Commonwealth v. Mercado

In 2015, the defendant filed a motion to withdraw a guilty plea he had entered in 1997 in the East Boston Division of the Boston Municipal Court. That motion was denied, and the defendant's appeal therefrom was considered by the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) on direct appellate review. The SJC remanded, concluding that its adoption of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 360 (2010), was retroactive to the time of the defendant's guilty plea. Commonwealth v. Mercado, 474 Mass. 80, 83-84 (2016). On remand, the defendant's motion was again denied by the…