the affected neighborhood, protected the organization's affiliated heroin dealers, and enforced the rules set by C&C's leaders and namesakes: George Calderon and Angel Padilla , a/k/a "Cuson." The present Petitioners, Steven Camacho and Jaime Rodriguez, were at the pertinent times young men residing in New York City, engaged in the drug-trafficking business, who obtained Calderon's permission to sell heroin in C&C's controlled territory, in exchange for a down payment and weekly rent payments.
In the spring of 1992, Calderon and Padilla had a falling out, which led to the murder of Calderon, arranged by Padilla. C&C continued its organizational activities in the Bronx, during a time of understandable unrest. In September 1992, Padilla was arrested by the NYPD and detained. While in prison, Padilla continued to receive payments from C&C. The day-to-day operations of the organization were directed by others. As noted, the grand jury's eventual indictment included Rodriguez and Camacho among the 17 C&C-involved defendants.
Ultimately the Court severed the government's case against Camacho and Rodriguez for trialon specified counts. 939 F. Supp. 203 (S.D.N.Y. 1996). While the initial indictment charged Padilla and 16 other defendants with a broad range of criminal activities during the course of the C&C organization's existence, the government's superseding indictment against Camacho and Rodriguez focused upon events occurring on a Bronx street during the night of January 2, 1993. The indictment charged five counts against each Petitioner: conspiring to murder Hector Ocasio, a/k/a "Neno"; murdering Ocasio; murdering Gilberto Garcia, a/k/a "Tablon"; attempting to murder Luis Garcia (each of these four counts allegedly in aid of a violent drug-trafficking criminal enterprise called "C&C"); and using and carrying firearms during and in relation to the crimes charged in the first four counts. The first four counts alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1959. The fifth count alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. §924(c). The government's theory, which it undertook to prove at trial, was that Ocasio, in charge of collecting C&C rent revenues and paying the C&C security force, had fallen out of favor with other C&C employees, and Camacho and Rodriguez participated in Ocasio's murder (and the concurrent shootings of others) in exchange for payment by C&C and in hopes of improving their own standing in the organization.
Trial commenced on June 3, 1996. On June 26, the jury returned a verdict convicting each Petitioner on each of these counts.1 The jury indicated in its verdict form that it convicted the Petitioners on the specific charges of committing these crimes of violence to further and in aid of the C&C criminal enterprise.
This Court denied Petitioners' post-trial motions to set aside the verdict, to enter a judgment of acquittal, or to obtain a new trial. 1998 WL 472844 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 10, 1998). Prior tosentencing, Petitioners filed a second motion for a new trial, contending principally that a government trial witness, Gregory Cherry, had made out-of-court statements exculpatory of Petitioners. Petitioners sought judicial immunity for Cherry, which the government had denied, so that Cherry could provide that testimony. The Court denied that motion. 1999 WL 1084229 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 1, 1999). The Court sentenced Rodriguez on April 11, 2000, and sentenced Camacho on June 19, 2000. Each Petitioner was sentenced to an aggregate term of life plus five years' imprisonment. In accordance with the governing sentencing law at that time, the Court regarded the United States Sentencing Guidelines as mandatory. Each Petitioner filed a timely notice of appeal.
While Petitioners' appeals were pending, they moved in this Court for a new trial under Fed. R. Crim. P. 33 on the basis of newly discovered evidence, which focused again upon statements ascribed to Cherry. After an evidentiary hearing, this Court granted that motion. 188 F. Supp. 2d 429 (S.D.N.Y. 2002). The government moved for reconsideration, in light of further evidence calling into question the basis for the Court's earlier holding. Upon reconsideration, this Court vacated its earlier grant of a new trial. 353 F. Supp. 2d 524 (S.D.N.Y. 2005). Petitioners added an appeal of that ruling to their appeal from their underlying convictions.
The Second Circuit ruled on those appeals in a summary order reported at 187 F. App'x 30 (2d Cir. June 12, 2006), the first of its two decisions in the case ("Camacho I"). Camacho I affirmed the judgments as to the convictions of Petitioners, affirmed this Court's ultimate order denying Petitioners' motion for a new trial, and remanded the case to this Court "pursuant to United States v. Crosby, 397 F.3d [103,] 119 [(2d Cir. 2005)], for the limited purpose of affording the district court an opportunity to consider whether to resentence the defendants." 187 F. App'x at 36. In thatregard, the Second Circuit said that Id. at 35 (citing Crosby, 397 F.3d at 119). The remand was required because subsequent Supreme Court cases established that the Guidelines were advisory, not mandatory.
On remand, Petitioners renewed their initial motion for a new trial, relying on additional newly obtained evidence. I denied that motion, 586 F. Supp. 2d 208 (S.D.N.Y. 2008), and subsequently resentenced Petitioners pursuant to the Crosby remand. This Court sentenced each Petitioner to a 30-year aggregate term of imprisonment, to be followed by five years' supervised release. Petitioners appealed again to the Second Circuit, both from the denial of their renewed Rule 33 motion for a new trial and from the sentences imposed. In a summary order reported at 511 F. App'x 8 (2d Cir. 2013) ("Camacho II"), the court of appeals held that "the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendants' motion for reconsideration" of their new trial request, id. at 11, and upheld the sentences imposed by this Court. Camacho and Rodriguez are currently serving those sentences.
Petitioners filed writs of certiorari with respect to the Second Circuit's decision in Camacho II. The Supreme Court denied the writs on June 10, 2013. 133 S. Ct. 2815 (2013). Petitioners filed the present separate petitions on June 6, 2014. Those filings were timely under the governing law. The petition on behalf of Jaime Rodriguez bears docket number 14 Civ. 4628. The petition on behalf of Steven Camacho bears docket number 14 Civ. 4846. The petitions seek habeas corpus relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The briefs and exhibits in support of the petitions are filedjointly, on behalf of both petitioners. The government opposes both petitions in a single brief.2
Petitioners invoke the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The statute provides in pertinent part that a prisoner in federal custody "claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States . . . may move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence." 28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). In the case at bar, the Petitioners contend that their convictions are flawed by the government's violations of two Amendments to the Constitution: the Fifth and the Sixth.
The Petitioners' 146-page Main Brief asserts these three grounds for habeas relief:
"GROUND ONE: The Government's Pattern of Prosecutorial Misconduct Violated Petitioners' Fifth Amendment Due Process Rights." Main Brief for Petitioners ("M.B.") at 12. As this caption indicates, the first ground for habeas relief is rooted in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
"GROUND TWO: Ineffective Assistance of Trial Counsel." Id. at 76.
"GROUND THREE: Ineffective Assistance of Appellate Counsel." Id. at 132. The latter two grounds for habeas relief are rooted in the "Assistance of Counsel" Clause of the Sixth Amendment.
The briefs for Petitioners contain numerous criticisms of what prosecutors did, and defensecounsel failed to do, during the successive stages of the case: trial, post-trial motions, and direct appeal. Instances of perceived misconduct on the part of prosecutors are collected in Ground One of the petitions. The perceived failures in representation, by defense trial ...
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