UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-4854

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

JARA MEOTTA ISHON FLOWERS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, 

at Charlotte. Robert J. Conrad, Jr., District Judge. (3:16-cr-00023-RJC-DCK-1)

Argued: May 10, 2018 Decided: June 4, 2018

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and WYNN and THACKER, Circuit Judges. 

Dismissed in part, affirmed in part by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

ARGUED: Joshua B. Carpenter, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH 

CAROLINA, INC., Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellant. Anthony Joseph Enright, 

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for 

Appellee. ON BRIEF: Ross Hall Richardson, Interim Defender, FEDERAL 

DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, 

for Appellant. Jill Westmoreland Rose, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE 

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee. 
2

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Jara Meotta Ishon Flowers (“Appellant”) pled guilty in the district court to Hobbs 

Act extortion under color of official right in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). She 

appeals her conviction. The Government filed a motion to dismiss the appeal as barred 

by the appellate waiver in Appellant’s plea agreement. We grant the Government’s 

motion and dismiss the appeal in part. We affirm the district court’s decision as to the 

remainder of the appeal.

I.

A.

While employed as a correctional officer at a state operated correctional facility in 

North Carolina, Appellant entered into an arrangement with at least one inmate at the 

facility to use her position to smuggle contraband into the facility in exchange for 

payment. Per this agreement, the inmate would provide Appellant with the contact 

information of an individual outside the prison whom Appellant would then meet to 

obtain the contraband and payment for her services.

In 2015, state and federal authorities began an investigation into the smuggling of 

contraband into the correctional facility where Appellant worked. On July 13, 2015, an 

undercover agent recorded a conversation with Appellant during which she discussed 

receiving payment in exchange for smuggling the contraband into the facility. Appellant 

was later arrested.
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B.

In February 2016, a grand jury indicted Appellant and charged her with Hobbs Act 

extortion under color of official right in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). She filed a 

motion to dismiss the indictment, arguing that pursuant to Justice Thomas’s dissent in 

Ocasio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1423 (2016), the Hobbs Act does not apply to bribery. 

The district court denied Appellant’s motion because “the majority opinion [in Ocasio] 

did not upset the existing state of the law [pursuant to Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 

255 (1992)] that the Hobbs Act covers bribery.” J.A. 18.1

After Appellant’s motion to dismiss was denied, she entered into a plea agreement

with the Government. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Appellant waived her right 

to challenge her conviction except as to claims for ineffective assistance of counsel or 

prosecutorial misconduct. Appellant also reserved “the right to appeal as to the issue of 

whether 18 U.S.C. § 1951 extortion under color of official right is properly charged in 

bribery cases per the dissent in [Ocasio].” J.A. 34 (quoting J.A. 73 (sealed)).

On July 28, 2016, the district court2 conducted a plea hearing pursuant to Rule 11 

of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. During the hearing, the Government read 

from the plea agreement, specifically mentioning Appellant’s waiver of “all such rights to 

contest the conviction and/or sentence” in the absence of ineffective assistance of counsel 

 1 Citations to the “J.A.” refer to the Joint Appendix filed by the parties in this 

appeal.

2 Appellant consented to having a magistrate judge preside over this proceeding.
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or prosecutorial misconduct. J.A. 34. The Government clarified that Appellant also 

“reserve[d] the right to appeal as to the issue of whether 18 U.S.C. [§] 1951 extortion 

under color of official right is properly charged in bribery cases per the dissent in 

[Ocasio].” Id. Appellant’s counsel emphasized, “[T]his is a conditional plea and what’s 

reserved is the right to appeal the District Court’s denial of a . . . pretrial motion to 

dismiss based on the Ocasio dissent.” Id. at 35–36.

The district court then addressed Appellant as follows:

THE COURT: Now, you are waiving some rights you have to 

appeal. This case is a little bit unusual and I think we covered 

that pretty clearly here, but you are nonetheless waiving some 

rights you have to appeal with some exceptions. Do you 

understand that?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Okay. Well, let me ask you two standard 

questions, then, on that topic. Do you understand that with 

those exceptions you are waiving the right to appeal your 

conviction and/or your sentence in the plea agreement? Do 

you understand that?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor.

THE COURT: You also understand that with those 

exceptions you are also waiving the right to challenge your 

conviction and/or your sentence in what’s called a “postconviction proceeding”?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor.

J.A. 36–37.
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At the conclusion of the plea hearing, the district court determined that 

Appellant’s plea was “knowingly and voluntarily made, and that [Appellant] 

underst[ood] the charges, potential penalties, and consequences of her plea.” J.A. 40. 

The district court further found “that [Appellant’s] plea [was] supported by an 

independent basis in fact, containing each of the elements of the offense to which she is 

pleading.” Id. Therefore, the district court accepted Appellant’s guilty plea. It later 

sentenced her to 18 months of imprisonment. Appellant timely appealed.

II.

