U.S. v. Arredondo, 02-1394.
| Decision Date | 13 November 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-1394.,02-1394. |
| Citation | 349 F.3d 310 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ricardo ARREDONDO, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
James A. Brunson (argued and briefed), Assistant United States Attorney, Bay City, MI, for Appellee.
Kevin M. Schad (argued and briefed), Schad & Cook, Indian Springs, OH, for Appellant. James A. Brunson, Assistant United States Attorney, Bay City, MI, for Appellee.
Before BOGGS, Chief Judge; and KRUPANSKY and CLAY, Circuit Judges.
The district court held Ricardo Arredondo in criminal contempt of court after finding that he gave fabricated evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel to support his petition for postconviction relief from a federal sentence for drug trafficking. Mr. Arredondo appeals from this contempt conviction and from the district court's accompanying denial of relief from his drug sentence. For the reasons explained below, we reverse the conviction for contempt but affirm the denial of postconviction relief.
Arredondo was convicted in 1990 of three counts of distribution of heroin and conspiracy to distribute heroin, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 1996, with the assistance of another inmate, he filed a pro se petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 seeking relief from the sentence. As relevant here, the petition asserted that his appointed attorney, Thomas Plachta, provided constitutionally ineffective representation at sentencing by failing to communicate two alleged government plea offers to Arredondo for approval. Arredondo claims he would have accepted either of the offers if given the chance, and would thereby have obtained a lighter sentence than the one imposed on him. However, he stated, Plachta "never advised [him] of any Plea Offer."
Arredondo's trial judge had fixed a pretrial deadline of August 27, 1990, after which no plea offers could be extended. It is undisputed that Assistant United States Attorney Michael Hluchaniuk made one plea offer to Plachta before this deadline, which would have involved a recommended sentence of five to ten years, and that Plachta rejected this offer. The disputed issue regarding this offer is whether Plachta first communicated it to Arredondo for approval.
Arredondo's petition further alleged that Hluchaniuk made a second offer of a ten-year sentence to Plachta on the day of trial, and that Plachta also rejected this offer without conveying it to his client. Arredondo supported this allegation with two affidavits. One affiant, Maria Teneyuque, stated that her sister Mary Jane Dietrich (a material witness in Arredondo's trial) had overheard Plachta and Hluchaniuk discussing a plea before the trial. Arredondo also filed his own affidavit testifying that he had seen his lawyer talking with Hluchaniuk on the day of trial, and had seen Plachta shake his head "no."
Both Plachta and Hluchianiuk denied that any second offer was made. Plachta did not squarely deny Arredondo's claim that Plachta had failed to communicate the first offer. Instead, Plachta filed an affidavit stating that he could not specifically remember the events of that day, but that "my practice has always been to communicate any plea offer made by the prosecution to my client regardless of my personal view as to the merits of the offer."
The district court denied Arredondo's Section 2255 petition without an evidentiary hearing. Arredondo then retained a different inmate paralegal to assist him and filed a pro se motion for reconsideration of the denial, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e). This motion was accompanied by a new affidavit from Arredondo that included new allegations: that Arredondo had himself heard some snippets of the alleged plea conversation between Plachta and Hluchaniuk on the day of trial, including a reference to a ten-year sentence. In this affidavit, Arredondo stated that he had seen the prosecutor shake his head "no." The new affidavit also alleged that Plachta "advised" Arredondo "in words" on the day of trial that he had rejected a government plea offer, in tension with the statement in the earlier affidavit that Plachta had "never advised" him of any offer. However, in the same paragraph of the second affidavit, Arredondo affirmed that Plachta never "made [Arredondo] aware" of a plea offer prior to trial. It is thus fairly clear that by "made aware" Arredondo meant communicating the offer before rejecting it. The district court denied the motion for reconsideration and Arredondo appealed to this court.
We reversed in part and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on the petition. Arredondo v. United States, 178 F.3d 778 (6th Cir.1999). We agreed with the district court that Arredondo was not entitled to a hearing on his allegations concerning the supposed second plea offer.1 Id. at 782-83 & n. 3. However, we held that he was entitled to a hearing on the circumstances surrounding the first plea offer. Id. at 789.2
In closing, we noted that the inconsistent accounts in the affidavits of Plachta, Hluchaniuk, and Arredondo suggested that someone was not telling the truth:
Arredondo has lodged serious claims that attack his attorney's professional competence. If true, his petition deserves our attention.... If false, Arredondo has
lied in a self-interested endeavor that could have caused unwarranted discipline of his attorney. The courts should not encourage such actions by refusing to punish demonstrably false claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.
The district court held an evidentiary hearing on Arredondo's petition on January 13, 2000. Arredondo repeated in court the allegations of his second affidavit: Plachta had failed to secure his client's permission to reject two plea offers, and Arredondo had personally heard fragments of the discussion concerning the second offer being discussed. Assistant United States Attorney Hluchaniuk again testified that he made one plea offer to Plachta prior to the court deadline, but no second offer. Plachta testified that he did not specifically recall the plea discussions in Arredondo's case, but that it was always his practice to pass on such offers to his clients for approval.
