United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 20-2004 UNITED STATES, Appellee, v. LUIS ALFREDO FLORENTINO-ROSARIO, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Francisco A. Besosa, U.S. District Judge] Before Lynch and Selya, Circuit Judges, and McCafferty,* District Judge. Javier A. Morales-Ramos for appellant. Jordan H. Martin, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, Mariana E. Bauzá- Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, and Julia M. Meconiates, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee. December 2, 2021 * Of the District of New Hampshire, sitting by designation. LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Luis Alfredo Florentino-Rosario appeals his conviction for attempted illegal reentry into the United States. He argues on appeal that the district court committed error at trial in refusing to instruct the jury as he requested and in not permitting him to argue the affirmative defense of duress. He argues that these errors prevented him from developing his defense. The district court did not err in refusing Florentino-Rosario's preferred jury instructions and did not abuse its discretion in refusing to allow presentation of a duress defense, so we affirm. I. Authorities first apprehended Florentino-Rosario at a Puerto Rico airport in September 2019. He had only a Dominican Republic passport and he told the authorities that he was a Dominican citizen. He admitted that he came illegally to the United States by sea several months previously. Florentino- Rosario was informed that he was banned from reentering the United States for five years and was removed to the Dominican Republic that same day. In October 2019, authorities stopped a boat roughly nineteen nautical miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. The boat was covered in a blue tarp, a common tactic of drug smugglers, and was carrying fourteen passengers including Florentino-Rosario. One of the passengers told the authorities that the boat had come - 2 - from the Dominican Republic. Florentino-Rosario was subsequently arrested. Florentino-Rosario admitted that he had paid $2,000 for passage on the boat to the United States. He confirmed that he had no legal right to be in the United States and that he had applied for a visa but had been denied. When asked why he wanted to come to the United States, he said he wanted to make money so that he could build a house in Cotuí, Dominican Republic. He was subsequently charged with criminal attempted reentry into the United States, 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), which forbids "any alien who[] has been . . . deported, or removed . . . [to] enter[], attempt[] to enter, or [be] at any time found in, the United States" unless the alien has the consent of the Attorney General or can demonstrate that such consent is not needed. In anticipation of trial, both parties submitted proposed jury instructions. The government submitted instructions drawn from the First Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions regarding § 1326(a), which do not instruct the jury to …
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