U.S. v. Mastrapa

• Decision Date: 12 December 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-4512.,06-4512.
• Citation: 509 F.3d 652
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jose Alejandro MASTRAPA, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

509 F.3d 652

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jose Alejandro MASTRAPA, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 06-4512.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: September 28, 2007.

Decided: December 12, 2007.

ARGUED: Neal Lawrence Walters, Scott & Kroner, P.C., Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Jean Barrett Hudson, Office of the United States Attorney, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: David I. McCaskey, Staunton, Virginia; Michael Castiglione, Third Year Law Student, Matthew Dunne, Third Year Law Student, University of Virginia School of Law, Appellate Litigation Clinic, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. John L. Brownlee, United States Attorney, Roanoke, Virginia, Ray B. Fitzgerald, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before NIEMEYER and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and T.S. ELLIS, III, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge NIEMEYER wrote the opinion, in which Judge DUNCAN and Senior Judge ELLIS joined.

OPINION

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

After Jose Alejandro Mastrapa agreed with two other men to transport several bags of groceries to a hotel room in Shenandoah County, Virginia, undercover agents in the hotel found five pounds of methamphetamine among the groceries and arrested Mastrapa along with the two others. Mastrapa claimed that he had agreed to give the two men a ride and help carry their grocery bags but that he did not know them or what they were doing. Nonetheless, claiming that he hoped to minimize his sentence, Mastrapa pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 841(a)(1). At his Rule 11 colloquy, however, Mastrapa refused, despite questioning by the district court, to admit to the factual basis necessary to support the charges against him, and the record included no evidence of Mastrapa's mens rea. The district court nonetheless proceeded to accept Mastrapa's guilty plea and sentenced him to 120 months' imprisonment.

Because we conclude that Mastrapa did not admit the necessary mens rea before entering his plea and the record contained no factual basis to support that element of the offense, we vacate the judgment entered on May 8, 2006, and remand for a new Rule 11 proceeding.

I

Through a confidential source, the Drug Enforcement Agency ("DEA") made an undercover purchase of slightly less than one pound of methamphetamine on June 3, 2005, from Dany Vladir Medina-Lovos ("Lovos") and Fidel Angel Chicas-Hernandez ("Hernandez"). After completing that transaction, the confidential source sought to arrange another purchase for 15 pounds of methamphetamine from the two men. On June 27, 2005, Lovos called the confidential source and said that he could obtain five pounds, which he would sell for $50,000, and that if that deal went well, he would later obtain the additional ten pounds. The confidential source agreed, and thereupon the two arranged a transaction for the five pounds the next day — June 28, 2005 — in a hotel room in Shenandoah County, Virginia.

On June 28, shortly before the transaction, Lovos called the confidential source and told him that "they" would be arriving in two separate vehicles, one of which would contain the drugs and would be driven by his "cousin." Lovos explained that he wanted to use two vehicles so that he could arrange to see the money before delivering the drugs. Lovos and Hernandez arrived at the hotel in a blue Honda and met with the confidential source for the purpose of seeing the money. When the confidential source refused to show Lovos and Hernandez the money until he had seen the drugs, Hernandez left in the blue Honda, leaving Lovos at the hotel room, and drove to a Burger King parking lot, where the defendant Mastrapa was parked in a brown Ford van loaded with several grocery bags. Hernandez summoned Mastrapa and the two drove back to the hotel in the two vehicles. Hernandez and Mastrapa then carried the grocery bags from Mastrapa's van into the hotel room. After the confidential source observed five pounds of methamphetamine in the grocery bags, Lovos, Hernandez, and Mastrapa were arrested by law enforcement officers.

A grand jury indicted Mastrapa and the two others, as well as the later uncovered supplier of the methamphetamine, for conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(A), and Mastrapa and the two others for actually distributing 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing methamphetamine on June 28, 2005, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(A).

