Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-16-06233/USCOURTS-ca10-16-06233-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Juan Carlos Chaidez-Guerrero
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

JUAN CARLOS CHAIDEZ-GUERRERO, 

a/k/a David Ochoa, a/k/a Tormenta, a/k/a 

Carlos Rios Chavez, a/k/a Juan Carlos 

Chaidez-Guerro, 

 Defendant - Appellant. 

No. 16-6233 

(D.C. No. 5:15-CR-00159-HE-1) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before MATHESON, PHILLIPS, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Juan Carlos Chaidez-Guerrero pleaded guilty to one count of possession with 

intent to distribute five grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 841(a)(1). He was sentenced to 110 months of imprisonment, below the assessed 

Sentencing Guidelines range of 121 to 151 months. Although his plea agreement 

contained an appeal waiver, he appealed. The United States has moved to enforce the 

appeal waiver under United States v. Hahn, 359 F.3d 1315, 1328 (10th Cir. 2004) 

 *

 This panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not 

materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 

10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. 

This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law 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. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit 

December 14, 2016

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court

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(en banc) (per curiam). Through counsel, Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero has responded. We 

grant the motion to enforce. 

Under Hahn, we consider “(1) whether the disputed appeal falls within the 

scope of the waiver of appellate rights; (2) whether the defendant knowingly and 

voluntarily waived his appellate rights; and (3) whether enforcing the waiver would 

result in a miscarriage of justice.” Id. at 1325. A miscarriage of justice occurs 

“[1] where the district court relied on an impermissible factor such as race, [2] where 

ineffective assistance of counsel in connection with the negotiation of the waiver 

renders the waiver invalid, [3] where the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum, or 

[4] where the waiver is otherwise unlawful.” Id. at 1327 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero contends that the appeal is outside the scope of the 

waiver and that enforcing the waiver would result in a miscarriage of justice because 

it is unlawful. He also invokes the doctrine of frustration of purpose. 

Scope of the Waiver. Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero first asserts that the appeal is 

outside the scope of the waiver. In relevant part, the waiver provides that 

defendant waives his right to appeal his sentence as imposed by the Court, 

including any restitution, and the manner in which the sentence is 

determined. If the sentence is above the advisory guideline range 

determined by the Court to apply to his case, this waiver does not include 

the defendant’s right to appeal specifically the substantive reasonableness 

of his sentence. 

Mot. to Enforce, Attach. 1 at 6-7. Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero relies on the exception for 

an above-Guidelines sentence. He asserts that the district court erred in setting the 

Guidelines range because, based on double hearsay statements, it found a higher 

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quantity of drugs than the parties stipulated in the plea agreement. Thus, he argues, 

his sentence is above the correct Guidelines range, taking it outside the scope of the 

waiver. 

This argument is meritless. The plain language of the plea agreement covers 

“the manner in which the sentence is determined” so long as the sentence is not 

greater than “the advisory guideline range determined by the Court to apply to his 

case.” Id. (emphasis added). Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero was sentenced below the 

Guidelines range determined by the court. The appeal is within the scope of the 

waiver; to hold otherwise would render the waiver meaningless. 

Miscarriage of Justice. Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero next asserts that the waiver is 

unlawful. He argues as follows: 

The quantity stipulation in the plea agreement is tied to the Guideline range 

and the appellate waiver. With respect to the appellate waivers within the 

plea agreement, the Guidelines are not advisory because the exceptions to 

the defendant’s waiver of his constitutional right to appeal is inextricably 

linked to the court’s determination of the Guideline range[;] the 

determination of the Guideline range must pass fundamental standards of 

due process. The government cannot bypass Mr. Chaidez’s constitutional 

rights to due process and confrontation via the plea agreement contract. 

Resp. at 5. 

 This argument focuses on the result of the proceeding, not the right 

Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero waived. See United States v. Smith, 500 F.3d 1206, 1213 

(10th Cir. 2007). But the exception for an unlawful waiver “looks to whether the 

waiver is otherwise unlawful, not to whether another aspect of the proceeding may 

have involved legal error.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “To 

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allow alleged errors in computing a defendant’s sentence to render a waiver unlawful 

would nullify the waiver based on the very sort of claim it was intended to waive.” 

Id. 

 To the extent that the argument perceives the parties’ stipulation as to drug 

quantity as an integral, immutable part of the plea agreement, it is mistaken. As 

discussed below in connection with frustration of purpose, Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero was 

well aware that the district court was not bound to accept the parties’ stipulation as to 

drug quantity. Further, to the extent that the argument asserts that a waiver cannot 

encompass constitutional rights, it again is mistaken. “It has long been established 

that a criminal defendant may waive many fundamental procedural and substantive 

rights, both constitutional and statutory.” United States v. Mitchell, 633 F.3d 997, 

1001 (10th Cir. 2011). The very purpose of a plea agreement is to secure a waiver 

of the defendant’s rights. See United States v. Cudjoe, 534 F.3d 1349, 1357 

(10th Cir. 2008) (“A defendant waives numerous constitutional rights when he enters 

into a plea agreement with the government.”). Also, if Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero is 

implying that the waiver is unlawful because it applied in a way he did not anticipate, 

this court has held that appeal waivers are enforceable even though a defendant did 

not know exactly how the waiver might apply. See Hahn, 359 F.3d at 1326 (rejecting 

the argument that “a defendant can never knowingly and voluntarily waive his 

appellate rights because he cannot possibly know in advance what errors a district 

court might make in the process of arriving at an appropriate sentence”). 

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Frustration of Purpose. Finally, Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero invokes the doctrine 

of frustration of purpose. Under this doctrine, the court may discharge performance 

of a contract when “a reasonably unforeseeable event intervenes, destroying the basis 

of the contract and creating a situation where performance by one party will no 

longer give the receiving party what induced him to enter into the contract in the first 

place.” United States v. Bunner, 134 F.3d 1000, 1004 (10th Cir. 1998). We have 

established the following three elements for frustration of purpose: (1) “the 

frustrated purpose must have been so completely the basis of the contract that, as 

both parties understand, without it the transaction would make little sense”; (2) “the 

intervening event cannot fairly be regarded as within the risks the frustrated party 

assumed under the contract”; and (3) “the non-occurrence of the frustrating event 

must have been a basic assumption on which the contract was made.” Id. (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 

 Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero has failed to satisfy these conditions. The record 

contradicts any inference that the district court’s decision not to honor the parties’ 

stipulation as to drug quantity was outside the risks of the plea agreement or that its 

non-occurrence was a basic assumption upon which the plea agreement was made. In 

the same plea-agreement section in which the parties stipulated the drug quantity they 

anticipated the government could prove, Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero “acknowledge[d] and 

underst[ood] that the Court [was] not bound by, nor obligated to accept, these 

stipulations, agreements, or recommendations of the United States or defendant.” 

Mot. to Enforce, Attach. 1 at 5. And during the plea colloquy, the district court 

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specifically informed Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero (and he agreed) that the court would not 

be bound by the parties’ stipulation and would sentence him based on the facts as it 

found them. See id., Attach. 2 at 13. In these circumstances, it would not be 

appropriate to apply the doctrine of frustration of purpose. 

For these reasons, the government’s motion to enforce the plea agreement is 

granted and this matter is dismissed. 

Entered for the Court 

Per Curiam 

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