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Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Tyrone J. Weaks
Appellant

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 15, 2004 Decided November 12, 2004

No. 03-3048

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

TYRONE J. WEAKS,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(01cr00425–01)

James E. McCollum, Jr., appointed by the court, argued

the cause and filed the brief for appellant.

Patricia A. Heffernan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, and John R. Fisher, Assistant U.S.

Attorney.

 Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

USCA Case #03-3048 Document #859527 Filed: 11/12/2004 Page 1 of 6
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Before: HENDERSON, RANDOLPH, and GARLAND, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: A three-count indictment

charged Tyrone J. Weaks with possessing with intent to

distribute five or more grams of cocaine base (count 1) and

with using, carrying and possessing a firearm in relation to

that drug offense (count 2). Count 3 charged Weaks’ girlfriend, Stephanie D. Conyers, with possessing cocaine base

with intent to distribute it. Weaks lost his pretrial motion to

suppress evidence found in his apartment and then entered a

conditional plea of guilty to counts 1 and 2 pursuant to

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2). In this appeal

he argues that the district court erred in denying his suppression motion and in refusing to let him withdraw his plea

before sentencing.

Weaks’ objection to the search is on two grounds. The

first is that a detective amended the search warrant after a

judge of the Superior Court issued it. The typewritten body

of the warrant does contain handwritten alterations. In a

statement describing the entrance to the apartment building,

a number is blacked out and replaced with ‘‘1649.’’ It is most

likely that the change corrected a typographical error. On

the line above, the address is identified as ‘‘1649 W Street,

Apartment #202,’’ which is where Weaks resided; on the line

below, ‘‘Apartment #202’’ is listed again. This, coupled with

evidence at the suppression hearing that the handwriting was

already on the warrant when the judge signed it, dooms any

claim of irregularity.

Weaks’ second point is that the agents did not leave a copy

of the warrant at his residence, as Rule 41(f)(3)(B) of the

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requires if a copy is not

given to the person whose premises were searched. This

claim fails for three reasons. One, the only evidence on

point — the return on the warrant — stated that the officers

left a copy of the warrant at the apartment. Two, Weaks did

not properly raise a Rule 41 argument in this court: his brief

contains only one sentence mentioning the subject; the senUSCA Case #03-3048 Document #859527 Filed: 11/12/2004 Page 2 of 6
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tence is only in the summary of his argument; and it is not

supported by any legal analysis, despite the undecided question whether a violation of Rule 41(f)(3) could justify a

suppression order. See FED. R. APP. P. 28(a)(9). And three,

Weaks waived the objection by failing to argue in the district

court that a violation of Rule 41(f)(3) would support suppression of the evidence. See FED. R. CRIM. P. 12(e).

As to the argument that the district court should have

permitted Weaks to withdraw his plea, the facts are these.

Weaks and Conyers waived their right to a jury trial. A

bench trial was set for April 11, 2002. One day earlier, the

district court denied Weaks’ motion to suppress and received

assurances from both sides that they were ready for trial.

On the morning of trial, Weaks entered his guilty plea. In

the plea agreement, the government promised not to oppose

Weaks’ request for a two-level decrease in his base offense

level for acceptance of responsibility, and ‘‘to dismiss Count

Three of the indictment in this case at the time of defendant’s

sentencing’’ — that is, to dismiss the charge against Weaks’

girlfriend, Stephanie Conyers, when the court sentenced

Weaks. Conyers’ attorney told the court that he had ‘‘a

problem with that’’ part of the plea agreement, apparently

because he did not want the charge against his client to

linger. He added that he was ready to go to trial that

morning. (The day before the court had expressed skepticism about the case against Conyers.) After the prosecutor

said that waiting until sentencing to dismiss the charge

against Conyers made sense because defendants sometimes

withdraw their pleas, the court asked if the government was

ready for trial. The prosecutor said that her position of the

day before remained unchanged, to which the court replied:

‘‘All right. We’ll go to trial. Call your first witness.’’ The

bench trial, which lasted an hour, resulted in Conyers’ acquittal.

Four months later, before he was sentenced, Weaks moved

to withdraw his guilty plea. His argument before the district

court was the same as his argument before us — that he was

entitled to this relief under the Federal Rules of Criminal

Procedure and Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257 (1971),

because the government breached the plea agreement by

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presenting its case against Conyers. The district court rejected the motion, stating that the ‘‘government was frustrated by the court, who forced them to go to trial,’’ that ‘‘the

court short-circuited any prosecution of ’’ Conyers and that

she ‘‘was acquitted of all charges before [Weaks] got out of

the courthouse.’’

