United States v. Martinez

110 F.4th 160

UNITED STATES, Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. Carlos MARTINEZ, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.

Nos. 22-902-cr (L)

22-1136-cr (XAP)

August Term, 2023

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit

Argued: January 8, 2024

Decided: July 30, 2024

On Appeal from a Judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. (Edward R. Korman, District Judge)

Rachel A. Shanies (Samuel P. Nitze, David C. James, on the brief), Assistant United States Attorneys, for Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY, for Appellee-Cross-Appellant.

Anthony L. Ricco (Steven Z. Legon, on the brief), New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.

Before: Lynch, Nardini, and Merriam, Circuit Judges.

William J. Nardini, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee Carlos Martinez, a former federal prison guard, was convicted after two jury trials in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Edward R. Korman, District Judge) of a number of charges stemming from his repeated rape of an inmate, whom the parties refer to as "Maria," at the Metropolitan Detention Center ("MDC") in Brooklyn, New York. At both trials, Maria testified that Martinez raped her on five occasions while she was assigned to clean his office on weekends when that area was largely deserted. She testified that Martinez repeatedly sexually assaulted her by force (by physically holding her down) and threats and fear (by, for example, threatening to send her to a special housing unit ("SHU") and warning her that fighting back would result in charges for assaulting an officer).

The jury at Martinez's first trial found him guilty of five counts of sexual abuse of a ward, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2243(b)—one count for each rape. It also found him guilty of a number of other counts which were later vacated for reasons that are not at issue in the present appeal. At a second trial, Martinez was retried on fifteen counts arising out of the five rapes. As to each rape, Martinez was charged with sexual abuse by threats or fear in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2242(1); depriving Maria of her civil rights in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242; and aggravated sexual abuse in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a)(1). The jury convicted Martinez of five counts of sexual abuse by threats or fear, 18 U.S.C. § 2242(1). The jury also convicted Martinez of depriving Maria of her civil rights, 18 U.S.C. § 242, and of aggravated sexual abuse, 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a)(1), but only as to the second of the five charged rapes; it acquitted him on those counts as to the other four incidents.

At sentencing, the district court expressed doubts about Maria's testimony and later explained in its written statement of reasons that it disagreed with the second jury's guilty verdicts on the five counts of sexual abuse through threats or fear—despite having previously denied Martinez's motions for acquittal. The court also made several remarks suggesting that the second jury had not credited Maria's testimony, even though the jury had returned guilty verdicts on at least one count relating to each of the five charged rapes. It additionally described Martinez as "not a violent criminal," Gov't App'x 226, even though the jury had found beyond a reasonable doubt that, on one occasion, he had forcibly raped Maria. At bottom, the court appeared to believe Martinez's defense that he and Maria had engaged in consensual sex, a version of events necessarily foreclosed by the guilty verdicts. The district court ultimately imposed a prison sentence of ten years, a dramatic variance below the advisory Guidelines range of life imprisonment.

Martinez now challenges the sufficiency of the evidence underlying his two convictions premised on using force to commit the second charged rape. We reject the insufficiency claim, because the jury was entitled to credit Maria's testimony that Martinez physically restrained her to carry out that particular instance of sexual abuse. Martinez argues that his acquittals on some counts reveal that the jury must have completely rejected the victim's testimony, but it is well established that a defendant cannot rely on inconsistent verdicts to impugn a conviction, and, in any event, the jury's guilty verdicts decisively refute any contention that the jury entirely rejected that testimony.

The government cross-appeals Martinez's ten-year sentence as procedurally and substantively unreasonable. We agree. The district court committed a number of procedural errors: It relied on certain clearly erroneous factual findings that were foreclosed by the jury's guilty verdicts, or that it mistakenly believed were dictated by the jury's acquittals on other counts. It mistakenly treated Martinez's convictions for committing sexual abuse through threats or fear as legally equivalent to committing sexual abuse of a ward, despite the fact that the former offense, unlike the latter, requires the sexual contact to have been without the victim's consent. And it failed to effectively sentence him based on all of his convictions. The sentence was also substantively unreasonable because the district court gave dramatically insufficient weight to the seriousness of the full range of Martinez's offenses, and impermissibly gave weight to its residual doubts about the jury's guilty verdicts as a mitigating factor. We therefore AFFIRM the judgment of conviction and REMAND for resentencing consistent with this opinion.

