Blanco v. United States

Background

Virginia Blanco filed a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure allowing a federal prisoner to challenge a conviction or sentence after direct appeal. She sought to vacate her convictions and sentences for conspiracy to commit bank robbery, bank robbery, and discharging a firearm during and in furtherance of a crime of violence. Her principal arguments were that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance, cooperating government witnesses committed perjury, and prejudicial evidence concerning drugs and guns was admitted at trial.

The court stated that the petition itself was timely. Blanco filed it on June 7, 2021, before the September 7, 2021 deadline. After that deadline, she filed supplemental submissions. Applying the rule that a later claim may be added only if it shares a common core of operative facts with the timely claims, the court treated some supplemental claims as related back, assumed that others related back because of Blanco’s self-represented status, and ruled that several others did not relate back and were untimely.

Claims Excluded Before Merits Review

The court held that some ineffective-assistance and evidence claims were barred by the mandate rule because they had been raised in an earlier posttrial motion and rejected by the Court of Appeals on direct appeal. Those claims included allegations that counsel was unprepared, lacked knowledge of the case, lacked a strategy, failed to interview or call certain witnesses, conducted inadequate cross-examinations, and failed to use a confidential informant’s recording. The court also held that other claims were procedurally defaulted because they could have been raised on direct appeal but were not. These included certain witness-related claims involving Andres Cruz and other listed individuals, alleged prejudice from testimony about people with whom Blanco and witness Giovanny Marte had grown up, and some claims concerning Marte’s testimony.

The court further held that claims concerning additional alleged false testimony, a failure to identify Blanco’s photograph, and counsel’s failure to argue that Blanco had withdrawn from the conspiracy were raised after the limitations period and did not relate back to the original petition. Those claims were not considered on the merits.

Merits Analysis

The claims remaining for merits review concerned alleged inconsistencies in Giovanny Marte’s testimony and prosecution materials. The court explained that inaccurate testimony is not necessarily perjury. Perjury requires deliberately false testimony about an important matter, rather than testimony resulting from confusion, mistake, or faulty memory. The court also explained that relief based on alleged government use of perjured testimony requires proof that the testimony was false, that the prosecutor knew or should have known it was false, that it remained uncorrected, and that it could reasonably have affected the jury’s decision.

The court rejected Blanco’s claim about whether she or Marte decided to skip the bank’s teller drawers and focus on the vault. It found that the disclosed prosecution materials did not contradict Marte’s testimony and, in any event, had been available before trial. The court also rejected claims about payment for a trip to Aruba and Marte’s criminal history. It found that the evidence was not necessarily inconsistent, that any differences were minor, and that the jury already knew about Marte’s extensive criminal conduct.

The court rejected claims concerning differences between Marte’s and Jeffrey Martinez’s accounts of how guns were obtained, whether Marte took Blanco’s son to or from Head Start, where and when Marte counted the robbery proceeds, and how much money Marte gave Blanco. The court found these discrepancies minor or unsupported, unrelated to Blanco’s charged conduct, or unlikely to have affected the verdict. It also rejected Blanco’s general assertion that Marte’s proffers and trial testimony conflicted because she provided no additional detail beyond the specific issues already addressed.

The court noted that Blanco’s possible attempt to add a claim based on United States v. Taylor would have been futile. It stated that Taylor’s holding about attempted Hobbs Act robbery did not affect Blanco’s conviction for bank robbery by force, violence, or intimidation, which the Court of Appeals had determined was a crime of violence.

Disposition

The court denied the § 2255 petition. It also denied Blanco’s renewed request for appointed counsel, finding that her claims did not appear substantial, that she had represented herself adequately, and that the claims did not require an evidentiary hearing. The court ruled that a certificate of appealability would not issue because Blanco had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. The clerk was directed to docket the order in both cases, terminate specified filings, close the civil case, and send Blanco a copy of the order.