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Date: 10-18-2021

Case Style:

United States of America v. Rafael Lora

Case Number: 20-3586

Judge: Jane Richards Roth

Court: UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

Plaintiff's Attorney: United States Attorney’s Office

Defendant's Attorney:


New York, NY - Criminal defense Lawyer Directory


Description:

New York, NY - Criminal defense lawyer represented defendant with a possession with intent to distribute 500 grams and more of cocaine charge.



Customs and Border Protection agents began investigating Lora after intercepting
a package from the Dominican Republic addressed to him and containing cocaine. After
obtaining a search warrant, agents installed tracking and entry detection devices on the
package. They tracked the package to Lora’s residence, where Lora’s sister Dioris Lora
and his co-defendant Luis Santos met Lora to open it. When the entry detection device
was triggered, agents searched Lora’s home and found him and Santos with the package,
firearms, and additional drug paraphernalia. Phone data later revealed that Lora arranged
for Santos to send him the package.
Lora was charged with four drug and firearm offenses. Shortly before trial, Lora
pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute 500 grams and more of cocaine. He
did not object to the Court’s plea colloquy at the time of the plea and confirmed to the
Court that he was not coerced into pleading guilty. Nevertheless, following his plea,
Lora obtained permission to proceed pro se and filed numerous motions claiming
innocence and seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, to be released from custody, and to
3
have all charges against him dismissed. He later withdrew all of his pro se motions and
cooperated with law enforcement. As a result, the District Court waived the five-year
mandatory minimum for his offense under U.S.S.G. § 5C1.2 and granted a downward
adjustment for acceptance of responsibility. The Court sentenced Lora to 24 months’
imprisonment and two years’ supervised release, below the Guidelines range. He has
since been released from custody. Lora now requests that his conviction be vacated
because (1) his guilty plea was not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary; and (2) his
conviction violates the Constitution.
1
III.
When a defendant does not object to his plea colloquy at the time of the plea, we
review the plea’s voluntariness for plain error.2 Under the plain error standard, the
defendant has the burden to show: (1) there is an error, (2) it is clear and obvious, and (3)
it affects his substantial rights.3
Even if all three factors are established, we will not
exercise our discretion to correct the error unless it “seriously affects the fairness,
integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.”4
IV.
Lora claims that his guilty plea was not knowingly, intelligently, or voluntarily
entered because, during the plea colloquy, he initially told the District Court that he did
1 We may review Lora’s appeal despite the fact that he has served his custodial sentence because
he must still serve a term of supervised release. See United States v. Wright, 642 F.3d 148, 155
n.7 (3d Cir. 2011).
2
Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 466–67 (1997).
3 United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993).
4
Johnson, 520 U.S. at 462.
4
not knowingly accept a package containing cocaine. The record shows that his plea was
not coerced. 5
When Lora stated that he did not accept the package with knowledge of its
contents, the Court refused to accept his plea. Lora then conferred with his counsel, and
at counsel’s request the Court re-addressed the question of intent. The Court explicitly
noted that Lora’s “plea ha[d] to be voluntary, meaning, that you’re not going to walk out
of here thinking, I was coerced into pleading guilty”;
6
that he could not accept Lora’s
plea if he did not admit guilt; and that in order to plead guilty Lora must state that he
“knowingly entered into an agreement with Mr. Santos, specifically, and [] knowingly
intended to receive the package, [] knew it was cocaine, and the idea was to distribute
it.”7
The Court asked Lora to confirm no less than five times that he possessed the
requisite intent for the crime charged, and Lora answered affirmatively each time. And,
at sentencing, Lora submitted a letter confirming that he “ha[s] dismissed all motions on
the docket in good faith” and “wishes to accept responsibility for [his] actions.”8
Lora’s
statement, in combination with the Court’s extensive plea colloquy, was more than
5 The government argues that Lora waived his ability to challenge his guilty plea by
pleading guilty, then abandoning his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. While a
defendant’s guilty plea waives non-jurisdictional defenses or defects occurring prior to
the entry of the plea, see Washington v. Sobina, 475 F.3d 162, 166 n.5 (3d Cir. 2007)
(quoting Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 267 (1973)) (emphasis added), it does not
waive challenges to the voluntariness of the plea itself. Entering a guilty plea cannot
alone be sufficient to forfeit all challenges to that same plea.
6 Supp. Appx. 146.
7
Id.
8 Supp. Appx. 189–90.
5
sufficient to ensure that Lora understood the nature of the charge against him9
and the
consequences of pleading guilty.10
So, there is no infirmity with Lora’s plea.
Lora also seeks to suppress the evidence and admissions obtained during the
search of his residence, claiming various Fourth Amendment and chain-of-custody issues.
He also claims that his interview with law enforcement officers violated his rights under
Miranda v. Arizona,
11 because officers questioned him in a custodial setting without
reading him his rights and without honoring his invocation of his right to counsel. None
of his claims are properly before this Court because Lora waived all non-jurisdictional
defenses by knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently pleading guilty.12
While the waiver
may be overcome by good cause,13 Lora has shown no good cause for reconsideration
here.
14

Outcome: The judgment of the District Court will be affirmed.

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