Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-15-03125/USCOURTS-ca10-15-03125-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Andrew J. Price
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

TENTH CIRCUIT

___________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. No. 15-3125

ANDREW J. PRICE,

Defendant-Appellant.

(D.C. No. 2:10-CR-20129-KHV-5)

(D. Kan.)

____________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

____________________________________

Before TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge, BALDOCK and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.∗∗

____________________________________

In April 2011, Defendant Andrew J. Price pleaded guilty to Count One of a 

Superseding Indictment charging him with conspiracy to distribute and possession with 

intent to distribute more than 5 kilograms of cocaine powder and more than 280 grams of 

cocaine base in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A)(ii), 841(b)(1)(A)(iii),

and 846. Defendant made this plea agreement pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal 

Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) (“Rule 11(c)(1)(C)”), and any agreed-upon sentence under such a 

plea “binds the court once the court accepts the plea agreement.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 

 * This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the doctrines 

of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its 

persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.

∗∗ After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this 

appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument.

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

October 9, 2015

Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court

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11(c)(1)(C). The parties recommended a sentence of 240 months’ imprisonment and, in 

the fourth paragraph of the agreement, stated:

[t]he parties are of the belief that the proposed sentence does not offend the 

now advisory sentencing guidelines, but because this proposed sentence is 

sought pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C), the parties are not 

requesting imposition of an advisory guideline sentence. 

Defendant also waived his right to file any motion under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). This 

statute authorizes a district court to modify or reduce a defendant’s sentence when that 

sentence was “based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the 

Sentencing Commission.” 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2).

The Presentence Investigation Report, prepared after Defendant executed the plea 

agreement to help the district court decide whether it should accept the plea, concluded 

that Defendant’s total offense level was 37 and that he was in criminal history category I. 

This corresponded to an advisory Guideline sentence of 210 to 262 months. At the 

September 15, 2011 sentencing hearing, the district court explicitly referenced this range 

and told Defendant:

As you know, we start the sentencing process by figuring out where you 

stand under the sentencing guidelines. And here they would call for a 

sentence between 210 and 262 months. After reviewing the entire case in 

light of the parties’ agreement for a sentence of 240 months, I’m convinced 

that this sentence which you propose would be sufficient but not greater 

than necessary to meet all of the objectives of federal sentencing law.

The district court thus accepted the plea agreement and sentenced Defendant to 240 

months’ imprisonment.

In February 2015, Defendant—notwithstanding the waiver he made in his plea 

agreement—filed a motion pro se in the district court to reduce or modify his sentence 

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pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). He argued that Amendment 782 to the United States 

Sentencing Guidelines, which “reduces by two levels the [base] offense levels assigned” 

to the drug-trafficking offenses he was convicted under, lowered his total offense level to

35. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual app. C, amend. 782 (Supp. 2014). The 

corresponding effect would be an advisory Guideline range of 168 to 210 months’

imprisonment. Because his imposed sentence of 240 months was above this modified 

range, Defendant asked the district court “to consider sentencing him at or near the 

bottom of his amended guideline range.”

The district court dismissed Defendant’s § 3582(c)(2) motion for lack of 

jurisdiction.1

 Its decision was based on this Court’s holding in United States v. Graham, 

704 F.3d 1275 (10th Cir. 2013), where we ruled that a district court did not have 

jurisdiction to reach the merits of a pro se litigant’s § 3582(c)(2) motion when his 

sentence “was not based on a Guideline sentencing range but on the terms of his [binding 

Rule 11(c)(1)(C)] plea agreement.” Id. at 1278. The district court concluded that 

Defendant’s Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement “calls for a specific sentence [of 240 

months] and does not use or employ a guideline sentencing range,” and that it had 

sentenced Defendant “based solely” on this plea agreement. It thus determined that it 

could not reach the merits of his motion.

Defendant thereafter timely filed a motion for reconsideration, arguing that he 

satisfied the Graham rule because Defendant’s plea agreement, unlike the oral plea 

 1 The district court acknowledged that Defendant had waived his right to file any

§ 3582(c)(2) motions in the district court, but it stated in its Order that “[i]n dismissing 

defendant’s present motion, the Court does not rely on the waiver in the plea agreement.”

