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Parties Involved:
Sealed Case

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 5, 2001 Decided April 10, 2001

No. 00-3049

In re: Sealed Case

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 98cr00302-01)

Mary Manning Petras, appointed by the court, argued the

cause and filed the briefs for appellant.

Suzanne Grealy Curt, Assistant United States Attorney,

argued the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were

Wilma A. Lewis, United States Attorney, John R. Fisher,

Mary-Patrice Brown, and John P. Gidez, Assistant United

States Attorneys.

Before: Edwards, Chief Judge, Ginsburg and Tatel,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge Edwards.

Edwards, Chief Judge: This is an appeal from sentencing.

Appellant entered into a boilerplate plea agreement, in which

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he agreed to plead guilty to two counts of a seven count

indictment in exchange for certain assurances from the Government. Among those assurances was a promise that the

Departure Guideline Committee would authorize filing a

s 5K1.1 motion for downward departure if it determined that

appellant had "provided substantial assistance" to the prosecutor. It is undisputed that appellant aided authorities in the

successful prosecution of another person. It is also undisputed that appellant refused at the eleventh hour to testify

against two different persons in an unrelated prosecution.

The Committee did not authorize the s 5K1.1 motion.

Believing that the Committee had violated the plea agreement, appellant filed a motion with the District Court to

compel the Government to file a s 5K1.1 motion. The District Court denied appellant's motion and sentenced him to

concurrent sentences, of 101 and 60 months, for distribution

of cocaine and unlawful possession of a firearm. Although

the plea agreement is hardly a model of clarity, we nonetheless can find no basis upon which to overturn the judgment of

the District Court. The principal point in this case is that,

despite appellant's protestations to the contrary, it cannot be

said that the Committee violated the plea agreement. Absent

such a violation, the District Court had no authority to grant

appellant's motion and thereby undermine the Government's

discretion to determine whether or not to file a s 5K1.1

motion.

I. Background

Following arrest on a seven-count drug and weapons indictment, appellant and the government entered into a standard

written plea agreement. In addition to pleading guilty on

two counts of the indictment, appellant agreed to "cooperate

truthfully, completely and forthrightly ... in any matter as to

which the Government deems the cooperation relevant."

Plea Agreement p 5(a). Such cooperation included testifying

"fully and truthfully before any Grand Jury ... and at all

trials of cases or other court proceedings ... at which

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ernment." Id. p 5(d). Appellant also agreed that the Government would be free from all obligations under the agreement if appellant "fail[ed] to specifically perform or to fulfill

completely each and every one of [appellant's] obligations

under [the] plea agreement." Id. p 14.

In exchange the Government promised not only to dismiss

the remaining five counts of the indictment, but also to inform

the Departure Guideline Committee of the "nature and extent" of appellant's cooperation, "or lack thereof." Id. p 17.

(In the District of Columbia, the Departure Committee, rather than the individual prosecutor in charge of the case,

decides whether a defendant's assistance warrants filing a

s 5K1.1 motion, i.e., whether it is "substantial.") If the

Departure Committee thereafter determined that appellant

"had provided substantial assistance in the investigation or

prosecution of another person who has committed an offense,"

the plea agreement obligated the Government to file a departure motion pursuant to s 5K1.1. Id. p 18. However, the

agreement warned that "the determination of whether [appellant] has provided 'substantial assistance in the investigation

or prosecution of another person,' pursuant to either Section

5K1.1 ... or 18 U.S.C. s 3553(e) ... is within the sole

discretion of the United States Attorney for the District of

Columbia and is not reviewable by the Court." Id. p 6.

Appellant does not here dispute that, prior to entering into

the plea agreement, the Government informed appellant that

it would require his participation in two ongoing cases as part

of the cooperation agreement. Following entry of the plea

agreement, appellant provided information and testimony as

requested in the first case. The Government here concedes

that appellant's assistance helped, in part, to secure superseding drug indictments against several individuals who thereafter pled guilty. Government's Br. at 9.

