United States v. Tien, No. 11-3835 (2d Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseDefendant pleaded guilty to bribing an ICE employee to grant Lawful Permanent Resident status to an alien and for furnishing a forged passport. On appeal, defendant claimed that he did not understand the plea proceedings. There was no indication that after the district court learned that defendant took medications, it endeavored to ascertain whether they could impact his ability to proceed. This critical omission precluded a finding that defendant's plea in the bribery case was knowing and voluntary, and dictated that the plea be vacated. In regards to the forged passport plea, the district court committed plain error by improperly conflating the proceedings, assuming defendant was taking the same medications at the time of the next plea, and that he remembered the proceedings from the plea that happened sixteen months earlier. Accordingly, the court need not address defendant's remaining claim because it concluded that neither of his pleas was knowing and voluntary. The court vacated and remanded for further proceedings.
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