The district court denied Arredondo's Section 2255 petition. It rejected his testimony about the existence of the second plea offer and about Plachta's handling of the first offer.3 The court went further, ordering a hearing on whether Arredondo had committed criminal contempt of court by knowingly offering false evidence to support his petition.
After briefing and a hearing on the contempt issue, pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 42(a),4 the court found Arredondo guilty of criminal contempt and imposed a sentence of six months in prison, consecutive to his prior sentence, and a $3,000 fine. The court found that Arredondo had engaged in a series of fabrications. It noted that Arredondo's story had changed materially from his first affidavit to his second one: after the district court rejected the Teneyuque affidavit as hearsay, Arredondo introduced an assertion that he had heard part of the day-of-trial plea discussion, without explaining why this seemingly important fact was not included in his first affidavit. The court concluded that Arredondo's second affidavit had "learned" from the testimony that had come to light, suggesting a deliberate fabrication. The court deemed the affidavit particularly incredible in light of Hluchaniuk's denial of making any second plea offer. It also discounted Arredondo's claim that Plachta failed to pass on the first plea offer. Drawing on its own knowledge of Plachta's "fastidious" work habits, the court found that he had duly passed on the first plea offer to Arredondo, and that Arredondo had simply fabricated his testimony to the contrary.
The district court went on to hold that the fabrications it identified had significantly obstructed the administration of justice, thereby amounting to a contempt of court. It described Arredondo's testimony as involving "egregious," "blatant," and "transparently false" perjuries. It also noted that the perjured allegations of misconduct were integral to Arredondo's Section 2255 petition — the postconviction litigation, which had consumed a significant amount of judicial and public resources, had been founded chiefly on falsehoods. Finally, the court reasoned that Arredondo's false testimony about Plachta had threatened to impose unwarranted professional discipline on an attorney, which also revealed a tendency to obstruct the administration of the justice system.
Arredondo timely appealed from the contempt conviction and the denial of postconviction relief.
We find no basis for disturbing the district court's factual findings that Arredondo willfully fabricated the allegations about Plachta's misconduct in his affidavit and oral testimony. The record plainly supports the finding that Arredondo's statements about the alleged second plea offer were willfully false; indeed, Arredondo has not meaningfully challenged this conclusion. However, Arredondo does contest the finding that he lied about Plachta's failing to pass on the first plea offer. While the evidence for this conclusion was controverted, it was sufficient to support the district court's finding. Plachta testified that he always passed on plea offers to clients. He had already represented five to fifteen criminal defendants in federal court at the time of Arredondo's trial, and had undertaken more representations since then. In light of Plachta's experience, his habit testimony was admissible under Fed.R.Evid. 406 to show that he acted in conformity with that habit in this case.5 We cannot say the district court's decision to credit Plachta's testimony about the first plea offer and its finding that Arredondo willfully fabricated his contrary testimony were clearly erroneous especially in light of...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
U.S. v. Rangolan
...as the adjoining hallway or the jury room.") (citing Nye, 313 U.S. at 48-49, 61 S.Ct. 810). See also, e.g., United States v. Arredondo, 349 F.3d 310, 316 n.6 (6th Cir. 2003) (noting that Nye imposed geographic limitations on direct contempts); Crispo, 306 F.3d at 80 (same); Waste Conversion......
-
United States v. Farah
...946 F.2d 50, 52 (7th Cir.1991)).3 “[F]alse testimony alone, whether written or oral, will not amount to contempt of court,” Arredondo, 349 F.3d at 318 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted), but a “contumacious silence” that disrupts the progress of a trial will, U.S. v. Wilson, 4......
- Balmer v. Hca, Inc.
-
Fecho v. Eli Lilly & Co.
...practicing in the Hazleton area. 13. Although the testimony of the habit bearer would also suffice, see, e.g., United States v. Arredondo, 349 F.3d 310, 315 (6th Cir.2003), Dr. Bonacci died in the mid–1980s. 14. With respect to the lay opinion of the standard medical practice in Hazleton (D......
-
Trials
...contempt sanction inappropriate because absence from deposition and hearing did not occur in presence of court); U.S. v. Arredondo, 349 F.3d 310, 318-19 (6th Cir. 2003) (summary criminal contempt sanction inappropriate because defendant’s knowingly false testimony did not interfere with adm......
-
§ 12.02 Habit and Character Distinguished
..."habitual seat belt use" over numerous years).[13] 338 F.2d 265 (D.C. Cir. 1964).[14] Id. at 272.[15] E.g., United States v. Arredondo, 349 F.3d 310, 315 (6th Cir. 2003) ("[A]ttorney Plachta testified that he always passed on plea offers to clients. He had already represented five to fiftee......
-
§ 12.02 HABIT AND CHARACTER DISTINGUISHED
..."habitual seat belt use" over numerous years).[13] 338 F.2d 265 (D.C. Cir. 1964).[14] Id. at 272.[15] E.g., United States v. Arredondo, 349 F.3d 310, 315 (6th Cir. 2003) ("[A]ttorney Plachta testified that he always passed on plea offers to clients. He had already represented five to fiftee......