I. Background

Martinez, a former Federal Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") Lieutenant, was indicted in May 2017 on twenty counts that charged him with repeatedly raping Maria, an inmate in his care at MDC, between December 2015 and April 2016. The charges stemmed from five sexual assaults—two rapes (one oral, one vaginal) on December 13, 2015, and three subsequent vaginal rapes between December 2015 and April 2016. For each assault, Martinez was charged with four counts: deprivation of civil rights of an inmate, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242, aggravated sexual abuse of an inmate by force, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a)(1), sexual abuse of an inmate by threats or fear, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2242(1), and sexual abuse of a ward, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2243(b).

At an initial trial in January 2018, a jury found Martinez guilty on all twenty counts. The government later disclosed that it had failed to provide Martinez with the interview memorandum of an MDC inmate, which summarized the inmate's statement that Maria had told her "that something was going on between [Maria] and Lieutenant Martinez," that Maria had declined the declarant's request to join Maria in cleaning Martinez's office on one occasion because Maria said she "was having relations with" Martinez, and that Maria had declined a pap smear due to her sexual relationship with Martinez. Gov't App'x 562. The district court concluded that such evidence was exculpatory and material to whether Maria had consented to a sexual relationship with Martinez and accordingly, pursuant to Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), granted Martinez's motion for a new trial on all counts except the five counts for sexual abuse of a ward, as that offense prohibits sexual acts between an inmate and a guard regardless of the inmate's consent to such acts. See 18 U.S.C. 18 U.S.C. § 2243(b). The district court's Brady ruling is not at issue in this appeal.

At a second jury trial in February 2020, Martinez was re-tried on the fifteen previously vacated counts of conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 242 (five counts of deprivation of civil rights of an inmate), 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a)(1) (five counts of aggravated sexual abuse of an inmate), and 18 U.S.C. § 2242(1) (five counts of sexual abuse of an inmate by threats or fear). At trial, Maria testified as follows.¹

While housed at MDC, Maria worked as a cleaner She was assigned to clean the second floor, which housed the lieutenants' office, where Martinez worked. Whenever Maria was called to clean, she was escorted to the second floor by an officer, who then left her unsupervised while she completed her work. In August or September 2015, Martinez began requesting that Maria clean his office, typically on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays, when there were fewer staff at MDC.

While alone with Maria in his office during her cleaning sessions, Martinez made sexual overtures that made Maria uncomfortable, including asking her how she "satisf[ied] [her] body," which she understood to refer to "orgasm[s]," and telling her that she "should touch [her]self in his name." Gov't App'x 43-44. Maria tried to rebuff Martinez by replying that she was married, but he retorted that her husband never came to visit her. Martinez also told Maria that another inmate, Jenny, was about to be released from MDC custody because "Jenny didn't say anything," id. 45, which Maria understood to mean that Jenny "remained silent ... about what had happened with the officer," id. 61.

Maria did not report Martinez's inappropriate sexual comments to prison officials because she "didn't want any problems." Id. 45-46. She also continued to clean Martinez's office when called to do so, because she understood that she could not refuse and that if she did, she would be placed in the SHU, "a small ... punishment room." Id. 47. Maria did, however, ask to switch jobs, but her request was denied.

On December 13, 2015,² Maria was summoned to Martinez's office to clean. Upon arrival, she retrieved cleaning supplies from under a desk. While she was crouched facing the wall, Martinez exposed his erect penis through the zipper of his pants, grabbed Maria's head, and pushed it toward him, forcing her to perform oral sex while she tried to push away from him. Maria said that she "didn't want any problems," id. 53, was crying, and told "him to leave [her] alone," id. 54. Martinez, who was much larger and stronger than Maria, then "stood [...