US Court Rejects Sentence Appeal by Mexican Drug Lord ‘El Chapo’

MEXICO CITY—A U.S. court has rejected an appeal by former Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to review a 2019 ruling that sentenced him to life in prison. Mr. Guzman, who for years led the powerful Sinaloa cartel that is blamed for thousands of deaths in Mexico, had filed habeas corpus petitions—civil suits used to assess whether an imprisonment is lawful—and asked for legal representation in this appeal. “This was perhaps the most notorious criminal prosecution of the decade, and the charges of which petitioner was convicted could well have resulted in the death penalty but for the terms of his extradition,” Judge Brian Cogan, from the Eastern District of New York, said in the ruling denying the petition....