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Parties Involved:
Matthew Lyons
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 31, 1995 Decided May 9, 1995

No. 93-3202

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

MATTHEW LYONS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cr00116)

Michael H. Stone argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Gregory A. Gruber, Assistant U.S. Attorney, appeared pro hac vice and argued the cause for

appellee. With him on the brief were Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. Attorney, John R. Fisher, Elizabeth

Trosman and Eric B. Marcy, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: BUCKLEY, WILLIAMS and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge: Matthew Lyons was indicted for hiring an undercover police

officer to murder a man he believed to be his wife's lover. In exchange for the government's

agreement to dismiss two local-law counts and to refrain from opposing a reduction in his sentence

for acceptance of responsibility, Lyons pleaded guilty to one count of violating the federal

murder-for-hire statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1958 (Supp. 1992). The transcript of the proceeding in which

Lyons entered his plea quotes the trial judge on the subject of the penalty as follows:

You understand you could be subjected to ten years in prison and a $250 fine and

there will be an assessment of $50 over and above that. So that doesn't add much to

the $250 that you could have to begin with.

The statement of the maximum prison term was correct, but the statute in fact permits a fine of up

to $250,000, and indeed, at sentencing, pursuant to the Sentencing Guidelines, the judge imposed not

only a prison term of 97 months and two months supervised release but also a fine of $135,000.

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1Here the absence of contemporaneous objection does not trigger "plain error" analysis, under

which the appellant would have to show that the error was "clear" and to carry the burden of

proof on prejudice. See Olano, 113 S. Ct. at 1777-78. Any deviation from the requirements of

Rule 11 is reversible unless the government demonstrates that it was "harmless". See Fed. R.

Crim. P. 11(h); see also advisory committee's note to 1983 Amendment (explaining that section

(h) was added to modify the rule of McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459 (1969), under

which all violations of Rule 11(h) were deemed per se prejudicial). 

2At the first trial of Alger Hiss, for example, defense counsel sought to impeach Whittaker

Chambers with the typed transcript of his testimony before the House Committee on

Un-American Activities. That transcript recorded Chambers as saying that Hiss had lived at

"Dent Place" in Washington, when in fact he had lived at Volta Place. Chambers insisted he had

said Volta Place and that the transcript was wrong. Later the government called the

stenographer, who testified that his stenotyped notes of that part of Chambers's testimony showed

a tear (his regular symbol of doubt), that he had initially recorded "Balt ... Balt Place", and that,

after consulting Committee staff, he had entered it as "Dent Place" in the typed transcript. See

Alistair Cooke, A Generation on Trial: U.S.A. v. Alger Hiss 136, 173-74 (1950). 

Lyons now challenges his conviction and sentence as based on a plea that was not knowing

and intelligent. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1) (requiring court to inform defendant personally of

"maximumpossible penalty provided bylaw"). Because the record as a whole makes clear that Lyons

was not in fact misled, the error was not prejudicial and therefore not cause for reversal. See Fed.

R. Crim. P. 11(h) (error to be "disregarded" if it "does not affect substantial rights"); United States

v. Olano, 113 S. Ct. 1770, 1778 (1993) ("substantial rights" generally deemed "affected" only when

error was "prejudicial", that is, "affected the outcome of the District Court proceedings.").1

We assume the accuracy of the transcript, although there are famous instances to the

contrary2; government counsel on appeal informed us that if any electronic recording was made, it

no longer exists. Nonetheless, the context of the plea convinces us that Lyons either knew the correct

maximum and was not led astray by the court's misstatement or did not consider the amount of the

fine a serious factor in his decision to enter the plea. In either event, he would not have refrained

from pleading guilty had the court stated the fine correctly, and thus he suffered no prejudice. See

United States v. Liboro, 10 F.3d 861, 865-66 (D.C. Cir. 1993); United States v. Peden, 872 F.2d

1303, 1309 (7th Cir. 1989) ("[I]nsuring that a defendant's plea is voluntary is the purpose of the

procedures set forth in Rule 11. We refuse to exalt form over substance, ... and ignore the

defendant's clear understanding that restitution could be part of his criminal sentence."); United

States v. Grewal, 825 F.2d 220, 222 (9th Cir. 1987).