Appellant’s principal argument on appeal is that her conduct does not constitute an 

“official act” -- as that term is defined in McDonnell v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2355 

(2016) -- necessary to prove Hobbs Act extortion under color of official right. The 

Government contends that Appellant waived her right to present this argument by 

entering into a plea agreement that contained an appellate waiver.

“We generally will enforce a waiver to preclude a defendant from appealing a 

specific issue if the record establishes that the waiver is valid and that the issue being 

appealed is within the scope of the waiver.” United States v. Thornsbury, 670 F.3d 532, 

537 (4th Cir. 2012) (internal alterations and quotation marks omitted). We agree with the 

Government that the appellate waiver is valid and that Appellant’s argument on appeal 

falls within the scope of the waiver. Accordingly, we grant the Government’s motion and 

dismiss the appeal in part.
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A.

The appellate waiver in Appellant’s plea agreement is valid. “An appellate waiver 

is valid if the defendant’s agreement to the waiver was knowing and intelligent.” 

Thornsbury, 670 F.3d at 537. “Generally, if a district court questions a defendant 

regarding the waiver of appellate rights during the Rule 11 colloquy and the record 

indicates that the defendant understood the full significance of the waiver, the waiver is 

valid.” Id. (citing United States v. Johnson, 410 F.3d 137, 151 (4th Cir. 2005)); see 

United States v. Adams, 814 F.3d 178, 182 (4th Cir. 2016) (“[A] properly conducted Rule

11 colloquy establishes the validity of the waiver.”).

Because the Government’s counsel and Appellant’s counsel discussed the scope of 

the waiver at the plea hearing, and the district court specifically questioned Appellant 

about her intent to waive her right to appeal her conviction, the appellate waiver in the 

plea agreement is valid. See United States v. Copeland, 707 F.3d 522, 528 (4th Cir. 

2013) (holding that appellate waiver valid where “the district court read the appeal 

waiver aloud and questioned [the defendant] as to whether he ‘underst[ood] the appellate 

rights [he was] giving up in that paragraph’”).

B.

Further, the principal issue Appellant seeks to raise on appeal is within the scope 

of the appellate waiver. Appellant contends that her conduct does not constitute an 

“official act” -- as that term is defined in McDonnell v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2355 

(2016) -- necessary to prove Hobbs Act extortion under color of official right. This issue 

is not an assertion of ineffective assistance of counsel or prosecutorial misconduct. And 
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the issue Appellant specifically reserved in her plea agreement -- “whether 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1951 extortion under color of official right is properly charged in bribery cases per the 

dissent in [Ocasio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1423 (2016)]” -- does not encompass the 

McDonnell issue Appellant now raises.

Justice Thomas’s dissent in Ocasio opines that Hobbs Act extortion under color of 

official right does not cover bribery. 136 S. Ct. at 1437 (Thomas, J., dissenting). The 

dissent asserts that the Supreme Court’s decision in Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 255 

(1992) -- which defined Hobbs Act extortion under color of official right as “the rough 

equivalent of . . . taking a bribe,” id. at 260 -- “wrongly equated extortion with bribery.” 

Ocasio, 136 S. Ct. at 1437 (Thomas, J., dissenting). By contrast, the Court in McDonnell

applied Evans’s definition of Hobbs Act extortion under color of official right in 

reviewing the conviction of a defendant who “had accepted bribes.” 136 S. Ct. at 2365. 

Because McDonnell dealt with Hobbs Act extortion under color of official right in a 

bribery case, it cannot possibly form the basis for an argument that Hobbs Act extortion 

under color of official right is not “properly charged in bribery cases.”

Indeed, this is precisely why Appellant’s briefs in this appeal present the two 

issues in the alternative. And significantly, the Supreme Court had not yet decided 

McDonnell at the time Ocasio was decided, so neither the Ocasio majority opinion nor 

Justice Thomas’s dissent relied on McDonnell. Thus, the principal issue Appellant seeks 

to raise on appeal falls within the scope of the valid appellate waiver in her plea 

agreement.
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C.

Under certain circumstances, “[w]e will refuse to enforce an otherwise valid 

waiver if to do so would result in a miscarriage of justice.” Adams, 814 F.3d at 182. We 

conclude that no such circumstances exist in this case. Therefore, we enforce the 

appellate waiver in Appellant’s plea agreement.

III.

Appellant also argues, pursuant to the reasoning articulated by Justice Thomas’s 

dissent in Ocasio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1423 (2016), that Evans v. United States, 

504 U.S. 255 (1992), was wrongly decided. Like the district court, “we are not free to 

overrule or ignore the Supreme Court’s precedents.” United States v. Cheek, 415 F.3d 

349, 353 (4th Cir. 2005). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s order denying 

Appellant’s motion to dismiss the indictment on this basis.

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we grant the Government’s motion to dismiss the 

appeal in part. We affirm the district court’s decision as to the remainder of the appeal.

DISMISSED IN PART,

AFFIRMED IN PART