United States v. Salvador Andrade-Larrios

Appellant attacks his guilty plea. He claims that the judge impermissibly participated in plea bargaining, his attorney rendered ineffective assistance, and his plea was coerced. The record does not support him.

I. FACTS

Andrade-Larrios pleaded guilty to two drug charges. In exchange, the government promised a 151 month prison sentence and dismissal of a firearms charge. His attorney had negotiated the agreement with the prosecutor orally. It had not been put in writing when Andrade-Larrios changed his plea of “not guilty” to “guilty” in open court.

Eleven months after pleading guilty, An-drade-Larrios moved to vacate the judgment. He submitted a declaration alleging that his lawyer told him to plead guilty, or else the government would prosecute his brothers. Andrade-Larrios asserted that what the police characterized as a struggle when he resisted arrest, was really a brutal beating, and his attorney rendered ineffective assistance of counsel because he did not seek to have the charges dismissed because of the beating. The district judge denied an evidentiary hearing on the motion, because Andrade-Larrios had submitted nothing but conclusory allegations to support his claim,…