Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-03040/USCOURTS-caDC-11-03040-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Joseph A. Laslie
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 15, 2013 Decided May 17, 2013

No. 11-3040

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

JOSEPH A. LASLIE, ALSO KNOWN AS JOSEPH LASLIE,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cr-00057-1)

Beverly G. Dyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender, 

argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A.J. 

Kramer, Federal Public Defender. Neil H. Jaffee, Assistant 

Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance.

David C. Rybicki, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman and David 

B. Kent, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: HENDERSON, BROWN and GRIFFITH, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Joseph Laslie pled guilty to 

crossing state lines to have sex with a minor. He appeals his 

sentence, arguing that the district court erred when it applied a 

sentencing enhancement based on his use of a computer to 

facilitate his crime. We hold that Laslie waived this challenge. 

He stipulated to the enhancement in his plea agreement and 

raised no objection to its inclusion in the district court’s 

calculation of his sentence. Therefore, we affirm the sentence 

imposed by the district court.

I

On January 14, 2010, an undercover Metropolitan Police 

Department detective dangled the following bait in an Internet 

chat room frequented by pedophiles: “Virginia dc md area 

incest 39 perv male into no limit fun anyone in the area.” The 

detective received a response the next day: “Hey . . . I am a 41 

yr old straight male in VA . . . message me maybe we can share 

some stories and ideas.” The response came from an individual 

with the Yahoo! Messenger screen name “joefburg.” This, it 

turned out, was Laslie, a forty-one year-old man living in 

Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Over the next week and a half, Laslie and the detective 

exchanged numerous messages through Yahoo! Messenger. 

The detective claimed that he was sexually active with his 

girlfriend’s daughters, aged eleven and thirteen. The girlfriend 

and the daughters were, of course, fictitious. After Laslie 

recounted a story about sexually abusing a seven year-old girl a 

decade before, the detective suggested that he could arrange for 

Laslie to have sex with the eleven year-old. Laslie responded 

enthusiastically. During chats on January 19 and 25, Laslie and 

the detective made plans to meet at a bar in the District of 

Columbia. From there, they planned to go to the detective’s 

apartment, where Laslie would have sex with the child. On 

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January 26, Laslie called the detective to confirm, then took the 

Metrorail from suburban Virginia into the District. The police 

arrested Laslie when he arrived at the bar. He promptly 

admitted that he was “joefburg.”

On March 22, 2010, Laslie pled guilty to one count of 

travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b). In his plea agreement, Laslie 

and the government stipulated to a Sentencing Guidelines base 

offense level of 30, subject to a four-level enhancement 

because his offense involved a victim under the age of twelve, 

U.S.S.G. § 2A3.1(b)(2)(A), an additional two-level 

enhancement because Laslie used a computer to commit his 

crime, id. § 2A3.1(b)(6)(B), and a three-level reduction 

because he accepted responsibility for his wrongdoing. Id.

§ 3E1.1. Following Laslie’s guilty plea, the United States 

Probation Office issued a Presentence Investigation Report 

(PSR), which calculated Laslie’s total offense level in the same 

manner as the parties did in the plea agreement, resulting in a 

recommended Guidelines range of 135 to 168 months’ 

imprisonment.

At Laslie’s sentencing hearing on April 6 and 7, 2011, his

counsel argued that Laslie should be sentenced below his 

applicable Guidelines range, but twice acknowledged that the 

Guidelines calculations in the plea agreement and the PSR

were correct – enhancements and all. Tr. 4/6/11, at 46-47; Tr. 

4/7/11, at 23. The district court declined the invitation to depart 

from the Guidelines and sentenced Laslie to 135 months, at the 

low end of his range. Id.

Laslie filed a notice of appeal on April 27, 2011. We have 

jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a).

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II

Laslie’s challenge to his sentence rests on a single 

argument: that the district court erred in applying the two-level 

enhancement because his offense did not involve the use of a 

computer “to persuade, induce, entice, or coerce a minor to 

engage in prohibited sexual conduct.” U.S.S.G. 

