El Chapo Trial: Sinaloa Cartel Boss to Ask Supreme Court to Review His Case to Overturn Drug Trafficking Conviction

One of the lawyers of Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera said they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case.

In an interview with Milenio, Mariel Colon Miro, one of the lawyers who handled the cases of El Chapo and his wife Emma Coronel Aispuro, said they have until next month to file their petition for review in the Supreme Court.

After reviewing his case, Colon Miro said they hoped that the high court would overturn the Mexican drug kingpin's conviction.

Last January, a federal appeals court in New York has upheld the life sentence of El Chapo after his request for a new trial was dismissed.

In their decision, the three judges rejected some of El Chapo's arguments, including jury bias, "deplorable" jail conditions, and the U.S. government selectively targeting him for prosecution.

However, Colon Miro noted that the high court should review the case as they believed that El Chapo was really treated unfairly.

"They don't take him out into the open air. They don't take him out for a single day. We have a lot of problems because they don't treat him medically if he gets sick," Colon Miro told Milenio.

"Requests were ignored. He can't have two 15-minute calls a month... The government claims that they need to have him under those restrictions because he can pass some message," the Puerto Rican lawyer added.

Colon Miro further noted that some basic rights, like access to water and toothache treatment, were also violated inside the prison.

Sinaloa Cartel Boss 'El Chapo' Appeals 2019 Conviction

El Chapo, 64, is serving a life sentence in prison after being found guilty in 2019 of all 10 federal charges he faced. He was accused of illegally importing millions of kilos of cocaine from Mexico to the U.S., along with significant quantities of heroin and marijuana.

According to prosecutors, El Chapo allegedly used murder, torture, kidnapping, bribing officials, and "other illegal methods to control territory throughout Mexico and to subdue opposition."

El Chapo is currently being held in Colorado's Supermax, the most secure federal prison in the U.S. During oral arguments last October, El Chapo's defense team argued that the conviction of the Sinaloa Cartel boss should be sent back to lower courts for further evaluation or overturned completely for two reasons.

First was the conditions and treatment that El Chapo experienced inside the prison. And second was a news report that during deliberations, jurors were exposed to salacious claims barred from the trial.

It included a claim that El Chapo had drugged and sexually abused teenage girls he referred to as "vitamins" that gave him energy, which the Sinaloa cartel leader's lawyer, Marc Fernich, has denied.

El Chapo's lawyer noted that the Vice News article also mentioned an unnamed juror who said at least five fellow jurors followed media coverage of the trial and lied about it to presiding judge U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan.

Fernich said the court should order a new trial or call for a hearing on the alleged jury misconduct. He asked the judges to resist any "punitive impulse" toward a person who was cast as a "public enemy," like gangster Al Capone.

As they face the Supreme Court judges soon, Colon Miro noted that the "last card will be played" so El Chapo would avoid spending the rest of his life in prison.

Sinaloa Cartel Boss 'El Chapo' Is Very Respectful, Lawyer Says

Despite "suffering" inside the prison, Mariel Colon Miro said El Chapo remains very strong. The lawyer noted that the Sinaloa cartel boss now dedicates himself to reading a lot and is optimistic about his last chance to improve the conditions of the remaining years of his life.

According to Colon Miro, El Chapo was "very nice and very respectful."

"We talk for hours because we both love to talk, so imagine... I'm still with him as a lawyer, so I think he likes me," the lawyer noted.

Colon Miro said even El Chapo's wife became her friend.

"Mrs. Coronel is not only a client. I consider her a friend. We never imagined that she would be in that situation. And since we are almost the same age, obviously we talk and share many common ideas and spend a lot of time together," the lawyer added.

Emma Coronel Aispuro was sentenced to three years in prison on November 30 for helping her husband run his multibillion-dollar drug empire.

According to her lawyers, El Chapo's wife could get out of prison four months earlier or in May 2023, as she is allowed by law to serve at least 85 percent of her sentence and has the option to serve the remaining 10 percent of her sentence at home or a place that will help her rejoin society.

They added that Coronel Aispuro would also be credited for the months she had already served. The Sinaloa cartel is considered to be one of the most powerful drug-trafficking syndicates in the world.

The Mexican drug cartel has been known for carrying out assassinations, murders, and torture to protect its turf. The group was founded in the late 1980s and headed by El Chapo.

The Mexican drug kingpin was arrested and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in 1993. El Chapo escaped from prison in 2001 and was apprehended again in 2014 in Sinaloa, Mexico.

The Sinaloa cartel boss again escaped from prison through a tunnel the following year. In January 2016, Mexican officials announced that El Chapo has been captured again. He was extradited to the U.S. the next year.

El Chapo was sentenced to spend the rest of his days in the ADX Florence "supermax" prison after being sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Adrianna Grant