Judge denies bid to set aside conviction, guilty plea

Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja denied Monday a motion to set aside the conviction of a Filipino ex-convict who is now facing possible deportation from the Commonwealth.

Naraja also denied Crisaldo M. Valdez’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

Valdez, who has been married to a CNMI resident and U.S. citizen for more than 20 years, wants his 2002 conviction for attempted rape be set aside because he said he was never told by his lawyer that if he pleads guilty, he could be deported. He cited the landmark Padilla v. Kentucky case, where the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that an attorney provides ineffective assistance if he or she fails to inform a client that a guilty plea carries a risk of deportation.

Naraja pointed out, however, that the rule in the Padilla case was announced in 2010, long after Valdez’s conviction became final on July 4, 2002. He said Padilla’s ruling is a new rule of criminal procedure and will not apply retroactively unless an exception applies.

“Because Padilla will not apply retroactively in this case, the court need not address whether defendant has shown ineffective assistance of counsel,” Naraja said.

According to court records, Valdez was sentenced on June 4, 2002, to six months in prison after he pleaded guilty to attempted rape as part of a plea deal with the government.

In late 2010, the Department of Homeland Security filed a removal case against Valdez, saying he should be removed from the CNMI due to his criminal conviction. It was not immediately clear if the removal case is still pending in Immigration Court.

Valdez then filed motions to withdraw his guilty plea and to set aside his conviction. Valdez said he and his wife, Barbara Fujihira Ada, had consulted then assistant public defender Jeffrey Moots on a proposed plea agreement that would dispose of his criminal case.

Valdez said that, while Moots explained everything that was in the proposed plea agreement, the lawyer never told him about the effect the plea agreement will have on his right to continue to live with his wife and child in the CNMI.

He said the lawyer never told him and his wife that, by signing the plea agreement, he could be deported from the CNMI not only by the CNMI government but also by the federal government.

Relying on Moots’ explanation, Valdez said his wife persuaded him to accept the plea agreement because a trial would be difficult for her hypertension.

“My family suffered tremendously when I was incarcerated because I was the only breadwinner in the family,” he said.

Valdez’s current lawyer, Reynaldo Yana, argued that it is not only legally right to set aside the conviction and allow a withdrawal of the guilty plea; it is also humanitarian.

Assistant attorney general Benjamin K. Petersburg argued, however, that allowing Valdez to back out of an agreement entered nearly nine years ago would prejudice the Commonwealth not only in this case, but in the many other cases where an alien defendant, long ago convicted of a crime, now faces possible deportation and might seek to withdraw a guilty plea.