United States of America v. Rigoberto Francisco-Reyes

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 15a0195n.06
No. 13-6581
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
RIGOBERTO FRANCISCO-REYES,
Defendant-Appellant.
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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF
TENNESSEE
BEFORE: KETHLEDGE and DONALD, Circuit Judges; McCALLA, District Judge.*
PER CURIAM. Rigoberto Francisco-Reyes appeals the district court’s judgment of
conviction and sentence.
A jury found Francisco-Reyes guilty of illegally reentering the United States after being
deported, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The district court sentenced him to 21 months in
prison. On appeal, Francisco-Reyes argues that there was insufficient evidence to support his
conviction because there was no evidence that he knew his reentry into the United States was
illegal. He contends that he did not understand his prior deportation proceedings because they
were not conducted in his native language.
We review de novo a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. United States v.
Mathis, 738 F.3d 719, 735 (6th Cir. 2013). When reviewing such a claim, we must determine
*The Honorable Jon Phipps McCalla, United States District Judge for the Western
District of Tennessee, sitting by designation.

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No. 13-6581
United States v. Francisco-Reyes
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whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational
trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Id.
Francisco-Reyes’s sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim fails because the prosecution was
not required to prove that he knew his reentry into the United States was illegal. See United
States v. Hussein, 675 F.2d 114, 116 (6th Cir. 1982) (per curiam). And, in any case, a rational
juror could have concluded that Francisco-Reyes knew that his reentry was illegal, given the
evidence that he had been deported five times between 1998 and 2009.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.

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