The Government here also concedes that appellant provided helpful information to law-enforcement officers during the

investigation phase of the second case. Government's Br. at

8. In the midst of trial, however, appellant made an eleventh-hour decision not to testify as a witness, ostensibly for

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fear that something might happen to him or his family. He

ceased helping the Government with the case. Nevertheless,

the Government secured convictions.

The prosecutor informed the Departure Committee of appellant's cooperation in both cases, and lack thereof, as well

as appellant's reasons for refusing to testify at trial in the

second. In light of that information, the prosecutor recommended that the Departure Committee authorize filing a

s 5K1.1 motion seeking a "modest departure" from the District Court. The Departure Committee disagreed, however,

and refused to authorize the downward departure motion.

Although the Departure Committee itself did not provide any

reason for its decision, Government counsel at sentencing

informed the District Court that two of the Departure Committee members had told him that appellant's request had

been denied because he refused to testify at trial in the

second case.

Appellant filed a motion to compel the Government to lodge

a s 5K1.1 substantial assistance motion in conformity with

the plea agreement. Following three different hearings and

additional briefing on the issue, the District Court ultimately

denied appellant's motion and sentenced him without considering a possible downward departure for his assistance in the

two cases. This appeal followed.

II. Analysis

In the absence of a plea agreement, the Government has

broad discretion to file a substantial assistance motion. If the

Government declines to file such a motion, the District Court

can grant relief only upon a showing of unconstitutional

motive or a failure to meet the fundamental requirement that

the Government's actions bear a rational relationship to some

legitimate government objective. Wade v. United States, 504

U.S. 181, 185-86 (1992); accord In re Sealed Case, 181 F.3d

128, 142 (D.C. Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 989

(1999). The Government's discretion may be constrained,

however, by a plea agreement. When the prosecutor reneges

on an agreement to afford a defendant the benefit of a

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s 5K1.1 motion, the District Court may, upon request, compel

the filing of the motion if the Government's refusal amounted

to bad faith or otherwise violated the express terms of the

plea agreement. In re Sealed Case, 181 F.3d at 142; accord

United States v. Jones, 58 F.3d 688, 692 (D.C. Cir. 1995). In

the instant case, the only issue before us is whether the

Departure Committee breached the plea agreement.

The disputed plea agreement obliges the Departure Committee to evaluate appellant's cooperation, or lack thereof,

and determine whether that cooperation rises to the level of

substantial assistance; it conditionally obliges the United

States Attorney to file a s 5K1.1 motion if the Departure

Committee makes that determination in appellant's favor.

Plea Agreement p 18. But that is all. In signing the agreement, the Government did not relinquish--indeed it expressly

preserved--its broad discretion to decide what constitutes

substantial assistance in a given case and whether appellant's

cooperation fits that bill:

Your client understands that the determination of whether your client has provided "substantial assistance in the

investigation or prosecution of another person," pursuant

to either Section 5K1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines or

18 U.S.C. s 3553(e), as more fully explained later in this

agreement, is within the sole discretion of the United

States Attorney for the District of Columbia and is not

reviewable by the Court.

Id. p 6 (emphasis added). Nevertheless, appellant here argues that the Departure Committee's unexplained refusal

amounted to a breach of the plea agreement. We disagree.

The bulk of appellant's argument is, at bottom, a factual

dispute. Appellant asserts that "the Government," as a factual matter, found that his assistance in the first case was

substantial, but still refused to file the motion in contravention of its conditional obligation under Paragraph 18 of the

agreement. By employing the catch-all term "the Government," appellant conflates the prosecutor and the Departure

Committee. It is true that the prosecutor assigned to appellant's case believed that appellant's full assistance in the first

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case, even in conjunction with his aborted assistance in the

second, satisfied the requirement of "substantial assistance."

Indeed, in his report to the Departure Committee, the prosecutor recommended a modest departure request. But, appellant offers no record evidence that the Departure Committee--the decisionmaker of moment under the agreement--

ever determined that appellant's assistance was "substantial."

