United States v. Rolando Fernandez

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge.

In this case, we are called upon to decide whether a Rule 60(b) motion to provide relief from a final judgment was timely. Concluding it was not, we reverse.

I

A

From the mid-1980s through the early-1990s, Luis Sensat headed a drug trafficking enterprise that shipped thousands of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia into the United States. Rolando Fernandez, the defendant, was a member of Sensat’s organization.

In July 1994, Fernandez and Sensat were indicted in the Eastern District of Louisiana on various drug distribution and conspiracy charges. About a…