PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 18-6844 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. SERGIO CARRILLO MURILLO, Defendant – Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Anthony John Trenga, District Judge. (1:16-cr-00073-AJT-2) Argued: March 20, 2019 Decided: June 24, 2019 Before MOTZ, KING, and THACKER, Circuit Judges. Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Thacker wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz joined. Judge King wrote a dissenting opinion. ARGUED: Stephen Walter Spurgin, SPURGIN LAW OFFICE, El Paso, Texas, for Appellant. Richard Daniel Cooke, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: G. Zachary Terwilliger, United States Attorney, Michelle P. Tonelli, Special Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. THACKER, Circuit Judge: On March 24, 2016, a grand jury indicted Sergio Carrillo Murillo (“Appellant”) for conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Three months later, Appellant pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. Following his arrest, and throughout the plea negotiation process, Appellant’s purported primary concern was the impact a criminal conviction could have on his status as a lawful permanent resident of the United States. His attorney advised him that, if he pled guilty to the lesser included offense, deportation was a mere possibility that he could fight in immigration court. But Appellant’s attorney was wrong: conspiracy to distribute cocaine is an “aggravated felony” under the Immigration and Nationality Act, see 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(B), and a noncitizen convicted of such a crime is subject to mandatory deportation, see id. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). On September 7, 2017, Appellant moved under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate his conviction on the ground that he received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The district court denied his motion, and Appellant appealed. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the decision of the district court and remand for further proceedings. I. In 1995, when Appellant was seven years old, he and his family moved from Mexico to the United States. Appellant has lived in the United States ever since. Today, Appellant is a lawful permanent resident. He no longer has family in Mexico, and he is 2 engaged to be married to an American citizen. As such, “[s]taying in the United States with [his] family has always been [his] number one priority.” J.A. 65. 1 Twenty-one years after he came to the United States, Appellant got into some legal trouble. On February 10, 2016, Appellant traveled with another man from New Mexico to Virginia to sell a kilogram of cocaine. Unknowingly, the pair sold the drugs to a confidential informant. The confidential informant recorded the transaction while law enforcement officers observed it. After the exchange, Appellant was arrested. On March 24, 2016, a grand jury indicted Appellant on two counts of cocaine-related offenses: (1) conspiracy to distribute in violation of 21 ...
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