United States v. Mirabal

Gabriel Mirabal (defendant) and Erik Rojo were inmates at a federal prison. One day, Mirabal and Rojo passed through a metal detector. One of them was wearing a white shirt and the other a brown shirt. The white-shirted man cleared the detector and kept walking. However, the brown-shirted man triggered the detector, prompting a physical altercation between the man and correctional officers. The man in the white shirt came back and joined the altercation. After a grand jury indicted Rojo and Mirabal for assaulting federal officers, Rojo entered a plea agreement. The agreement identified Rojo as the white-shirted individual and Mirabal as the brown-shirted individual who started the altercation. An attorney from the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) accepted and signed the plea agreement, and the USAO continually supported the agreement’s factual basis during Rojo’s plea hearing and sentencing. After Rojo’s sentencing, the government filed an amended plea agreement with a new factual basis that did not mention Mirabal. Unlike Rojo, Mirabal opted to proceed to trial. Mirabal consistently claimed that he was the brown-shirted man who triggered the detector, claiming that he acted in self-defense because the officer was aggressive during the resulting search. However, the government argued that Mirabal was the white-shirted man and could not claim self-defense because he voluntarily returned to the detector to join the altercation. Mirabel wanted to admit the original factual basis from Rojo’s plea agreement to show that the government had previously stated Mirabal was the brown-shirted man. The government moved to exclude the original factual basis as inadmissible hearsay. The district court granted the motion, and Mirabal was ultimately convicted. Mirabal appealed, contesting the district court’s decision to exclude the original factual basis.