Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-03020/USCOURTS-caDC-13-03020-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mark-Anthony Elisha Adams
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 9, 2015 Decided March 20, 2015

No. 13-3020

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

MARK-ANTHONY ELISHA ADAMS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:12-cr-00093-1) 

Deborah A. Persico argued the cause for appellant. On 

the brief was Joseph Virgilio.

Peter S. Smith, 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, Elizabeth H. 

Danello, and Jonathan P. Hooks, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

Before: TATEL and MILLETT, Circuit Judges, and 

GINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

GINSBURG.

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GINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge: Mark-Anthony Elisha

Adams appeals the sentence imposed by the district court 

after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail 

fraud. We dismiss the appeal because, in his plea agreement,

Adams waived his right to appeal.

I. Background

A grand jury indicted Adams for having devised and 

carried out a scheme to defraud the United States Agency for 

International Development. Adams agreed to plead guilty to 

one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud in 

return for which the Government would move to dismiss the 

other 21 counts in the indictment. The agreement explained

the sentence would be determined by the court and the range

indicated by the United States Sentencing Guidelines was 51 

to 63 months imprisonment. The parties further “agree[d] that 

a sentence within the applicable Guidelines Range ... would 

constitute a reasonable sentence,” and that Adams 

waive[d] the right to appeal his sentence or the manner 

in which it was determined pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3742, except to the extent that (a) the Court 

sentences [Adams] to a period of imprisonment longer 

than the statutory maximum, or (b) the Court departs 

upward from the applicable Sentencing Guideline 

range pursuant to the provisions of U.S.S.G. § 5K.2 or 

based on a consideration of the sentencing factors set 

forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

After Adams pleaded guilty the district court sentenced him to 

the minimum Guidelines term of 51 months imprisonment 

and to three years of supervised release, and ordered him to 

pay restitution.

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II. Analysis

Adams argues the district court erred in three respects. 

First, he contends the court erred by denying his motion to 

delay sentencing, filed two days before his sentencing 

hearing, until two doctors determined whether Adams would 

benefit from simultaneous organ transplants. Adams claims

the information provided by the doctors would have aided the 

court in deciding whether any time in prison was warranted in 

light of Adams’s ill health. Second, Adams argues the court 

erred during the sentencing hearing by cutting short his crossexamination of the Government’s witness, who testified about 

the medical care Adams would receive in prison. Third, 

Adams argues his sentence is substantively unreasonable. We 

do not consider any of these arguments because Adams 

waived his “right to appeal his sentence or the manner in 

which it was determined pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3742.”

A “knowing, intelligent, and voluntary” waiver of the 

right to appeal “generally may be enforced.” United States v. 

Guillen, 561 F.3d 527, 529 (D.C. Cir. 2009). We will not 

enforce a waiver, however, if “the defendant makes a 

colorable claim he received ineffective assistance of counsel 

in agreeing to the waiver” or “if the sentencing court’s failure 

in some material way to follow a prescribed sentencing 

procedure results in a miscarriage of justice.” Id. at 530–31. 

The latter exception applies if, for example, “the district court 

utterly fails to advert to the factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a),”

the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum, or the sentence 

is “colorably alleged to rest upon a constitutionally 

impermissible factor, such as the defendant’s race or 

religion.” Id. at 531.

Adams relies upon the “miscarriage of justice” exception 

to argue that we should refuse to enforce the waiver, but he 

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has neither claimed nor shown that any of the examples

identified in Guillen, nor any comparably serious procedural 

failure, infects this case. Instead, Adams takes issue with the 

way in which the district judge exercised her discretion in 

deciding what evidence was relevant to the determination of

his sentence. Specifically, he argues the district court should 

have postponed sentencing while he gathered additional

medical evidence and should have allowed him more leeway 

to cross-examine the Government’s witness during the 

sentencing hearing. As other courts have explained, however, 

“an allegation that the sentencing judge misapplied the 

Sentencing Guidelines or abused his or her discretion is not 

subject to appeal in the face of a valid appeal waiver.” United 

States v. Andis, 333 F.3d 886, 892 (8th Cir. 2003) (en banc). 

Accordingly, when Adams waived his right to appeal “his 

sentence or the manner in which it was determined pursuant 

to 18 U.S.C. § 3742,” he agreed to forgo both the procedural 

and the substantive challenges that he now seeks to press on 

appeal. See 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a)(1) (authorizing appeals of 

sentences “imposed in violation of law”); see also United 

States v. Buissereth, 638 F.3d 114, 117 (2d Cir. 2011) 

(“While [the defendant’s] appeal waiver did not relieve the 

District Court of its responsibility to follow the procedural 

requirements related to the imposition of a sentence, the 

appeal waiver does preclude this Court from correcting the 

errors alleged to have occurred”); United States v. Soto-Cruz, 

449 F.3d 258, 261 (1st Cir. 2006) (rejecting the appellant’s 

argument that “enforcement of the appeal waiver would work 

a miscarriage of justice because the district court denied his 

request to present, in a closed hearing, mitigation evidence 

and evidence of his background” before the court imposed the

sentence).

Viewed ex ante, not even Adams would want this case 

decided as he argues it ex post. As we have observed before,

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“[a]llowing a defendant to waive the right to appeal his 

sentence ... gives him an additional bargaining chip to use in 

negotiating a plea agreement with the Government.” Guillen, 

561 F.3d at 530. If the Government cannot count upon the 

waiver being enforced in the mine run of cases — those in 

which enforcing it would not work a miscarriage of justice —

then waiver will lose its value as a “bargaining chip” for a 

defendant. For this reason, “the miscarriage of justice 

exception is a very narrow exception to the general rule that 

waivers of appellate rights are enforceable.” United States v. 

Blue Coat, 340 F.3d 539, 542 (8th Cir. 2003). 

III. Conclusion

Adams waived his right to appeal a sentence within the 

Guidelines range. The waiver is enforceable because he “has

not shown that the district court worked a miscarriage of 

justice by failing to follow an essential procedure or relied 

upon a constitutionally impermissible factor.” Guillen, 561 

F.3d at 532. Adams’s appeal is, therefore,

 Dismissed. 

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