State v. Jose Alfredo Castillo Lira

COURT OF APPEALS
DECISION NOTICE
DATED AND FILED This opinion is subject to further editing. If
published, the official version will appear in
the bound volume of the Official Reports.
June 11, 2026
A party may file with the Supreme Court a
Samuel A. Christensen petition to review an adverse decision by the
Clerk of Court of Appeals Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10
and RULE 809.62.

Appeal No. 2025AP1992 Cir. Ct. No. 2021CF151

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT IV

STATE OF WISCONSIN,

PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT,

V.

JOSE ALFREDO CASTILLO LIRA,

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

APPEAL from an order of the circuit court for Clark County:
LYNDSEY A.B. BRUNETTE, Judge. Affirmed.

Before Blanchard, Kloppenburg, and Taylor, JJ.

Per curiam opinions may not be cited in any court of this state as precedent

or authority, except for the limited purposes specified in WIS. STAT. RULE 809.23(3).
No. 2025AP1992

¶1 PER CURIAM. Jose Alfredo Castillo Lira appeals a circuit court
order denying his motion to vacate a conviction for delivering a schedule IV drug
and to reopen his case. Castillo Lira asserts that his trial counsel was ineffective in
failing to inform him of the immigration consequences of the plea agreement he
accepted. We conclude that trial counsel’s performance, which included hiring an
immigration attorney to provide Castillo Lira with an opinion regarding the
immigration consequences of the charges against him, was not deficient. We
affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶2 Castillo Lira was arrested in September 2021 and charged with two
counts of delivering and one count of possession with intent to deliver Tramadol, a
schedule IV drug. See WIS. STAT. § 961.20(4)(e) (2023-24).1 In January 2023,
Castillo Lira pled no contest to one count of delivery of a schedule IV drug, and
the other counts were dismissed and read in for purposes of sentencing. The
circuit court provided an interpreter for Castillo Lira, whose primary language was
Spanish, and conducted a plea colloquy that included the advisement “a plea of
guilty or no contest could result in deportation, the exclusion from admission to
this country, or the denial of naturalization under federal law.” Castillo Lira
indicated that he did not have any questions about that warning. The court
accepted the parties’ joint recommendation to withhold sentence and place Castillo
Lira on probation for three years, with a nine-month conditional jail term.

1
All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2023-24 version.

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¶3 In April 2025, Castillo Lira moved to withdraw his plea, vacate his
conviction, and reopen the case. He was then involved in deportation proceedings,
and he asserted that his trial counsel, Zachary Glascock, did not inform him “that
the crime to which he was pleading was a mandatory deportable offense.”

¶4 The circuit court conducted a Machner hearing on Castillo Lira’s
motion at which Attorney Glascock testified as follows.2 Glascock retained an
immigration attorney to provide an opinion on the immigration consequences of
Castillo Lira’s case in hopes that the parties could reach a plea agreement avoiding
“very bad” immigration consequences for Castillo Lira. Glascock knew that the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had already issued a notice of
detainer to Castillo Lira, which Glascock provided to the immigration attorney at
the outset of the engagement. The immigration attorney’s opinion letter, which
was shared with Castillo Lira and with the State, stated that a conviction on the
charges Castillo Lira was facing

would likely be considered an aggravated felony under
immigration law as defined in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(B).
The aggravated felony conviction could subject
Mr. Castillo to expedited or automatic deportation, i.e.,
foreclose any defense before an immigration judge.

Finally, a conviction would subject Mr. Castillo to
mandatory immigration detention under 8 U.S.C.
§ 1226(c).

¶5 Glascock discussed this opinion with Castillo Lira with the
assistance of an interpreter chosen by Castillo Lira.3 Glascock recalled handing a

2
See State v. Machner, 92 Wis. 2d 797, 804, 285 N.W.2d 905 (Ct. App. 1979).
3
This interpreter was present for all discussions between Glascock and Castillo Lira, and
a certified court interpreter was present for all court proceedings.

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copy of the opinion to Castillo Lira and that a copy was also emailed to Castillo
Lira and Castillo Lira’s daughter, an adult U.S. citizen who spoke English, worked
as a corporate tax accountant, and intended to petition for her parents’ permanent
residence in the United States. As recommended in the immigration attorney’s
opinion, Glascock proposed a plea agreement to the State pursuant to which
Castillo Lira would plead to three misdemeanors and “avoid deportation so he
[could] continue to provide for and be with his family … in the US.” The State
did not agree to a misdemeanor resolution. Castillo Lira eventually accepted the
State’s offer to plead to a single felony count with conditional jail time, believing
that the more time he spent in jail, the more likely that deportation proceedings
would be initiated. Glascock reviewed the plea questionnaire with Castillo Lira
prior to the plea hearing, using the Spanish version of the form. This review
included the section on immigration consequences, which states that a conviction
could result in deportation. Glascock testified that he always goes over this
section with his clients, regardless of their citizenship.

