Salvador Nolasco Romero v. United States

At a change of plea hearing, Mr. Romero’s testimony established every element of his offense. Although Mr. Romero further testified that his motivation for committing the offense was that a family member was threatened, he did not claim he was innocent, did not expressly invoke duress as a legal defense, nor did he satisfy the elements of a duress defense. Indeed, as the district court would later conclude in its order prohibiting him from raising a duress defense at trial, his testimony at the changeof-plea hearing affirmatively disproved one of the elements of a duress defense. Nevertheless, and despite Mr. Romero’s repeated requests to accept his guilty plea, the district court rejected it based on his claim that he was threatened. On appeal, Mr. Romero argued the district court legally erred in rejecting the guilty plea. However, the Tenth Circuit held the district court could reject the guilty plea in an exercise of its general discretion. The question presented is: Does the district court commit legal error in rejecting a guilty plea based on a legally inadequate defense, as the Seventh Circuit has held, or can the district court reject it in an exercise of its general discretion, as the Tenth Circuit held here?