United States v. Beltran-Levya (Guzman Loera)

Second Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided on January 25, 2022

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Issue:

Whether 1) defendant Guzman’s indictment should have been dismissed under the doctrine of specialty and 2) whether the Government violated the Fourth Amendment when it rerouted, then obtained electronic communication from Guzman’s private servers.

Holding:

The Second Circuit held that 1) Guzman lacked the standing to invoke the specialty doctrine as the treaty does not confer individual rights and Mexico explicitly signed a waiver excepting the specialty doctrine, and 2) the Fourth Amendment does not apply to “non-resident aliens,” and neither the servers nor Guzman were located in the U.S.

Facts:

Guzman, also known as “El Chapo,” is the former leader of Mexican drug trafficking organization Sinaloa Cartel, which imported more than a million kilograms of cocaine and hundreds of kilograms of heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine into the U.S. In July 2009, the Eastern District of New York indicted Guzman and an arrest warrant was issued. Guzman was a fugitive at that time, following his escape from a Mexican prison in 2001 by bribing officials. In 2014, Mexican authorities recaptured Guzman and detained him in a maximum-security prison where he escaped again in 2015 after digging a mile-long tunnel starting under his cell. In 2016 he was recaptured by Mexican authorities, and in 2017, Mexico extradited Guzman to the U.S. to stand trial.

After a three-month trial, Guzman was convicted of a Continuing Criminal Enterprise (CCE) offense, an international narcotics conspiracy, a cocaine importation conspiracy, a cocaine distribution conspiracy, international distribution of cocaine, use of firearms in relation to drug trafficking crime, and conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds. Guzman was sentenced to five concurrent sentences of life imprisonment for the CCE and drug trafficking offenses, a consecutive 30-year sentence for the firearms offense, a concurrent term of 240 months’ imprisonment for the money laundering offense, and he was also ordered to forfeit more than $12 billion.

On appeal, Guzman makes ten claims: 1) that his indictment should have been dismissed under the doctrine of specialty, 2) he was denied his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial and the effective assistance of counsel due to the conditions of his pretrial detention, 3) the murder conspiracy, charged as one of the CCE violations, should have been dismissed, 4) the Government violated his Fourth Amendment rights and Rule 41 when it obtained electronic messages from servers location in the Netherlands, 4) the District Court exceeded its discretion in making evidentiary rulings, 6) Guzman’s lead lawyer had a per se conflict of interest, 7) Guzman was prohibited from presenting a defense of Government bias, 8) the jury charge on unanimity was erroneous, 9) a new trial should have been granted based on juror misconduct, and 10) the case should be remanded for a hearing on whether the Government and the District Court engaged in improper ex parte proceedings. The Second Circuit concluded that none of these claims had merit, and they therefore affirmed the order of the Appellate Division.

Analysis:

Doctrine of Specialty Claim

The doctrine of specialty is an international law principle requiring that an extradited defendant “can only be tried for one of the offenses described in the extradition treaty, and for the offense with which he is charged in the proceedings for his extradition” (United States v. Rauscher, 119 U.S. 407, 430 (1886). Guzman argued that after Mexico agreed to extradite him to the U.S. for charges in indictments in Texas and California, the Government “fraudulently procured” Mexico’s waiver of the specialty doctrine in order to transfer him to stand trial in New York. He also argued that Mexico did not agree to the harsh conditions of his pretrial detention.

Mexico extradited Guzman to the U.S. pursuant to the Extradition Treaty. Shortly after, Mexico consented to an exception of the doctrine of specialty, pursuant to Article 17, which states that “the treaty does not confer an individual right to assert violations of the Treaty.”  The District Court denied Guzman’s motion to dismiss the New York indictment based on the doctrine of specialty, ruling that Guzman lacked standing to invoke the doctrine, relying on United States v. Barinas, 865 F.3d 99, 105 (2d Cir. 2017), wherein the Second Circuit explained that “international treaties establish rights and obligations between States-parties—and generally not between states and individuals, notwithstanding the fact that individuals may benefit because of a treaty’s existence.” (Id. at 104-05). Furthermore, the Court explained, Mexico explicitly consented to having Guzman tried on the New York indictment. His specialty claim was therefore denied.

Fourth Amendment Claim

Guzman argued that the Government violated the Fourth Amendment by obtaining records of his phone conversations and text messages, and that the District Court erred in not suppressing these conversations. The Government obtained the conversations after gaining the cooperation of the engineer who initially set up a private, encrypted network for the Sinaloa Cartel, which was located first in Colombia, then in Mexico and Canada. At the direction of the FBI agents, the engineer moved the Guzman Network servers to the Netherlands and downloaded Guzman’s calls. The Government worked with Dutch authorities to surveil and obtain search warrants for the servers.

Prior to trial, Guzman moved to suppress the “Dutch Calls.” The District Court ruled that Guzman failed to establish that his rights were violated as he relied on the affidavit of an agent lacking knowledge that the Dutch servers belonged to Guzman. The Fourth Amendment does not apply to “the search and seizure by the United States agents of property that is owned by a nonresident alien and located in a foreign country” United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 261 (1990). Because neither Guzman nor the servers were located in the U.S., the Dutch Calls were not subject to Fourth Amendment protections. His Fourth Amendment claim was denied, along with all remaining eight claims on appeal.