¶6 Castillo Lira also testified at the Machner hearing. He responded
“No” to the question of whether Glascock “at any time explain[ed] to [him] that by
accepting the plea [he] would be automatically deported from the United States.”
He further testified that Glascock told him that “there were going to be
consequences but he didn’t say … it was going to [require Castillo Lira] to leave
immediately.” Castillo Lira admitted that he was aware that a conviction would
have “negative consequences” on his ability to stay in the United States and that
he did not recall everything that Glascock told him regarding immigration issues.

¶7 The circuit court denied Castillo Lira’s motion to withdraw his plea,
concluding that Castillo Lira did not meet his burden to show ineffective
assistance of counsel. The court noted that Glascock was aware that DHS had

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No. 2025AP1992

issued a notice of detainer even before Glascock began his representation of
Castillo Lira, which indicated that potential immigration consequences were being
considered from the very beginning, and that Glascock “went to the extra step of
obtaining an immigration attorney” to provide an opinion. The court also credited
Glascock’s testimony that “he may not have used the exact language of automatic
removal, but … he certainly went over on numerous occasions the risk of
deportation” and pointed out that “[t]here was no testimony that [the interpreter
chosen by Castillo Lira] was insufficient to meet the needs between the attorney
and the client” or “that there were any communication barriers.” Castillo Lira
appeals.

DISCUSSION

¶8 After sentencing, a defendant seeking to withdraw a guilty or no-
contest plea bears the burden of establishing by clear and convincing evidence that
failure to withdraw the plea amounts to a manifest injustice. State v. Thomas,
2000 WI 13, ¶16, 232 Wis. 2d 714, 605 N.W.2d 836. Given that the presumption
of innocence no longer exists after such a plea is accepted by the court, we will not
disturb the plea unless a defendant satisfies the high standard of showing a serious
flaw in its fundamental integrity. Id.

¶9 Demonstrating that a defendant’s counsel rendered ineffective
assistance, as Castillo Lira attempts to do, is one way to show a manifest injustice.
See State v. Krieger, 163 Wis. 2d 241, 253, 471 N.W.2d 599 (Ct. App. 1991). A
defendant seeking to withdraw a plea post-sentencing on this basis must satisfy the
two-prong test established in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).
State v. Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d 303, 311-12, 548 N.W.2d 50 (1996). The defendant
must establish that counsel’s performance was both deficient—that is, falling

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No. 2025AP1992

outside the range of objectively reasonable attorney representation—and
prejudicial, meaning adversely affecting the outcome of the proceeding. See State
v. Mull, 2023 WI 26, ¶¶35, 37, 406 Wis. 2d 491, 987 N.W.2d 707.

¶10 Whether trial counsel’s actions constitute ineffective assistance is a
mixed question of fact and law. State v. O’Brien, 223 Wis. 2d 303, 324, 588
N.W.2d 8 (1999). We uphold the circuit court’s findings of fact unless they are
clearly erroneous. Id. at 324-25. Whether counsel’s conduct amounted to
ineffective assistance is a question of law that we review independently. Id. at
325.

¶11 The issue before us is whether, under Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S.
356 (2010), and its progeny, Glascock sufficiently advised Castillo Lira of the risk
of deportation that would result from his plea. “[A]n attorney’s advice must be
adequate to allow a defendant to knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily decide
whether to enter a guilty plea.” State v. Shata, 2015 WI 74, ¶77, 364 Wis. 2d 63,
868 N.W.2d 93. In Padilla, the United States Supreme Court concluded that
counsel has an obligation to advise a client of the immigration consequences of
entering a guilty plea. 559 U.S. at 359-60. The court further determined that
prevailing professional norms supported the view that counsel should give correct
advice as to the risk of adverse immigration consequences when those
consequences are clear. Id. at 369. The court concluded that counsel’s inaccurate
advice to the defendant in that case that he “did not have to worry about
immigration status” constituted constitutionally deficient performance. Id. at
359-60.

¶12 Our state supreme court applied Padilla in Shata, 364 Wis. 2d 63,
¶5, and determined that trial counsel did not perform deficiently in advising a

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No. 2025AP1992

defendant that he faced a “strong chance” of deportation as a result of a guilty plea
rather than telling the defendant that the plea would “absolutely result in
deportation.” Similarly, in State v. Villegas, 2018 WI App 9, ¶¶11, 32, 380
Wis. 2d 246, 908 N.W.2d 198, this court determined that counsel did not perform
deficiently in advising a defendant that pleading guilty could result in
deportation—“in the 99 percentile range” of probability—and subsequent
inadmissibility to the United States rather than the more specific advice that the
plea would result in “clear, automatic, irreversible, and permanent
inadmissibility.” The Villegas decision reiterates the Padilla court’s statement
that “[i]mmigration law can be complex, and it is a legal specialty of its own”;
criminal defense attorneys are not expected to function as immigration lawyers.
Villegas, 380 Wis. 2d 246, ¶29 (quoting Shata, 364 Wis. 2d 63, ¶63 (quoting
Padilla, 559 U.S. at 359)).

