United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 13-1214

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United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Lisa Carol Dockins

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

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 Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Missouri - Cape Girardeau

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 Submitted: November 6, 2013

Filed: November 14, 2013

[Unpublished]

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Before LOKEN, BOWMAN, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Lisa Dockins appeals the 46-month prison sentence that the district court1

imposed following her guilty plea to a drug-conspiracy offense. Her counsel has

1

The Honorable Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., United States District Judge for the

Eastern District of Missouri.
moved to withdraw, and has filed a brief under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738

(1967). Dockins has not filed a pro se supplemental brief. For the reasons that

follow, we affirm.

Counsel raises several sentencing arguments: (1) the sentence is unreasonable

and excessive, (2) the court abused its discretion when it considered information in the

presentence report (PSR) about Dockins’s drug use in imposing her sentence, (3) the

court abused its discretion in failing to conclude that Dockins was the least culpable

member of the conspiracy, (4) a pretrial services officer made false or misleading

statements at sentencing, and (5) the government impermissibly made statements at

sentencing that were taken from Dockins’s confidential pre-plea proffer meeting.

We reject all of the foregoing arguments, and conclude that the sentence was

not unreasonable. See United States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455, 461 (8th Cir. 2009)

(en banc) (standard of review). Specifically, the court did not plainly err in its

determination of the level of Dockins’s culpability, see United States v. Molnar, 590

F.3d 912, 914 (8th Cir. 2010) (plain error review for error to which party did not

object); in accepting as true the PSR’s description of Dockins’s drug use, to which she

did not object, see United States v. Douglas, 646 F.3d 1134, 1137 (8th Cir. 2011); or

in considering the information about her drug use in choosing how to sentence

Dockins, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). We also conclude that the sentence, a

downward variance from the calculated Guidelines range, was not substantively

unreasonable. See United States v. Lazarski, 560 F.3d 731, 733 (8th Cir. 2009) (it was

nearly inconceivable that court abused discretion in not varying downward further). 

Finally, the court was entitled to accept the statements of the pretrial services officer,

see U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3(a); and at sentencing, Dockins did not alert the court that any

statement by the government breached a proffer agreement, nor does she identify on

appeal which statements were at issue. In these circumstances, we find no error. 

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Counsel also raises a second set of arguments, namely, that (1) the court erred

in accepting Dockins’s guilty plea, (2) the officers who searched Dockins’s home

tricked her into cooperating, (3) the search warrant was invalid, (4) certain

information was not admissible in establishing her guilt, and (5) counsel should not

have waived the filing of pretrial motions, and should have filed a motion to suppress. 

However, Dockins pleaded guilty pursuant to a plea agreement in which she agreed

to waive--with the exception of sentencing issues--all rights to appeal all nonjurisdictional issues including, but not limited to, any issues relating to pretrial

motions, hearings, and discovery and any issues relating to the negotiation, taking or

acceptance of the guilty plea or the factual basis for the plea. We enforce the appeal

waiver as to these arguments, which fall within the scope of the waiver, because the

record reflectsthat Dockins understood and voluntarily accepted the terms of the plea

agreement, including the appeal waiver, and no miscarriage of justice would result

from enforcing the waiver. See United States v. Andis, 333 F.3d 886, 889-92 (8th Cir.

2003) (en banc). 

Finally, having reviewed the record independently under Penson v. Ohio, 488

U.S. 75, 80 (1988), we have found no nonfrivolous issues for appeal. Therefore, we

grant counsel’s motion to withdraw, and we affirm. 

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