Taboada v. United States

Background

Ricardo Taboada filed the action without a lawyer as a petition for a writ of audita querela, an uncommon form of relief that may be available in limited circumstances when no other legal remedy exists. He challenged the sentence imposed in his federal criminal case and asked the court to vacate his convictions and resentence him to time served.

The court treated the filing as a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. A separate portion of Taboada’s filing challenged how his sentence was being carried out, including allegations concerning a COVID-19 vaccine and continuous lockdown. The court treated that portion as a separate petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, severed it, and transferred it to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. This opinion did not decide those § 2241 issues.

Criminal case and sentence

Taboada pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud. His plea agreement stated that the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range was 100 to 125 months of imprisonment. During the plea proceeding, Taboada confirmed that he understood he would give up the right to appeal or otherwise challenge a sentence of 125 months or less.

The court later sentenced him to 100 months of imprisonment for the bank-fraud conspiracy, followed by five years of supervised release. It also imposed a consecutive 24-month sentence for his violation of supervised release in an earlier criminal case.

Claim and analysis

Taboada argued that the court incorrectly calculated his offense level using intended loss—the amount he sought to obtain—rather than actual loss. He relied by analogy on decisions reasoning that commentary to the Sentencing Guidelines cannot expand the scope of the guideline itself.

The court rejected the motion for two reasons. First, it held that Taboada knowingly and voluntarily waived the right to challenge any sentence of 125 months or less. Because the court imposed a 100-month sentence for the bank-fraud conspiracy, the court held that the waiver barred Taboada’s claim.

Second, the court held that the Sentencing Guidelines required using the greater of actual loss or intended loss when calculating the offense level for the relevant fraud guideline. The court concluded that the guideline was ambiguous about whether “loss” included intended loss, that the application note resolved that ambiguity, and that using intended loss was not an error.

Disposition

The court denied the petition and directed the Clerk of Court to close case number 22 Civ. 8141. It also ruled that no certificate of appealability would issue because Taboada had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied. The court further denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees and certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.