¶13 With this case law in mind, we turn to Castillo Lira’s arguments.
Castillo Lira does not deny that he received the immigration attorney’s written
opinion advising that a conviction on the charges he faced could make him subject
to “expedited or automatic deportation,” but he argues that “[t]he letter from the
immigration lawyer was never translated for [him].” In view of the circuit court’s
factual findings that Glascock counseled Castillo Lira “on the opinions provided in
that immigration attorney’s letter” and that there were no “communication
barriers” between counsel and client with the assistance of Castillo Lira’s chosen
interpreter, and given Glascock’s uncontroverted testimony that “the client was
aware of the immigration attorney’s opinions,” it does not appear significant that
the immigration attorney’s opinion may not have been translated by the interpreter
or by Castillo Lira’s daughter, who also received a copy by email. The fact that
Castillo Lira was aware of the substance of the opinion and the negative

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No. 2025AP1992

immigration consequences of a conviction is supported by this hearing testimony
and by Castillo Lira’s apparent motivation to accept a plea agreement that
minimized jail time, which he believed would lower the chances that “DHS would
pick him up and engage in deportation proceedings.”

¶14 In addition, the circuit court credited Glascock’s testimony that he
discussed the immigration consequences of a no-contest plea with Castillo Lira
when reviewing the Spanish version of the plea questionnaire with him through an
interpreter. Castillo Lira points out that the bullet point next to the immigration
portion of the questionnaire was not circled like the ones appearing next to other
sections, but he does not show that the court’s finding was clearly erroneous,
especially in light of Glascock’s “adamant” testimony “on numerous occasions
throughout direct and cross that he did review that” portion of the form with
Castillo Lira.4 Castillo Lira does not address the fact that he responded
affirmatively in court that he understood the court’s warning that “a plea of guilty
or no contest could result in deportation, the exclusion from admission to this
country, or the denial of naturalization under federal law.”

¶15 Castillo Lira argues that while he was informed “that he could be
deported” as a result of his plea, Glascock did not inform him that he “was going
to be deported.” Emphasizing Glascock’s testimony that he advised Castillo Lira
that he would be “permanently inadmissible” but did not necessarily use the term
“mandatory deportation,” Castillo Lira states in his reply brief that had he received

4
In his affidavit accompanying his motion, Castillo Lira averred that “at no time did
anyone explain to [him] that the plea waiver had a warning about potential deportation.” This
averment that Castillo Lira was not told the plea waiver form contained the warning does not
contradict Glascock’s testimony that he discussed the warning itself that, under 8 U.S.C. § 1227,
a person convicted of violating a law relating to a controlled substance “is deportable.”

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No. 2025AP1992

the advice of Villegas’s counsel “that there was a 99 percent chance [he] would be
deported, then the concept of mandatory deportation would have been sufficiently
discussed.” See Villegas, 380 Wis. 2d 246, ¶11.

¶16 Even beyond the fact that the immigration attorney’s opinion
received by Castillo Lira did state that “a conviction would subject [Castillo Lira]
to mandatory immigration detention,” Castillo Lira seems to suggest that whatever
advice or warning he received from Glascock, the immigration attorney, and the
circuit court, was insufficient because it was not definitive or certain enough. As
this court noted in Villegas, however—a case in which the defendant similarly
argued that “he knew deportation was a possibility but denied ever being told that
deportation was ‘virtually … certain’”—there are “obvious problem[s] that could
arise by making such a bold prediction on immigration consequences that turns out
to be wrong.” Id., ¶¶14, 30.

[I]ncorrect advice that a plea will result in deportation or
exclusion, like incorrect advice that a plea will not result in
deportation or exclusion, could impact … decisionmaking.
The former kind of misinformation might encourage a
defendant to reject a beneficial plea offer and thereby
subject [the defendant] to significantly more exposure.

Id., ¶30 (quoting State v. Ortiz-Mondragon, 2015 WI 73, ¶62, 364 Wis. 2d 1, 866
N.W.2d 717). “[D]eportation depends at least in part on [the] prosecutorial
discretion” of the executive branch of the federal government. Villegas, 380
Wis. 2d 246, ¶34; see also Shata, 364 Wis. 2d 63, ¶71 (requiring counsel to render
advice that a defendant absolutely would be deported as a consequence of a plea
“would be incorrect because a defense attorney does not control and cannot know
with certainty whether the federal government will deport an alien upon
conviction”).

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No. 2025AP1992

CONCLUSION

¶17 We conclude that Glascock’s performance was not deficient under
the controlling case law discussed above. We affirm on that basis.

By the Court.—Order affirmed.

This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT.
RULE 809.23(1)(b)5.

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