Because the Committee offered no explanation of its decision, appellant asks this court to infer that the Committee

agreed with the prosecutor's assessment of the quality of

appellant's assistance but nevertheless refused to authorize

the motion as punishment for appellant's failure to cooperate

fully under the agreement. If indeed appellant could somehow demonstrate that his assistance clearly exceeded some

objective threshold of substantialness, such a demonstration

might allow us to make the requested inference. But therein

lies the problem for appellant: there is no exogenous "objective" meaning of the term "substantial," and the agreement

itself does nothing to provide one. Absent some specific

criteria in the agreement itself for assessing the quality of

appellant's assistance, this court cannot simply presume from

the Committee's silence that it violated the plea agreement.

Appellant offers one possible counter. He observes that

whatever "substantial assistance" means under the agreement, it cannot mean to "cooperate ... completely ... in any

matter as to which the Government deems the cooperation

relevant." Plea Agreement p 5(a); cf. United States v.

Sparks, 20 F.3d 476, 478 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (holding that the

duty to cooperate and substantial assistance provisions were

independent of one another). This is so, appellant argues,

because Paragraph 18 states, "if the Departure Committee

... after evaluating the full nature and extent of [appellant's]

cooperation, or lack thereof, determines [appellant] has provided substantial assistance," the Government will file the

s 5K1.1 motion. Plea Agreement p 18 (emphasis added).

Relying on this distinction, appellant contends that the Committee's own ex parte admissions reveal that it refused to

authorize the motion not because appellant's assistance was

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insubstantial, but rather because he refused to testify in the

second matter.

"Or lack thereof" certainly implies the possibility that, in at

least some cases, partial cooperation under the agreement

will suffice; it also certainly implies that the Committee will

at least consider appellant's partial cooperation. But the

mere fact that Paragraph 18's boilerplate language does not

explicitly make full cooperation a necessary condition to "substantial assistance" in every conceivable case says nothing

about whether the Committee deemed it a necessary, sufficient, or even insufficient one on the facts of appellant's case.

Compare Jones, 58 F.3d at 691 (holding that the Departure

Committee's refusal was not a breach of nearly identical

boilerplate provision despite the fact that appellant had cooperated fully under the agreement). A finding here that the

Committee did not authorize the motion because appellant

failed to testify in the second case is not inconsistent with a

finding by the Departure Committee that the remainder of

his assistance, standing alone, was not sufficient to merit a

s 5K1.1 motion.

Asserting that it is no better for this court to presume from

the Committee's silence that the Government did not breach

the plea agreement than to presume that it did, appellant

argues in the alternative that the District Court should have

granted his request for an order commanding the Departure

Committee to provide an explanation for its decision or

compelling the disclosure of any relevant records regarding

the decision for in camera inspection. As authority for this

unusual intrusion into prosecutorial decisionmaking, appellant

points us to the following passage from our decision in Jones:

Because a defendant is not privy to the deliberations and

actions of the U.S. Attorney's Office ... a defendant will

face enormous difficulty in supporting [a charge of bad

faith]. To ameliorate this problem and to provide both

the trial judge and a reviewing court with information

that might help them weigh an allegation of bad faith, we

suggest that prosecutors who enter into agreements like

the one before us, but subsequently fail to file a section

5K1.1 motion, summarize for the district court what

information they provided the Departure Committee,

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while at the same time safeguarding information that

could compromise an ongoing investigation or endanger

the defendant or others, together with any explanation,

similarly circumscribed, that the Committee may have

offered for finding the defendant's assistance to be insubstantial.

Jones, 58 F.3d at 692. If we grant for the moment that the

preceding passage is more than mere suggestion, both the

District Court and the prosecutor in the present case complied with the above-outlined procedure in its entirety. The

prosecutor summarized for the District Court the information

and recommendation he gave to the Committee regarding the

nature and extent of appellant's assistance; he provided the

District Court with the limited ex parte explanations he had

received regarding the Departure Committee's decision; he

even delivered a letter from appellant's counsel raising these

substantive issues to the Departure Committee, which, upon

review, affirmed its decision that a s 5K1.1 motion was not

warranted.

