Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-87-02347/USCOURTS-ca10-87-02347-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Laurence Keiswetter
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FILED 

United St.ates Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

FEB 0 91989 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

No. 87-2347 

LAURENCE KEISWETTER, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

ON REHEARING EN BANC 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

For the District of Kansas 

D.C. No. 86-10125-01 

Vicki Mandell-King, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Michael G. 

Katz, Federal Public Defender, with her on the briefs), Denver, 

Colorado, for. Defendant-Appellant. 

Robin ~owler, Assistant U.S. Attorney (Benjamin' L. Burgess, Jr., 

United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Wichita, Kansas, 

for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Before HOLLOWAY, Chief Judge, McKAY, LOGAN, SEYMOUR, MOORE, 

ANDERSON, TACHA, BALDOCK, BRORBY and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

MOORE, Circuit Judge. 

Appellate Case: 87-2347 Document: 01019739978 Date Filed: 02/09/1989 Page: 1 
· This case is before the court sitting en bane to rehear the 

question of the appropriate remedy to apply following the panel's 

determination that the record did not support defendant 

Keiswetter's plea of guilty and remand was necessary to clarify 

the factual basis of the plea. United States v. Keiswetter, 860 

F.2d 992 (10th Cir. 1988). Mr. Keiswetter now contends on 

rehearing that the panel should not have ordered the partial 

remand, and the plea of guilty should be vacat~d. We agree. 

Although protesting his ·innocence, Mr. Keiswetter entered a 

plea of guilty in accordance with North Carolina v. Alford, 400 

U.S. 25 (1970). Eleven days later, and prior to sentencing, Mr. 

Keiswetter moved to withdraw the plea; but the trial court denied 

the motion, ostensibly after concluding the defendant demonstrated 

no fair and just reason to allow withdrawal. Fed. R. Crim. P. 

32(d). Upon review of that holding, the panel concluded the 

record failed to demonstrate that the plea was properly accepted 

in the first instance because of the absence of evidence of a 

factual basis for the plea. Fed. R. Crim. P. ll(f). To overcome 

this gap in the record, the panel ordered a partial remand to 

allow the trial judge to clarify his reasons for having made that 

finding. 

However, when it is determined that a plea of guilty is 

improvidently accepted by a trial court without full compliance 

with Fed. R. Crim. P. 11, the plea must be vacated. McCarthy v. 

United States, 394 U.S. 459 (1969). McCarthy mandates that remedy 

for this case. See also United States v. Theron, 849 F.2d 477 

(10th Cir •. 1988); United States v. Blackner, 721 F.2d 703 (10th 

Cir. ·1983); United States v. Thomas, 468 ~.2d 422 (10th Cir. 

-2-

Appellate Case: 87-2347 Document: 01019739978 Date Filed: 02/09/1989 Page: 2 
1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 935 (1973); United States v. 

Townsend, 453 F.2d 1334 (10th Cir. 1972). The judgment of the 

district court is REVERSED and REMANDED with instructions to 

vacate the defendant's ·plea of guilty and undertake further 

proceedings upon his plea of not guilty to the original charge. 

-3-

Appellate Case: 87-2347 Document: 01019739978 Date Filed: 02/09/1989 Page: 3 
No. 87-2347, United States v. Keiswetter. 

BALDOCK, Circuit Judge, dissenting. 

The en bane court determines that when an appellate record 

does not contain an adequate factual basis for a plea, the plea 

must be vacated. With this holding, I have no quarrel. I simply 

think that the holding is being applied prematurely in this case. 

I respectfully dissent because the district court should be 

permitted to explain its reaso~ing based on record facts before we 

decide whether there is a sufficient factual basis for the plea. 

Fed. R. Crim. P. ll(f) requires the district court to make 

"such inquiry as shall satisfy it that there is a factual basis 

for the plea." The district court "must develop, on the record, 

the factual. basis for the plea." Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 

357, 261 {1971) (emphasis in 6riginal). Moreover, "[i]t is 

essential that a court accepting an Alford plea make every effort 

to ensure that a defendant recognize precisely what his plea 

entails." United ~tates v. Punch, 709 F.2d 889, 895 (5th Cir. 

1983). 

In McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 463-64 (1969), 

the United States Supreme Court held that noncompliance with Rule 

11 requires that a defendant's plea be set aside and the defendant 

be allowed to plead anew. This ~ se rule has been modified with 

the adoption of Fed. R. Crim. P. ll(h) which provides that: "Any 

variance from the procedures required by this rule which does not 

affect substantial rights shall be disregarded." "Although 

subdivision (h) modified McCarthy's rule of per se reversal, a 

Appellate Case: 87-2347 Document: 01019739978 Date Filed: 02/09/1989 Page: 4 
district court must still engage in careful and thorough 

compliance with the rule's requirements, and violations which may· 

be classified as 'harmless error' on direct appeal are limited." 

United S~ates v. Jaramillo-Suarez, 857 F.2d 1368, 1371 (·9th Cir. 

1988). Of course, the lack of a factual basis for a plea is the 

type of fundamental error which requires that a plea be vacated 

and the defendant be allowed to plead anew. 

In this case, the district court expressly satisfied itself 

that.there was a factual basis for the plea. But, as the panel 

majority noted, "the record fails to reflect clearly the evidence 

on which the trial judge relied in reaching his conclusion that 

there was a factual basis to believe that Mr. Keiswetter possessed 

the requisite intent for the crime of conversion." United States 

v. Keiswetter, 860 F.2d 992, 996 (10th Cir. 1988). The record did 

not contain "the precise factual basis'' for the district court's 

conclusion. Id. This does not mean that the district judge 

reached an impermissible conclusion, but rather one that was not 

readily apparent to us from the record. The district court did 

not provide us with the rationale for its subjective decision on 

this issue, although there may well be sufficient evidence in the 

record to support that decision. 

The panel majority conceded that the prosecutor's description 

of the case did not mention any direct evidence of intent. Id. 

But it then acknowledged that the district court may have relied 

on other sources for its conqlusion, such as: 1) a signed and 

sworn .statement by the defendant in a petition to enter a guilty 

-2-

Appellate Case: 87-2347 Document: 01019739978 Date Filed: 02/09/1989 Page: 5 
plea, 2) a presentence report or 3) other factors in the record of 

which we were not cognizant. See United States v. King, 604 F.2d 

411, 414 (5th Cir. 1979) ("As long as the factual basis is 

developed on the record, it may come from several sources.") When 

the import of these sources is known, we may better evaluate the 

district court's decision to accept the plea. See United States 

v. Allen, 804 F.2d 244, 248 (3rd Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 480 

U.S. 922 (1987)_ (remanding for reconsideration of existing Rule 11 

record). In accordance with the decision of the panel majority, I 

would remand the case for the necessary clarification. - At this 

point, I am not satisfied that the district court has committed 

error. 

-3-

Appellate Case: 87-2347 Document: 01019739978 Date Filed: 02/09/1989 Page: 6