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agreement at issue in Graham, explicitly stated that “[t]he parties are of the belief that the 

proposed sentence does not offend the now advisory sentencing guidelines.” He 

contended that this written language showed his sentence was “based on” a Guideline 

sentencing range. In support of his argument, he analogized his situation to Freeman v. 

United States, 131 S. Ct. 2685 (2011), where the Supreme Court held that a binding Rule 

11(c)(1)(C) agreement containing express language that the defendant “agrees to have his 

sentence determined pursuant to the Sentencing Guidelines” was clearly a sentence 

“based on” a Guideline sentencing range. Id. at 2690, 2699–700. The district court, 

however, determined that Defendant’s plea agreement “[r]ead in its entirety . . . called for 

a sentence of a specific number of months, not a specific offense level or range under the 

guidelines.” The district court thus denied Defendant’s motion for reconsideration. 

Defendant now appeals, and we exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. See United 

States v. Trujeque, 100 F.3d 869, 870–71 (10th Cir. 1996). 

We generally review a denial of a motion to reconsider for abuse of discretion. 

United States v. Randall, 666 F.3d 1238, 1241 (10th Cir. 2011). When the district court 

denied this motion on the grounds that a binding Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement 

divested it of its § 3582(c)(2) jurisdiction, however—a matter that is a pure question of 

law—we review the order de novo. See Graham, 704 F.3d at 1277. 

Defendant returns to his primary argument made in the district court and contends 

that, in accordance with the Graham rule, the language in his plea agreement stating 

“[t]he parties are of the belief that the proposed sentence does not offend the now 

advisory sentencing guidelines” shows his agreement is based on the Sentencing 

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Guidelines. Graham itself was primarily grounded in the Supreme Court’s decision in 

Freeman, and in that case, we ruled that Justice Sotomayor’s concurring decision in 

Freeman provided the Court’s governing holding. Id. at 1278. As it relates to 

Defendant’s present appeal, Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence furnished an important rule

of law: a defendant’s Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement is based on the Sentencing 

Guidelines—and therefore eligible for reduction under § 3582(c)(2)—only if that 

agreement “expressly uses a Guideline sentencing range applicable to the charged offense 

to establish the term of imprisonment.” Freeman, 131 S. Ct. at 2695 (Sotomayor, J., 

concurring in the judgment) (emphasis added). This express use can occur in only two 

possible ways: (1) when the Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreement “call[s] for the defendant to be 

sentenced within a particular Guidelines sentencing range,” or (2) when the agreement 

“provide[s] for a specific term of imprisonment . . . but also makes clear that the basis for 

the specific term is a Guidelines sentencing range applicable to the offense to which the 

defendant pleaded guilty.” Id. at 2697 (Sotomayor, J., concurring in the judgment) 

(emphasis added).

Defendant’s plea agreement satisfies neither of these express uses. Because his 

agreement proposes a specific sentence of 240 months, it does not call for the district 

court to sentence Defendant within a particular Guidelines sentencing range. Moreover, 

his agreement does not “make clear” that the basis for this 240-month term is a 

Guidelines sentencing range because the agreement never mentions or describes any such 

range. In fact, Paragraph 4 of the agreement contains language stating exactly the 

opposite: the parties explicitly note that “because this proposed sentence is sought 

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pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C), the parties are not requesting imposition of an 

advisory guideline sentence.” When read in conjunction with this dismissal of the 

Guidelines, the language stating that the sentence does not “offend” the Sentencing 

Guidelines merely indicates that the length of the sentence is not arbitrary. See id.

(Sotomayor, J., concurring in the judgment) (“[P]lea bargaining necessarily occurs in the 

shadow of the sentencing scheme to which the defendant would otherwise be subject.”). 

