United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted February 10, 2015*

Decided April 14, 2015 

Before 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

KENNETH F. RIPPLE, Circuit Judge 

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

No. 14-2766 

HARRY POWELL, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 

DONALD ENLOE, 

 Respondent-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 1:13-cv-00075 

Matthew F. Kennelly, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Harry Powell, an Illinois prisoner, challenges the denial of his petition for a writ 

of habeas corpus, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254, principally claiming that the judge who presided 

over his state prosecution for multiple burglaries coerced him to plead guilty. That claim 

was rejected in state postconviction proceedings, and the district judge concluded that 

 

*

 After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is 

unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 14-2766 Page 2 

the state decision is not contrary to, and does not involve an unreasonable application of, 

clearly established federal law. We agree with the district court and affirm the judgment. 

In August 2009, Powell faced charges on four counts of burglary in the Circuit 

Court of Cook County. Through counsel, he asked the presiding judge to conduct a 

conference with his lawyer and the prosecutor concerning the possibility of reaching a 

plea agreement. This practice was authorized, and still is, by Illinois rules of procedure. 

See ILL. S. CT. R. 402(d)(2) (2009) (current version effective July 1, 2012). Before the judge 

became involved in negotiations, he personally addressed Powell in open court and 

explained: 

I’ll learn information about yourself, family, education, military, or 

employment backgrounds, including the facts of these four cases and any 

criminal or traffic record you might have. Ordinarily, I would not be 

entitled to learn all that information unless the matter were to go to a 

hearing or trial. Now, at the conference will be your attorney, the assistant 

state’s attorney, myself. You will not be present. After those discussions, I 

next will offer you a penalty in exchange for a plea of guilty, except if you 

refuse to accept the penalty, that will not be a good reason for you to get 

another Judge. 

With Powell’s consent, the judge and lawyers then met privately and discussed 

plea options off the record and outside Powell’s presence. The lawyers and judge agreed 

on a total of 30 years’ imprisonment (10 years on one count followed by three, 

concurrent 20-year terms). Powell’s lawyer communicated that proposal to him. 

One month later, on the Friday before his Monday trial date, Powell appeared 

with counsel and personally asked the judge to consider sentencing him to probation 

because of his drug addiction. See 20 ILCS 301/40-10. The judge refused: 

 

No. No. Now, here is the deal. I spoke at a 402 conference. I heard 

from the government. I heard from your attorney. I weighed the mitigation 

and aggravating factors. On all of these cases your penalty will be 20 years. 

 . . . . 

 . . . You are going to do 20 years on these three recent cases, and you 

are going to do a ten-year sentence on the old case. They are going to run at 
No. 14-2766 Page 3 

the same time. The offer will never be less. It will be more, if certain things 

happen other than your acceptance of this offer. Or we can go to trial as 

soon as Monday if you don’t want to accept the offer on any one of these 

cases that the government elects on. 

Powell responded that he wished to proceed to trial, and the judge scheduled the trial 

for the next business day. 

 

That weekend Powell’s attorney advised him to plead guilty. When the parties 

reconvened on Monday, defense counsel informed the judge that Powell had decided to 

accept the proposed plea agreement. Powell then pleaded guilty to all four burglaries. 

During the plea colloquy, he assured the judge that no one had forced or threatened him 

to plead guilty. Powell waived his right to a presentence investigation, and the judge 

imposed the agreed, 30-year total sentence. 

Powell did not file a direct appeal but did seek postconviction relief. He claimed, 

in part, that the presiding judge had coerced his guilty pleas by injecting himself directly 

in the parties’ plea negotiations and by threatening a longer sentence if he opted for trial. 

Powell raised this claim of coercion for the first time in appealing the circuit court’s 

denial of his postconviction petition, but nonetheless the appellate court rejected the 

claim on the merits. The appellate court reasoned that in Illinois a circuit judge may 

participate in plea negotiations, that there is nothing inherently coercive about this 

practice or about a judge telling a defendant that he might be worse off by rejecting a 

proposed plea agreement, and that all the presiding judge did was confirm for Powell 

that he would receive 30 years’ imprisonment if he pleaded guilty to the pending 

charges. See People v. Powell, No. 1-10-1182, slip op. at 5–6 (Ill. App. Ct. May 11, 2012) 

(unpublished decision). The Supreme Court of Illinois denied leave to appeal. See People 

v. Powell, 979 N.E.2d 885 (Ill. 2012). 