§ 2A3.1(b)(6)(B). Laslie raises this argument for the first time 

on appeal; the district court had no occasion to pass on it. The 

question is, did Laslie forfeit the argument, or did he waive it? 

Laslie argues that he merely forfeited it, and thus we should 

review the enhancement for plain error. We decline to do so, 

however, because we agree with the government: Laslie 

waived his challenge.

The distinction between waiver and forfeiture is 

significant. “Whereas forfeiture is the failure to make a timely 

assertion of a right, waiver is the intentional relinquishment of 

a known right.” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733 

(1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). Forfeiture occurs 

when “silence on the part of the appealing party has prevented 

examination by the trial court,” In re Sealed Case, 356 F.3d 

313, 318 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (citation omitted), and our review is 

for plain error. FED. R. CRIM. P. 52(b). By contrast, waiver is 

intentional, and “extinguishes an error so that there is no 

review, because the defendant has knowingly and personally 

given up the waived right.” In re Sealed Case, 356 F.3d at 317 

(citation omitted). 

Laslie did not merely fail to object to the enhancement; his 

decision not to challenge the enhancement was deliberate.

Starting with his plea agreement and continuing through filings 

and arguments at his sentencing hearing, Laslie affirmed that 

the district court should use the enhancement in calculating his 

Guidelines range. His focus was elsewhere, on persuading the 

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court to sentence him outside of the Guidelines. We find 

Laslie’s actions, described below, sufficient to constitute 

waiver.

At his plea hearing, Laslie told the magistrate judge 

presiding over the hearing that he had reviewed the plea 

agreement with his counsel, understood it fully, and agreed to 

its terms. The plea agreement included a Statement of Offense, 

signed by Laslie, describing how he used a computer to carry 

out his crime. He admitted that during online chats, he told the 

detective he wanted to have sex with the eleven year-old and 

discussed traveling to the District to do so. Laslie and the 

government relied upon these admissions to stipulate to

offense-level adjustments, including the enhancement he now 

challenges.

At every subsequent turn before the sentencing court, 

Laslie reaffirmed that the enhancement should be applied in 

determining his Guidelines range. He did not object to the 

PSR, which applied the enhancement. His sentencing 

memorandum, in fact, stated that the PSR’s Guidelines 

calculations, including the enhancement, “technically 

appl[ied].” Def.’s Mem. in Aid of Sentencing at 2-3, United 

States v. Laslie, Cr. No. 10-057 (D.D.C. Oct. 5, 2010). And, at 

the sentencing hearing, with Laslie present, his attorney twice 

recognized that the stipulated Guidelines calculations in the 

plea agreement were accurate and reliable.

Both the government and the district court relied upon 

Laslie’s repeated affirmations. The government made no 

specific factual proffer to support the enhancement, beyond 

Laslie’s Statement of Offense, and directed no argument 

towards its application. Understandably, the court treated the 

issue as resolved and made no explicit findings beyond 

adopting the PSR. This court does not allow parties to reopen 

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issues waived by stipulation at trial. Similarly, we will not 

review a belated challenge on an issue a party agreed not to 

dispute in sentencing proceedings below. See United States v. 

Harrison, 204 F.3d 236, 240 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (“Upon entering

into a stipulation on an element, a defendant waives his right to 

put the government to its proof of that element.”).

To be clear, our holding is based on both the stipulation in 

Laslie’s plea agreement and his subsequent course of conduct 

in the sentencing proceedings. We need not decide whether the 

stipulation in Laslie’s plea agreement was sufficient to 

constitute waiver, given his willingness to reinforce the 

stipulation at every turn prior to sentencing. We note that both 

the Seventh and Eighth Circuits would find waiver based upon 

the stipulation in the plea agreement alone. See, e.g., United 

States v. Scott, 657 F.3d 639, 640 (7th Cir. 2011) (per curiam); 

United States v. Barrett, 173 F.3d 682, 684 (8th Cir. 1999)

(holding that a defendant is barred from “challeng[ing] an 

application of the Guidelines to which he agreed in a plea 

agreement (unless he proves the agreement invalid or succeeds 

in withdrawing from it)”). The Second Circuit would not. See 

United States v. Granik, 386 F.3d 404, 412 & n.6 (2d Cir. 

