United States v. Villa
| Docket Number | 20-4297 |
| Decision Date | 13 June 2023 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Francisco Escamilla VILLA, a/k/a William Villa-Escamilla, a/k/a Willian Villa-Escamilla, a/k/a William Escamilla Villa, a/k/a William Villa, Defendant - Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Asheville. Martin K. Reidinger, Chief District Judge. (1:19-cr-00077-MR-WCM-1)
ARGUED: Ann Loraine Hester, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Amy Elizabeth Ray, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Anthony Martinez, Federal Public Defender, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. R. Andrew Murray, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Before HARRIS and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Rushing wrote the opinion, in which Judge Harris and Senior Judge Floyd joined.
Francisco Escamilla Villa was convicted of illegally reentering the United States after an aggravated felony conviction. He challenges his conviction on numerous fronts, claiming vindictive prosecution and violations of his constitutional rights to a speedy trial, due process, and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. We affirm.
After receiving tips and conducting surveillance, North Carolina police suspected Villa of trafficking illegal drugs. On June 7, 2018, officers surveilling Villa stopped his vehicle for traffic infractions. Villa's car smelled of marijuana, and he admitted he had recently smoked marijuana. After exiting the vehicle, Villa consented to a search of his person, and officers discovered a marijuana vapor pen and more than $3,000 in cash. During the traffic stop, Villa was cooperative and answered questions from the officers. Villa said he was a noncitizen who had been in the United States since age seventeen, claimed he had no other drugs but admitted having firearms in his home, and invited officers to search his house. To confirm he consented to a search of his residence, Villa signed a consent-to-search form. The ensuing search uncovered firearms, ammunition, thousands of dollars in cash, and drug paraphernalia.
Officers arrested Villa on state charges of possession of marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia. Villa was taken to the Macon County detention center, where he was fingerprinted as part of the routine booking process. That evening, an agent from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spoke with Villa, who confirmed he was a noncitizen and had no legal immigration status. Using this information, the agent filed an immigration detainer stating probable cause existed to find Villa removable. Villa did not mention to the agent that he had previously been removed from the United States.
The next day, one of the arresting officers filed a federal criminal complaint charging Villa with possession of a firearm by an illegal alien in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5) and illegal entry in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1325(a). The officer also searched for, but did not find, any previous criminal history under the name "Francisco Escamilla Villa" and the birthdate Villa provided. Villa was transferred into federal custody pursuant to an arrest warrant on the criminal complaint. After his federal arrest, the United States Marshals Service fingerprinted Villa as part of its routine booking process.
Over the next several days, the probation office prepared a pretrial services report about Villa. It indicated that, in 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had charged Villa with illegal entry and "Alien Removal Under Section 212 and 237." J.A. 1355. The disposition of the charges was "unknown." J.A. 1355. The report also showed that Villa had two felony convictions, both drug related.
On June 20, 2018, a federal grand jury indicted Villa on the charge of possessing a firearm as an illegal alien in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5).1 At the time, a conviction under Section 922(g) carried a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2) (2018). Villa pleaded not guilty.
Early in the case, Villa successfully moved to continue the pretrial motions deadline. Then, in August 2018, Villa moved to suppress evidence from the traffic stop and the search of his residence. While briefing for the suppression motion was ongoing, Villa obtained several continuances of his trial to allow for adjudication of the motion. Villa "waive[d] his speedy trial rights for" the purpose of these continuances. S.J.A. 8, 14. The government also sought and received two extensions of time to respond to Villa's motion. In December 2018, a magistrate judge held a hearing on the motion. Over the six months following the hearing, Villa again obtained several continuances of his trial while his suppression motion remained pending. For two of these continuances, Villa again said he "waive[d] his speedy trial rights." S.J.A. 20, 27.
In June 2019, roughly ten months after filing his motion to suppress and six months after the hearing, Villa asserted his speedy-trial rights and requested a ruling on his suppression motion. Three days later, on June 10, 2019, the magistrate judge issued a memorandum recommending that the district court grant Villa's motion to suppress evidence collected from his home (including the firearms and ammunition) and deny the remainder of the motion. Both sides objected. In July 2019, the district court overruled the parties' objections and adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation in full.
While Villa's suppression motion remained pending in June 2019, the government began considering how it would prove Villa's alien status at trial for the Section 922(g) charge. The prosecutor requested assistance from the DHS agent who had previously spoken with Villa about his immigration status. Realizing that Villa's fingerprints had not been checked against law enforcement databases, the agent obtained Villa's fingerprints from the United States Marshals Service and, on June 20, 2019, checked them against the ICE database. That search confirmed the two felony convictions listed in Villa's pretrial services report, and it revealed that Villa had previously been removed from the United States under the alias "William Villa-Escamilla." By August 2, 2019, the agent had obtained the criminal records for Villa's two prior felonies and Villa's "A-file," an official immigration record that documented Villa's previous removal. Although Villa had told officers during the traffic stop that he had been in the United States since he was seventeen, the A-file proved that Villa had been removed in 2011 at a port of entry in Texas, meaning he had reentered the United States sometime later.
On August 6, 2019, fourteen months after Villa's initial arrest but four days after receiving his A-file, the government obtained a new indictment charging Villa with illegal reentry after conviction for an aggravated felony in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), (b)(2). That offense carries a 20-year statutory maximum, double the maximum for the Section 922(g) charge. The day of Villa's initial appearance on this second indictment, the government moved to dismiss the Section 922(g) charge. The district court granted that motion two days later.
Villa moved to dismiss the aggravated reentry charge on numerous grounds, claiming that the second indictment was a vindictive prosecution in retaliation for undermining the first indictment by successfully moving to suppress key evidence, that the delay between his arrest and trial violated his speedy-trial rights, and that the delay between his arrest and the second indictment violated his due process rights. Villa also moved to suppress his fingerprint records and the criminal and immigration records they uncovered. After a hearing, the district court denied Villa's motions in two written orders.
Villa waived his right to a jury trial. Nineteen months after his arrest, and just short of six months after the grand jury returned the second indictment, the district court convicted Villa of aggravated reentry at a bench trial. The court sentenced Villa to 42 months' imprisonment. This appeal followed.
We first consider Villa's claim that the district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the second indictment for prosecutorial vindictiveness. Typically, "[w]e review the district court's factual findings on a motion to dismiss an indictment for clear error" and "review its legal conclusions de novo." United States v. Perry, 757 F.3d 166, 171 (4th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, we review de novo "the legal adequacy of the evidence to support" a "presumption of vindictive prosecution." United States v. Wilson, 262 F.3d 305, 316 (4th Cir. 2001).2
A prosecutor violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by punishing a defendant for "exercising a protected statutory or constitutional right." United States v. Fiel, 35 F.3d 997, 1007 (4th Cir. 1994); see United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368, 372, 102 S.Ct. 2485, 73 L.Ed.2d 74 (1982). "To establish prosecutorial vindictiveness, a defendant must show, through objective evidence, that (1) the prosecutor acted with genuine animus toward the defendant and (2) the defendant would not have been prosecuted but for that animus." Wilson, 262 F.3d at 314; see United States v. Ball, 18 F.4th 445, 454 (4th Cir. 2021); United States v. Jackson, 327 F.3d 273, 294 (4th Cir. 2003). Absent this kind of direct evidence, a defendant may state a claim indirectly with "evidence of circumstances from which an improper vindictive motive may be presumed." Wilson
, 262 F.3d at 314. Such a presumption is warranted only by...
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