Shortly before trial, Mastrapa decided to plead guilty to the conspiracy count without a written plea agreement, as he understood that Lovos and Hernandez would be testifying against him, and the government agreed to dismiss the distribution count. A magistrate judge conducted the hearing at which Mastrapa was to tender the plea in accordance with Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11. Because Mastrapa was a political refugee of Cuba and neither spoke nor understood English, an interpreter was present to translate.

At the plea hearing, Mastrapa admitted to driving the brown Ford van and to carrying the grocery bags into the hotel room, but he stated that he had not, before June 28, known Lovos and Hernandez and that he did not know that anything was in the bags other than groceries. The magistrate judge, however, relied on an affidavit presented by a special agent of the DEA to find a factual basis for Mastrapa's plea. That affidavit stated that through surveillance Mastrapa was observed in the brown Ford van at the Burger King parking lot; that he drove the van to the hotel where the transaction was consummated; and that he helped carry several grocery bags from the van to the hotel room. There was no other statement in the affidavit about Mastrapa's involvement in the scheme or his knowledge of its true nature. On noting, however, that Mastrapa did not specifically object to these facts contained in the affidavit, the magistrate judge stated that he would recommend acceptance of the guilty plea. Several weeks later, the district judge accepted that recommendation without further inquiry, by order dated March 6, 2006.

At sentencing two months later, Mastrapa again stated that he pleaded guilty only to driving the van and to carrying the grocery bags into the hotel room but that he did not know Lovos or Hernandez or what they were about. Before proceeding with the sentencing, the court observed, "I guess this is an Alford plea," and Mastrapa's attorney responded that "that would be one way of presenting this, yes, sir." The district court then sentenced Mastrapa to the statutory minimum of 120 months' imprisonment. His counsel filed this appeal, submitting a brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967), and representing that after a "conscientious examination of the entire record . . . Mastrapa has no meritorious grounds for direct appeal of his conviction and sentence." His counsel did question, however, the sufficiency of the guilty plea's factual basis.

Concerned about the adequacy of the factual basis for the guilty plea, we invited the parties to submit supplemental briefs about the sufficiency of the Rule 11 proceeding and appointed the University of Virginia School of Law Appellate Litigation Clinic to file a brief on Mastrapa's behalf. The sole issue now presented is whether there was sufficient evidence in the record to provide a factual basis for Mastrapa's guilty plea, as required by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(b)(3).

II

For the first time on appeal, Mastrapa contends that "there was an insufficient factual basis in the record to support [his] guilty plea," claiming that there was "no evidence in the record that [he] knew he was carrying illegal drugs and thus knew he was participating in an illegal conspiracy." See Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(b)(3); United States v. DeFusco, 949 F.2d 114, 120 (4th Cir.1991). He requests that we notice and correct this error under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) by vacating the judgment and remanding for further Rule 11 proceedings.

The government contends — relying on the district court's wide discretion to determine whether a factual basis for a guilty plea existed and noting that its evidentiary burden was minimal — that because Mastrapa drove the brown Ford van, which was one of the two vehicles that Lovos had told the confidential source would be coming with the drugs, "the only rational inference is that Mastrapa had a role, and even a particularly trusted role, in the conspiracy from the beginning." Additionally, the government argues that the fact that the confidential source was able to identify the methamphetamine among the groceries in the grocery bags "supports the reasonable inference that Mastrapa knew that the bags contained drugs." The government thus asserts that the evidence showed that "more than a slight connection" existed between Mastrapa and the drug-trafficking conspiracy in which Lovos and Hernandez were concededly involved.

Because Mastrapa did not challenge the Rule 11 proceedings in the district court, we review his challenge now for plain error. See United States v. Martinez, 277 F.3d 517, 524-27 (4th Cir.2002). Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), "[a] plain error that affects substantial rights may be considered [on appeal] even though it was not brought to the [trial] court's attention," and we may correct a plain error that was material or affected the defendant's substantial rights if we conclude that the "error seriously affect [ed] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings."...