Though transparency is to be applauded, nothing in the

Jones passage purports to allow, much less require, the

District Court to demand an explanation or look behind the

decision absent a more potent threshold showing of bad faith

or unconstitutional motive. Moreover, it is clear from the

sentencing and motion hearing transcripts that the trial judge

refused to demand an explanation because he was satisfied on

the record at hand that the Departure Committee had determined that appellant's assistance was not substantial because

he did not testify in the second case. In short, the record

offers nothing to support the claim that the District Court

erred in denying appellant's request.

* * * * *

Though we are convinced from the record that the Government did not breach the plea agreement in the present case,

we pause to emphasize some of the concerns we expressed six

years ago in Jones. There, the Departure Committee refused

to authorize filing a s 5K1.1 motion despite the fact that

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Jones had cooperated fully under a similar boilerplate plea

agreement. We held that the terms of the agreement did not

make full cooperation a sufficient condition for finding that a

defendant's assistance was substantial. Nevertheless, the

court was deeply concerned that "prosecutors might dangle

the [boilerplate] suggestion of a section 5K1.1 motion in front

of defendants to lure them into plea agreements, all the while

knowing that the defendant's cooperation could not possibly

constitute assistance valuable enough for the Departure Committee to find it 'substantial.' " Jones, 58 F.3d at 691-92.

The facts of the present case admittedly are not as troubling

as Jones, for appellant here did not cooperate fully. But the

Government's use of the same basic boilerplate provision in

appellant's agreement six years later raises similar concerns.

Whereas the Government is a repeat player in this ritual,

each defendant approaches the provisions of his plea agreement anew with the understandable belief that the agreement

and its terms are tailored to that defendant's particular

circumstance. By indiscriminately implying in each and every case not only that a s 5K1.1 motion is a possibility, but

also that partial cooperation might in a given case be sufficient, the agreement is arguably deceptive. Take appellant

for example. Prior to signing the agreement, appellant knew

that the Government would be seeking his cooperation in two

cases, each involving multiple defendants. With that context

in mind and faced with phrases such as "another person" and

"or lack thereof," appellant could reasonably have believed

that the Committee might authorize a s 5K1.1 motion if he

assisted in at least one of the cases and that assistance led to

the prosecution of at least one person. Indeed, in weighing

the costs and benefits of testifying in the second case, he may

very well have considered the fact that his fruitful assistance

to that point already gave him at least some chance at a

s 5K1.1 motion. We are therefore troubled by the Government's suggestion at oral argument that nothing in the agreement obligates the Government ever to authorize a s 5K1.1

motion absent full cooperation. While that may be true, the

agreement certainly does not, as it could, make that clear.

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The value of a plea agreement to a defendant grappling

with the question of whether or not to waive his right to a

trial necessarily increases with the number of chances the

plea agreement gives him to earn a substantial assistance

motion. A defendant is playing the odds, and those odds are

not only a crucial term in the bargain itself but also a guide

for informing a defendant's actions thereafter. As currently

written, the boilerplate provisions suggest to defendants, such

as appellant, that their chances at a motion may be greater

than they are. There is no good reason for the Government

not to take the necessary extra step to insert more explicit

and well-tailored caveats into its plea agreements. Indeed,

"[t]he Government's claim that its interest in maintaining a

reputation for fairness among criminal defendants guarantees

judicious exercise of its ability to consider filing a section

5K1.1 motion ... is undermined by the use of boiler-plate

provisions." Jones, 58 F.3d at 692 (citations omitted).

In the end, the boilerplate s 5K1.1 provisions give defendants very little, if anything, as a substantive matter, for, with

or without the plea agreement in question, the Government

has broad discretion to file a s 5K1.1 motion. The Government's continued failure to acknowledge that fact in the

language of the plea agreement itself leads to the untoward

conclusion that the Government fully appreciates, and does

not wish to lose, the benefits accorded it by the imprecision of

its boilerplate provisions.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the District

Court is affirmed.

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