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First, defendant was advised ofthe fine accuratelyat his arraignment, when the magistrate told

him that "if you are ultimately found guilty of that offense that you could be sentenced to

imprisonment for a period of up to ten years or fined $250,000.00, or both." In United States v.

Gray, 611 F.2d 194 (7th Cir. 1979), the court refused to set aside a plea entered without a statement

of the maximum sentence, in part on the ground that defendant had been told of his maximum

exposure at arraignment. Id. at 201-02; see also LoConte v. Dugger, 847 F.2d 745, 751 (11th Cir.

1988) (holding that "a guilty plea may be knowingly and intelligently made on the basis of detailed

information received on occasions before the plea hearing"). Defense counsel points out, fairly

enough, that whereas the gap between arraignment and plea was only a month in Gray, here it was

five months, presenting a greater risk that defendant might have forgotten the information before his

plea. But Lyons's behavior after his plea lays that concern to rest.

After the plea but before sentencing, Lyons and hislawyer received a copy ofthe presentence

report ("PSR"). A separate paragraph on the first page of the PSR, captioned "Offense", reads in its

entirety as follows:

Count One: Use of Interstate Commerce Facilities in the Commission of Murder-forHire (18 U.S.C. § 1958)10 years/$250,000 fine.

In the sectionentitled "Fines", the report unambiguouslynotes, "Statutory Provisions: The maximum

fine is $250,000.... Guideline Provisions: The fine range for this offense is from $15,000 to

$150,000." All of the information about the maximum penalty is listed again, along with the parole

officer's recommendation, in a succinct, clearly laid-out chart near the end of the report, under the

heading "Sentencing Recommendation".

At the end of the PSR, Lyons acknowledged having reviewed the report and even registered

specific objections to three paragraphs that described his state of mind at the time of the crime. Yet

he voiced no objection to the paragraphs describing the possible penalty, which would have been

almost impossible to miss. Cf. Peden, 872 F.2d at 1309-11 (citing, as evidence of defendant's

understanding of penalty, defendant's acknowledgement that he had "read and understood" PSR

correctly describing penalty).

Finally, neither defendant nor his counsel expressed any surprise when a penaltyin the amount

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of $150,000 was discussed at the sentencing hearing, or when the judge actually imposed one of

$135,000. While requesting a departure from the Guidelines, Lyons's lawyer remarked, "we do not

dispute that the guidelines in effect were added up correctly [in the PSR] and that Mr. Lyons's

sentence should fall on paper underneath those guidelines." Later the judge engaged in a fairly

extensive discussion about the correct fine, first with defendant'slawyer and thenwith the prosecutor,

in the course of which he referred to the PSR's discussion of the monetary penalty, the advisability

of fining the defendant the Guidelines maximum of $150,000, and defendant's net worth (together

with that of his estranged wife) of $885,000. At the end of this colloquy with the attorneys, the judge

asked Lyons, "Is there anything you would like to say to the Court at this time?" Lyons responded

with some claims about the facts of the offense itself, saying that he had not intended to hire a private

investigator to commit murder but was "led on" by the undercover police officer. About the amount

of the finenot a word. If defendant was in any way surprised by the colloquy about fines, with its

frequent use of six-figure numbers, it seems inconceivable to us that he would not have protested.

See Lucas v. United States, 963 F.2d 8, 14-15 (2nd Cir. 1992) (finding defect of plea proceeding

purely "formal" in light of defendant's failure to protest sentencing colloquy that had unequivocally

displayed hisrisk); see also Peden, 872 F.2d at 1308; Rule 11(h) advisory committee's note to 1983

Amendment (whether error is harmless determined by examining entire Rule 11 record, including

sentencing hearing); cf. United States v. Pollard, 959 F.2d 1011, 1020, 1025-28 (D.C. Cir. 1992)

(giving "due consideration" to defendant's and defendant's counsel's "reactions upon hearing the

government's allocution at sentencing in determining whether the government's allocution breached

the agreement."). Accordingly, we are confident that the misstatements of the penalty recorded in

the transcript of the plea played no role in inducing defendant's decision to plead guilty.

We have considered all of appellant's other contentions and find no merit in them. The

conviction and sentence are

Affirmed.

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