United States v. Granados-Dominguez
| Decision Date | 17 May 2023 |
| Docket Number | PE:21-CR-00680-DC-DF-1,PE:22-CV-00047-DC-DF |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. RAMIRO ESTEBAN GRANADOS-DOMINGUEZ |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Texas |
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE U.S. MAGISTRATE JUDGE
BEFORE THE COURT is Defendant Ramiro Esteban Granados-Dominguez's (“Defendant”) Motion to Vacate Under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (hereafter, “Motion to Vacate”). (Doc. 39). This matter is before the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge through a standing order of referral pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636 and Appendix C of the Local Court Rules for the Assignment of Duties to United States Magistrate Judges. After due consideration, the undersigned RECOMMENDS that Defendant's Motion to Vacate be DENIED. (Doc. 39).
On July 8, 2021, Defendant was indicted on one count of violating 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (“INA”).[1] On August 6 2021, Defendant pleaded guilty without a plea agreement.[2] Defendant's retained counsel, Felix Valenzuela, filed a sentencing memorandum along with a Motion for Downward Departure or Variance prior to sentencing.[3] On November 23, 2021, Defendant was sentenced to 57 months of imprisonment with a 3-year period of supervised release.[4] Final judgment was entered on December 7 2021.[5] Defendant filed a notice of appeal to this Court's sentence on December 14, 2021.[6] The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed this Court's judgment in September 2022.[7]
Defendant filed pro se his Motion to Vacate on December 20, 2022.[8] The Government filed a Response on February 18, 2023.[9] Defendant has not filed any Reply. This case is now ripe for disposition.
Section 2255 permits an inmate serving a post-conviction sentence “to move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.”[10] Relief under § 2255 is limited to those “transgressions of constitutional rights and for a narrow range of injuries that could not have been raised on direct appeal and would, if condoned, result in a complete miscarriage of justice.”[11] A motion may be made under § 2255 on only four grounds: (1) “the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States”; (2) “the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence”; (3) “the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law”; or (4) the sentence is “otherwise subject to collateral attack.”[12] Thus, “[i]n the absence of constitutional or jurisdictional defects, a federal prisoner may invoke § 2255 only if the error constitutes ‘a fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice.'”[13]
Defendant states two grounds for his § 2255 claim. The first ground concerns ineffective assistance of counsel. Specifically, Defendant believes his counsel, Mr. Valenzuela, was ineffective because he failed to challenge his indictment as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Defendant's second ground relates to his conviction- he himself claims that the law pursuant to which he was convicted is discriminatory and violates his equal protection rights. For these errors, Defendant requests the Court dismiss his indictment and conviction.[14]
A. Necessity of an Evidentiary Hearing
The trial court must first conduct a preliminary review of the § 2255 motion, and “[i]f it plainly appears from the motion, any attached exhibits, and the record of the prior proceeding that the moving party is not entitled to relief, the judge must dismiss the motion.”[15] After the court reviews the Government's response and any transcripts of prior proceedings, the court must decide whether an evidentiary hearing is warranted.[16] An evidentiary hearing may be warranted if the petitioner “produce[s] independent indicia of the likely merit of his allegations.”[17] Thus, a § 2255 motion necessitates an evidentiary hearing “unless either (1) the movant's claims are clearly frivolous or based upon unsupported generalizations, or (2) the movant would not be entitled to relief as a matter of law, even if his factual assertions were true.”[18]
As will be discussed below, the undersigned finds that Defendant's Motion to Vacate can be decided entirely on the pleadings and evidence in the record. Although Defendant argues that his “evidence” indicates that § 1326 is unconstitutional, as noted in the following analysis, Defendant's arguments are without merit and no further evidence is needed. Defendant's proposed armada of professors[19] will conceivably do little to inform the Court of the statute's legislative history beyond its own research capabilities. Further, as outlined below, Defendant's proffered testimony concerns the UAA of 1929, which is not the statute at hand or with which he was charged.[20] An evidentiary hearing is therefore not necessary.[21] Accordingly, the undersigned RECOMMENDS that the Court deny any opportunity for an evidentiary hearing on Defendant's Motion to Vacate.
B. Ground One: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
Defendant's first ground for relief is that he received ineffective assistance of counsel during the trial court proceedings. The undersigned disagrees.
To prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the petitioner under the familiar Strickland v. Washington test “must demonstrate that: (1) counsel's performance was deficient; and (2) the deficient performance prejudiced the defense.”[22] As to deficiency, counsel needed to have “made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment.”[23] The defendant must show that, “in light of the circumstances as they appeared at the time of the conduct, ‘counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness' as measured by ‘prevailing professional norms'” in order to satisfy the deficiency prong.[24] There is a “strong presumption that counsel's representation was within the ‘wide range' of reasonable professional assistance.'”[25]
Regarding prejudice, counsel's errors must have been “so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable.”[26] This prong is satisfied by a showing that there is a “reasonable probability . . . sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome” of a criminal trial that, “but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.”[27] Such probability requires a “substantial” as opposed to a “conceivable” likelihood of another result.[28]
Defendant first asserts that Mr. Valenzuela was ineffective during the trial court proceedings because he allegedly failed to challenge the indictment as violative of his equal protection rights. Defendant claims his counsel's assistance was ineffective because he “would not have plead[ed] guilty to the charge had he been adequately informed of the [equal protection] law by his lawyer.”[29]The Government responds that Mr. Valenzuela did notify Defendant of this issue and advised him on its merits, but Defendant nevertheless pleaded guilty.
Some background is in order. Attached to the Government's response is an affidavit by Mr. Valenzuela. In it, Mr. Valenzuela exclaims that on August 8, 2021, after Defendant's guilty plea but prior to his sentencing, Defendant contacted him about United States v. Carrillo-Lopez, a case from the District Court for the District of Nevada.[30] There, the court granted a defendant's motion to dismiss his indictment, holding that the charged statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1326, violated the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee.[31] Mr. Valenzuela spoke with Defendant three days later “and explained the difference between mandatory and persuasive authority.” In particular, Mr. Valenzuela “explained that similar arguments [to those in Carrillo-Lopez] were raised in the Fifth Circuit[] with no success.” Mr. Valenzuela states that he thereafter provided copies of a Southern District of Texas case where the court denied the defendant's motion, having been made on the same grounds.[32] That court observed that “all but one court has declined to dismiss [a § 1326 indictment] on th[e] basis” of racial discrimination. Further, it noted that other Fifth Circuit district courts “have rejected these arguments.”[33]
Mr. Valenzuela also asserts that he and Defendant discussed the likelihood of success on a motion to dismiss in this Court, and that he “spent significant time answering [Defendant's] questions.” Given that Defendant had already pleaded guilty, Mr. Valenzuela also informed Defendant that they would need to withdraw his plea. The pair ended up deciding to prepare for the then-upcoming sentencing instead of withdrawing the plea or moving to dismiss the indictment.[34]
The undersigned holds that Defendant's assertions are meritless. Under the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings, a defendant's motion must “specify all the grounds for relief available to the moving party” as well as “state the facts supporting each ground.”[35] “[M]ere conclusory allegations do not raise a constitutional issue in a habeas proceeding.”[36] A movant claiming ineffective assistance of counsel has the burden of “identifying some facts that raise the spectre of constitutional error.”[37] Thus, Defendant must allege facts supporting both deficiency and prejudice in Mr. Valenzuela's actions.
Here Defendant's assertions of ignorance in the instant motion are plainly contradicted by the facts before the Court. According to Mr. Valenzuela, he and Defend...
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