Having last month lost the latest round in his four-year quest to shorten his 14-year prison sentence, Taneytown cocaine dealer Fernando Hernandez is asking the state's second-highest court for another chance to argue his case.
Hernandez, who in 1991 pleaded guilty to charges of cocaine possession and conspiracy to distribute, has asked the Court of Special Appeals to reconsider Carroll Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr.'s Jan. 11 denial of his request for a trial.
In the request, filed Feb. 10, Hernandez said that Judge Beck should not have presided over Hernandez's November 1994 post-conviction relief hearing, and that he should not have thrown out Hernandez's assertions that his guilty plea was not made freely and voluntarily.
Hernandez said that another judge should have heard the November request because Judge Beck had presided over a pretrial suppression hearing in September 1991. He also said that his insistence that he was "tricked" into the guilty plea should have been considered.
In November, Hernandez argued that his trial attorneys misrepresented the gravity of his guilty plea. He said that because the attorneys -- Judith S. Stainbrook and Stephen P. Bourexis of Westminster -- represented both him and his wife, they had a conflict of interest.
Hernandez argued that the lawyers were more concerned with securing his wife's plea bargain than they were with the amount of time Hernandez would spend in prison.
Judge Beck found that argument spurious.
"The issue of conflict of interest was not raised until well after [Hernandez] was sentenced," the judge wrote. "The only reason he plead guilty was because he thought that he would get a sentence within the guidelines and that he was shocked when he was sentenced to 14 years. . . .
"The fact that [Hernandez] is unhappy with his sentence . . . does not now show that he received ineffective assistance of counsel."
The Court of Special Appeals can decide to order a new post-conviction relief hearing, which could lead to the granting of a trial; it can decide to uphold Judge Beck's decision; or it can refuse to consider the case, keeping Judge Beck's decision intact.
Hernandez and his former wife, Bonnie, and his brother Henry, of Miami, were indicted by a county grand jury in January 1990 on charges tied to a Miami-to-Carroll cocaine ring. Each entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors.
Fernando Hernandez pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Although state guidelines called for a prison sentence of one to four years, Judge Burns imposed 14 years in December 1991, saying he wanted to discourage further cocaine trafficking in the county.
Bonnie Hernandez pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. She was placed on probation and, in 1993, was granted a divorce from Fernando Hernandez.
Henry Hernandez pleaded guilty to a similar charge and was given a suspended 10-year sentence because of his cooperation with state and federal drug officials.
He has since been deported to Colombia.