United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 18-1600 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. JOSÉ MERCEDES LEON, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND [Hon. John J. McConnell, Jr., U.S. District Judge] Before Lynch, Selya, and Boudin, Circuit Judges. Lisa Aidlin on brief for appellant. Richard B. Myrus, Acting United States Attorney, and Donald C. Lockhart, Assistant U.S. Attorney, on brief for appellee. April 8, 2019 BOUDIN, Circuit Judge. On May 18, 2017, a Rhode Island federal grand jury charged José Mercedes Leon ("Mercedes"), a citizen of the Dominican Republic, with one count of illegal reentry of an alien who had previously been removed from the United States, 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). The indictment charged Mercedes with having "knowingly entered and [been] found in the District of Rhode Island" on or about May 2, 2017, without having obtained the consent of the Attorney General of the United States to return notwithstanding his prior order of removal. Mercedes had previously been ordered removed from the United States on three separate occasions and also had past convictions and corresponding prison sentences for drug-related offenses, felony assault with a machete, trespassing, and resisting arrest. His May 2, 2017, arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") authorities immediately followed his release from state prison in Rhode Island, on the heels of a conviction and six-month prison sentence for heroin possession; ICE officials compared his fingerprints to those found on prior warrants for his removal and discovered a match. In due course, Mercedes entered a straight guilty plea to the section 1326 charge. Fed. R. Crim. P. 11. At the change- of-plea colloquy, the district court confirmed that Mercedes was competent to enter a plea of guilty, that he was "voluntarily deciding to change [his] plea to guilty," that he understood it - 2 - was likely he would be deported again, and that he understood that he was admitting to the facts stated by the government as to his offense conduct. The court accepted the plea and sentenced Mercedes to 29 months' imprisonment and three years of supervised release, although the guideline sentencing range was 46-57 months. Mercedes now argues on appeal that the district court erred in accepting his guilty plea because when he returned to the United States in 2011, he was forced into crossing the southern border and acting as a drug mule by Los Zetas gang, which had kidnapped him in Guatemala; therefore, he claims that he did not "voluntarily" re-enter the United States and that his guilty plea therefore lacked an adequate basis in fact. See, e.g., United States v. Negrón-Narváez, 403 F.3d 33, 37 (1st Cir. 2005). Relatedly, he argues that the district court violated Rule 11 by not ascertaining with certainty at the change-of-plea colloquy whether Mercedes understood the elements of the crime charged, Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(b)(1)(G), namely, that in order to be convicted, he must have voluntarily re-entered the United States. In deciding ...
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