Gabriel A. Fuentes
How Judge Fuentes decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On consent Social Security review his remands turn on a specific, identifiable analytical gap — a missing 'logical bridge', cherry-picked evidence, an ignored line of evidence (e.g. school records), or an inadequately-explained Step Five vocational-expert methodology. He affirms where the ALJ's decision is supported by substantial evidence. A claimant should pin the challenge to a concrete evidentiary or methodological omission rather than re-arguing the weight of the evidence.
“we grant Plaintiff's motion to remand ... and deny Defendant's motion to affirm.”
Procedural preferences
On referred civil discovery he draws careful, reasoned lines on confidentiality designations and document control: he compelled business/logistical contract terms wrongly withheld as work product while preserving an Attorneys'-Eyes-Only designation for genuinely competitively-sensitive royalty data, and he held a party 'controls' responsive documents for Rule 34 purposes even when an individual defendant personally possesses them. Frame discovery disputes precisely around what is truly privileged/competitive vs. ordinary business information.
“the Court grants Plaintiffs' First Motion to Compel (D.E. 158) in full”
Cautions
He engages seriously with constitutional questions even in pre-charge/duty postures — e.g. holding that an uncharged investigation target's Sixth Amendment right to counsel had attached during pre-charging plea negotiations and appointing CJA counsel. He is also noted in secondary federal sources for closely scrutinizing and denying government 'geofence' search-warrant applications. Expect rigorous Fourth/Sixth Amendment analysis on warrant and counsel questions.
“For the foregoing reasons, the Motion is granted.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Social security review N = 6 |
Granted: 5Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to compel N = 2 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to appoint counsel N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“the Court grants Plaintiff's request for remand and denies the Commissioner's motion to affirm.”
“we grant Plaintiff's request for remand (D.E. 13) and deny the Commissioner's motion to affirm (D.E. 18).”
“Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is granted”
“the Court denies Plaintiff's motion to remand ... and grants the Commissioner's motion ... to affirm the ALJ opinion.”
“The Court GRANTS the Plaintiff's memorandum seeking remand of the decision (D.E. 19).”
“we grant Plaintiff's motion to remand ... and deny Defendant's motion to affirm.”
“C&C's motion to compel and to bar the AEO designation ... is partially granted and partially denied”
“the Court grants Plaintiffs' First Motion to Compel (D.E. 158) in full”
“For the foregoing reasons, the Motion is granted.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Fuentes is an active magistrate judge (appointed 2019). His recency-sorted enumerable docket docket in 2026 is duty-magistrate work (sealed/suppressed search-warrant and grand-jury mc matters, criminal duty assignments). His civil reasoning work — Social Security consent dispositions and referred discovery (motions to compel) — is reflected in the GovInfo reasoning layer.