When Weaks filed his withdrawal motion, Federal Rule of

Criminal Procedure 32(e) governed. The rule then provided

that ‘‘If a motion to withdraw a plea of guilty or nolo

contendere is made before sentence is imposed, the court may

permit the plea to be withdrawn if the defendant shows any

fair and just reason.’’ The hearing on Weaks’ motion occurred in 2003. By then, the old Rule 32(e) had been

eliminated, effective December 1, 2002, and replaced by Rule

11(d)(2)(B), which contains slightly different wording. It

states: ‘‘A defendant may withdraw a plea of guilty or nolo

contendere [before sentencing] if TTT the defendant can show

a fair and just reason for requesting the withdrawal.’’ Our

decisions under former Rule 32(e) reviewed ‘‘a district court’s

refusal to permit the withdrawal of a plea before a sentence

has been imposed only for an abuse of discretion.’’ United

States v. Hanson, 339 F.3d 983, 988 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (citing

United States v. Cray, 47 F.3d 1203, 1206 (D.C. Cir. 1995)).

Although the new Rule 11(d) no longer contains the phrase

‘‘the court may permit the plea to be withdrawn,’’ and although we emphasized the ‘‘may’’ in Hanson, the drafters of

the new rule did not intend a change in meaning and did not

mean to circumscribe the long-standing discretion of district

courts in these matters. See United States v. Cray, 47 F.3d

at 1206, and cases there cited. The Advisory Committee

Notes to Rule 11 make this plain: the changes to Rule 11

were ‘‘intended to be stylistic only,’’ unless otherwise noted.

Just as changes in ‘‘phraseology’’ in the revision of the 1948

Judicial Code did not change a statute’s substance, see 3M

Co. v. Browner, 17 F.3d 1453, 1458 (D.C. Cir. 1994), stylistic

changes in the Rules of Criminal Procedure do not alter their

substance.

Abuse of discretion will therefore continue to be our standard of review. The question remains whether the governUSCA Case #03-3048 Document #859527 Filed: 11/12/2004 Page 4 of 6
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ment violated its agreement with Weaks. The district court

believed that its actions, not those of the prosecution, prevented the government from fulfilling its promise to Weaks to

dismiss the charge against Conyers. Of this we have no

doubt. It is no answer to say that at the moment the court

ordered the parties to proceed to trial, the government could

have dropped the charge. That would have deprived the

government of its bargain. The agreement was to dismiss at

the time of Weaks’ sentencing, not before.

On the other hand, Weaks complains that he did not benefit

from his bargain, which he describes as not having Conyers

‘‘placed in jeopardy of a trialTTTT’’ Brief of Appellant at 15.

To the extent the plea agreement relieved Weaks of the

anxiety of having his girlfriend endure a criminal trial and

possible imprisonment, there is no indication that Weaks lost

anything. Conyers’ acquittal came not more than an hour

after the trial began. Nothing suggests that Weaks suffered

any anxiety during that hour or even knew her trial was

underway. The district court suggested as much in denying

the withdrawal motion.

The other benefit of Weaks’ bargain was one he bestowed

on Conyers. But Conyers’ decision to go to trial rather than

wait for the plea agreement to be carried out cannot be laid

at the government’s feet and did not amount to a breach of

the agreement. If third party beneficiary principles applied,

there still would be no breach. While Weaks relinquished his

right to a trial, Conyers did not. It is black letter contract

law that a third party ‘‘beneficiary is entitled to reject a

promised benefitTTT’’ see RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS

§ 306, at cmt. & illus. b (1981), and that when this occurs, the

‘‘effect on the promisor’s duty to the beneficiary is the same

as if no promise had been made.’’ Id. Thus when a ‘‘beneficiary’’ renders ‘‘performance [by the promisor] impossible,

this TTT generally prevent[s] [the nonperformance] from being a breach of duty on the promisor’s part to the promisee.’’

9 CORBIN ON CONTRACTS § 811 (interim ed. 2002). Conyers’

decision to go to trial thus relieved the government of its

obligation to Weaks to dismiss the charge against her at his

sentencing.

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We therefore hold that the district court properly rejected

Weaks’ motion to suppress and that the court did not abuse

its discretion in denying Weaks’ motion to withdraw his guilty

plea.

Affirmed.

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