Defendant combats this conclusion by pointing to a statement the Government

made in its Sentencing Memorandum wherein it declared that “[e]ven though the 

government will recommend a sentence of 240 months imprisonment . . . the government 

believes the USSG should be properly applied in any case.” He argues that this 

statement, when coupled with the “does not offend” language from the plea agreement,

shows the Government clearly intended to use the Guidelines as a basis for its

recommended sentence. Contrary to Defendant’s reading, however, the most natural 

reading of this statement is that the Government was urging the district court, if it elected 

not to accept the binding plea agreement, to impose a sentence that conformed to the 

Sentencing Guidelines. This reading is supported by the final paragraph of the 

Government’s Sentencing Memorandum:

[T]he government believes the defendant’s USSG range should be 

determined to be 210 to 262 months imprisonment. The government would 

note that but for the defendant’s Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement, it would 

likely be requesting an upward departure from the high end of the 

defendant’s USSG range. . . . However, as long as the defendant does not 

violate the plea agreement entered into by the parties, the government will 

recommend a sentence of 240 months imprisonment pursuant to the plea 

agreement.

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Any experienced prosecutor would have argued the same as an alternative measure. 

Even if we were to give Defendant the benefit of the doubt and assume that this 

statement from the Sentencing Memorandum manifested the Government’s intent to use 

the Guidelines as a basis for the 240-month sentence, this intent is not expressly apparent

from the plea agreement. This discrepancy would contravene the rule from Justice 

Sotomayor’s concurrence in Freeman that the plea agreement itself must “make clear” 

that the Guidelines serve as the basis for the sentence. See id. (Sotomayor, J., concurring 

in the judgment) (noting that district courts need not “engage in a free-ranging search 

through the parties’ negotiating history” in an effort to find some reference to a 

Guidelines sentencing range that might have influenced a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea 

agreement). Thus, at the very most, all this statement shows is that Defendant and the

Government considered the Sentencing Guidelines when drafting the plea agreement and 

preparing for sentencing; for the Government to have done otherwise would have been

unusual. Id. (Sotomayor, J., concurring in the judgment) (“[I]n most cases the 

Government and the defendant will negotiate the term of imprisonment in a [Rule 

11(c)(1)(C)] agreement by reference to the applicable Guidelines provisions.”).

Defendant also argues that the district court’s consideration of the Guidelines and 

reference to the objectives of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors at his sentencing 

hearing transformed his sentence into one based on the Guidelines. Justice Sotomayor 

noted, however, that § 3582(c)(2) cannot be invoked to reduce a defendant’s sentence 

“simply because the court itself considered the Guidelines in deciding whether to accept 

the [Rule 11(c)(1)(C)] plea agreement.” See id. at 2696 (Sotomayor, J., concurring in the 

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judgment). The district court was using the Guideline range and objectives solely to 

determine whether it should accept the plea agreement, so this argument also fails.

Finally, Defendant invokes our rule of “construing any ambiguities against the 

government as the drafter of the [plea] agreement,” United States v. AltamiranoQuintero, 511 F.3d 1087, 1094 (10th Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. RodriguezDelma, 456 F.3d 1246, 1250 (10th Cir. 2006)) (internal quotation mark omitted), to argue 

that we must adopt his interpretation of the statement that “[t]he parties are of the belief 

that the proposed sentence does not offend the now advisory sentencing guidelines.” 

This rule, however, is contingent on the presence of an ambiguity in the plea agreement, 

see id., and Defendant’s agreement contains none: the parties expressly state in the same 

paragraph of the agreement that “because this proposed sentence is sought pursuant to 

Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C), the parties are not requesting imposition of an advisory 

guideline sentence.” Once again, the clear conclusion we must draw is that the plea 

agreement, when read as a whole, is unambiguous and not based on the Guidelines. 

Thus, while it is undoubtedly true that we construe plea agreements “according to 

contract principles and what the defendant reasonably understood when he entered his 

plea,” United States v. Veri, 108 F.3d 1311, 1313 (10th Cir. 1997), we cannot hold

Defendant’s interpretation of this clause to be reasonable.

AFFIRMED.

Entered for the Court,

Bobby R. Baldock

United States Circuit Judge

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