United States v. Frank Fuentes-Mendoza

OVERVIEW

Frank Fuentes-Mendoza (“Fuentes”) was arrested along with several others for selling a large quantity of marijuana to a confidential informant working under the direction of undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Fuentes pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846. He was sentenced to 78 months imprisonment and four years supervised release. He argues that his plea should be held invalid because he did not fully understand the sentence he was facing when he accepted it, and accordingly that it violates Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11. We hold that any error was harmless, and we therefore AFFIRM.

BACKGROUND

At Fuentes’ plea hearing, the district court explained the following to him:

Fuentes responded that he did understand. He now argues that the district court’s statement that supervised release “is like a period of parole” misstates the truth about supervised release, which is different than parole in many ways. Accordingly, he argues that the district court violated Rule 11(c), which requires that Fuentes must have understood, inter alia:

Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(c).…