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El Chapo life sentence upheld after appeals rejected by court

Mexico City, Mexico — The United States Court of Appeals has invalidated the arguments of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán to revoke his sentence and confirmed his life imprisonment sentence.

Earlier this week, the Court of Appeals rejected the 10 arguments of his defense team in an attempt to revoke his sentence. On October 25, 2021, Guzmán’s defense presented arguments to annul the life sentence that a judge imposed on him in July of 2019.

At a hearing in October, Guzmán’s lawyers said his conviction should be overturned because jurors read newspaper articles that prejudiced them against Guzmán. They also said that Guzmán’s trial, held in Brooklyn at the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, was not fair because the confinement to which El Chapo was subjected in prison prevented him from working effectively with his lawyers in the preparation of his defense.

Attorney Marc Fernich asked for a new trial before a three-judge board of the appeals court.

“Judge Cogan conducted the three-month trial with diligence and impartiality, after issuing a series of meticulously crafted pre-trial rulings. For the reasons stated, the resulting sentence of the District Court is confirmed, ” said the U.S. court document.

Guzmán, a former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, was convicted of conspiracy to traffic drugs at the end of the trial and later sentenced to life in prison.