Pintado-Isiordia

MEMORANDUM ***

Guillermo Pintado-Isiordia appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. *594 § 2255 motion to vacate his conviction and sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 1326 for attempted reentry following deportation. Pintado-Isiordia argues that the trial court committed constitutional error by declining to instruct the jury that it must acquit him if he believed in good faith that he was a United States citizen at the time he attempted to enter the United States.

A court may vacate a conviction on a § 2255 motion if it concludes that “there has been such a denial or infringement of the constitutional rights of the prisoner as to render the judgment vulnerable to collateral attack.” 1 We review de novo the district court’s decision to deny Pintado-Isiordia’s § 2255 motion, 2 and we review for clear error the findings underlying the court’s decision.

Appellant argues that our en banc decision in United States v. Gracidas-Ulibarry, 4 which came down after his trial, establishes that he was entitled to the good faith instruction he requested. But Gracidas-Ulibarry spoke to a “specific intent to enter illegally,” 5 as distinct from being brought across the border drunk or…