 

Powell then filed his § 2254 petition. In denying relief the district court concluded 

that the state appellate court’s decision is not contrary to, and does not involve an 

unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. The district court granted a 

certificate of appealability, however, on the issue whether Powell’s guilty pleas were 

coerced. 

In this court Powell continues to challenge as improper the presiding judge’s 

degree of involvement in the plea negotiations. He contends that the district court 

erroneously evaluated his claim of coercion under the current version of Illinois 
No. 14-2766 Page 4 

Supreme Court Rule 402, which, unlike the earlier version, explicitly authorizes judges 

to “participate in plea discussions.” See ILL. S. CT. R. 402(d)(1) (2012). Powell asserts that 

the judge coerced his guilty pleas by participating directly in the negotiations and 

making his own plea offer rather than simply voicing an opinion about a proposed deal 

reached between the parties. 

Powell is mistaken in thinking that the district court looked to the wrong version 

of the rule; the court’s decision quotes in its entirety the pertinent section of Rule 402(d) 

as it existed in 2009 when Powell pleaded guilty. And although that version does not say 

explicitly that a judge may participate directly in plea negotiations, such participation was 

sanctioned by Rule 402 even before the rule was amended in 2012. See United States ex rel. 

Robinson v. Housewright, 525 F.2d 988, 989–91 (7th Cir. 1975); People v. Brock, 259 N.E.2d 

12, 15 (Ill. 1970); People v. Smith, 941 N.E.2d 975, 984 (Ill. App. Ct. 2010). Anyway, Powell 

consented to the judge’s participation after the judge explained what would happen 

during the conference with counsel. 

More importantly, § 2254 is not a remedy for violations of state law, Dellinger v. 

Bowen, 301 F.3d 758, 764 (7th Cir. 2002), and thus Powell cannot base a claim for relief on 

the state judge’s purported failure to adhere to what was authorized by the former 

version of Rule 402. True, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1) prohibits federal 

judges from participating in plea negotiations, but this is a prophylactic measure 

designed to remove any possibility that a judge’s participation might coerce a 

defendant’s decision to plead guilty. See United States v. Davila, 133 S. Ct. 2139, 2146 

(2013); United States v. Baker, 489 F.3d 366, 370–71, 376 (D.C. Cir. 2007); United States v. 

Markin, 263 F.3d 491, 497 (6th Cir. 2001); Frank v. Blackburn, 646 F.2d 873, 880 (5th Cir. 

1980). The Constitution does not compel state courts to adopt similar constraints or 

prohibit judicial participation in plea negotiations. See Davila, 133 S. Ct. at 2149; Stewart v. 

Peters, 958 F.2d 1379, 1384–85 (7th Cir. 1992); Robinson, 525 F.2d at 990–91; Miles v. Dorsey,

61 F.3d 1459, 1465–67 (10th Cir. 1995); Frank, 646 F.2d at 880, 882; Toler v. Wyrick, 563 F.2d 

372, 374 (8th Cir. 1977).

As for Powell’s claim that the presiding judge coerced his guilty pleas, the Illinois 

appellate court’s conclusion that Powell entered his pleas voluntarily is not 

unreasonable given the factual support in the record. Powell himself requested the 

Rule 402 conference and consented to the presiding judge meeting with his lawyer and 

the prosecutor outside his presence. After that conference, Powell’s lawyer conveyed the 

30-year proposal that was on the table. And though Powell says he was coerced to accept 

that deal, he initially declined it even after the presiding judge had purportedly 
No. 14-2766 Page 5 

“threatened” greater punishment if he went to trial.1 So our deferential review does not 

allow us to set aside the state appellate court’s adjudication on the merits. See Ward v. 

Sternes, 334 F.3d 696, 703–04 (7th Cir. 2003); Hardaway v. Young, 302 F.3d 757, 762 (7th Cir. 

2002). 

We also have considered Powell’s motion for recruitment of counsel filed on 

October 10, 2014, and deny the motion. 

AFFIRMED.

 

1 The district court noted that the tenor of the presiding judge’s comments 

suggests that he became angry and reacted inappropriately by scheduling the trial for 

the next business day when Powell hesitated to accept the proposed plea. We share this 

concern but agree with the district court that this possibility is not a basis to overturn the 

state appellate court’s finding that the judge did not coerce the plea.