2004) (“[A] stipulation in a plea agreement, although not 

binding, may be relied upon in finding facts relevant to 

sentencing.”). But the Second Circuit has recognized waiver 

based upon defendants’ conduct similar to Laslie’s after he 

entered his plea. See United States v. DeJesus-Concepcion, 

607 F.3d 303, 305 (2d Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (holding that the 

defendant waived any challenge to the assessment of a criminal 

history point where he “not only declined to contest” the 

assessment, “but expressly acknowledged” that his conduct 

warranted it); United States v. Jackson, 346 F.3d 22, 24 (2d 

Cir. 2003) (holding that the defendant waived his challenge to 

a four-level enhancement by expressly conceding that it 

applied to his offense).

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Laslie argues that finding waiver would run afoul of this 

court’s decision in United States v. Accardi. 669 F.3d 340 

(D.C. Cir. 2012). In Accardi, the government argued that a 

defendant had waived his right to appeal a term of a supervised 

release imposed after a lengthy imprisonment because he had 

stated at sentencing that he would “take” lifetime supervised 

release in lieu of prison. Id. at 344. We easily found that the 

defendant had not waived the right of appeal; the sentence he 

got (one hundred months’ imprisonment plus forty years’ 

supervised release) was very different from the one he told the 

court he would accept (lifetime supervised release with no 

prison). Id. The Accardi court took the opportunity to discuss 

appellate waivers in more general terms, explaining that “[a] 

defendant may waive his right to appeal his sentence as part of 

a plea bargain only if the waiver is knowing, intelligent, and 

voluntary.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). And we

observed that “[i]n the context of a plea bargain, such a 

determination is usually made at the plea hearing, at which the 

court can fully explain the consequences of the waiver by 

informing the defendant of exactly what rights he is giving up 

and what rights he retains.” Id. (emphasis added) (citation 

omitted).

Laslie takes Accardi to mean that any waiver associated 

with a plea must be made personally, on the record, and in open 

court. Tr. 1/15/13, at 4:1-18. But our waiver analysis has never 

relied on such formalities. “[A]n anticipatory waiver – that is, 

one made before the defendant knows what the sentence will 

be – is nonetheless a knowing waiver if the defendant is aware 

of and understands the risks involved in his decision.” In re 

Sealed Case, 702 F.3d 59, 63 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). We require that “the record show[]

that [the defendant] knows what he is doing and his choice is 

made with eyes open.” United States v. Guillen, 561 F.3d 527, 

529-30 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Cf.

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In re Sealed Case, 702 F.3d at 63-64 (relying on terms of 

written plea agreement to find waiver invalid). We declined to 

find waiver in Accardi because the defendant never, in any 

form, expressed a willingness to abide by a sentence of both

imprisonment and supervised release. Accardi, 669 F.3d at 344 

(“Nowhere did he indicate his willingness to accept the 

sentence he now challenges . . . .”). We noted that waiver is 

“usually made at the plea hearing,” but we did not state that 

waiver would be effective only if it was the subject of a specific 

allocution at that hearing. Thus, Accardi does not trouble our 

holding: that the stipulation in Laslie’s plea agreement and his 

subsequent affirmations constitute sufficient evidence that 

Laslie intentionally relinquished his challenge to the 

enhancement.

Unlike in Accardi, the record before us is unequivocal. 

Beginning with his plea agreement, Laslie repeatedly affirmed 

that his Guidelines range should be calculated with a two-level 

enhancement to his offense level under U.S.S.G.

§ 2A3.1(b)(6)(B). He therefore waived his challenge to the 

enhancement.

III

For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s sentence is 

affirmed.

So ordered.

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