United States v. Adolfo Guerrero-Velasquez

There are two questions before us on this appeal. First, is a guilty plea an admission of the facts charged in the indictment? Second, is an Alford plea, in which the defendant enters a guilty plea while maintaining his innocence, nevertheless a guilty plea under Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 , 110 S.Ct. 2143 , 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990)? The first of these questions is well established in our decisions; the second is not. We answer both in the affirmative, vacate the defendant’s sentence, and remand to the district court for resentencing.

I. BACKGROUND

Guerrero-Velasquez was charged with being an alien in the United States after deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 . He pled guilty on September 28, 2004. The United States Probation office submitted a presentence investigation report, and the government objected to the report’s treatment of Guerrero-Velasquez’s previous conviction for second-degree burglary in Washington. Specifically, the government argued that under § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, the report should have imposed “a 16-level specific offense characteristic enhancement for the Defendant’s prior crime of violence…