Source: https://sfcriminallawspecialist.com/blog/s-e-n-t-e-n-c-i-n-g-p-a-r-t-n-e-r-s-september-part-iii/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 01:56:23+00:00

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conspiracy as well as cocaine distribution. After a superceding indictment, he plead guilty under Rule 11(c)(1)(C), and agreed to an offense level of 38, resulting in a sentencing range of 188 to 235 months. The parties also agreed that a sentence of 204 months was appropriate. The PSR recommended that the defendant be found responsible for more than 150 kilos of cocaine, resulting in a base offense level of 38. The defendant objected to the allegation in the PSR that he personally delivered over 150 kilograms of cocaine. At sentencing, the governmen argued, without prior notice, that the defendant’s objection was a breach of the plea agreement. After much argument by both sides, the district court determined that the 204-month sentence was “not consistent with the other sentences that have been meted out given the relative culpability of the defendants,” and also determined that the defendant had breached the plea agreement. The court rejected the plea agreement and set the case for trial. A second superceding indictment was issued and the defendant pled guilty to two counts. The PSR calculated a sentencing range of 262 to 327 months and the district court imposed a sentence of 300 months. On appeal, the defendant sought specific performance of the first plea agreement. The Seventh Circuit explained that once a district court accepts a guilty plea, Rule 11 governed the withdrawal of that plea. “Nothing in Rule 11 authorizes a district court to withdraw a defendant’s guilty plea for him. Thus, where the district court has accepted a guilty plea but rejects the plea agreement, the only course available for the district court . . . is to advise the defendant of his rights, including the right to withdraw the guilty plea. It becomes the defendant’s choice whether to stand by his plea or withdraw it. Nowhere does Rule 11 provide that the district court may dictate this choice.” Here, the district court did not give the defendant the choice to stand by his plea or withdraw it. “The district court had no authority under Rule 11 to withdraw [the defendant’s] plea for him. It therefore abused its discretion in doing so.” The court further found that the defendant’s objections to the original PSR did not amount to a breach of the plea agreement. The defendant’s “objection to the assertion that he personally distributed over 150 kilograms of cocaine did not jeopardize the calculation of the drug quantity for which he could be held accountable. Nor was his objection inconsistent with his agreement that his base offense level was 38. . . . Furthermore, [his] position that he did not personally distribute 150 kilograms of cocaine did not violate any stipulation in the written plea agreement. That the government had a witness who would testify at trial that he personally received more than 150 kilograms of cocaine from [the defendant] is beside the point.” The case was remanded for the imposition of a sentence of 204 months, as agreed in the first plea agreement.
firearm possession by a felon. The PSR suggested that he should be treated as an “armed career criminal” based on a conviction for criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm (“criminal vehicular operation”), a third-degree burglary, and a third-degree controlled substances crime. The PSR also showed a prior felony conviction for fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle. The ACCA enhancement increased the sentencing range of 120 to 150 months, to 235 to 293 months. The district court sentenced the defendant to 235 months without specifying which three convictions supported the ACCA finding. After an unsuccessful direct appeal of his conviction and sentence, the defendant challenged the ACCA enhancement in a §2255 petition, which was denied. After the Supreme Court decided Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008), the defendant filed a pro se habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. §2241, arguing that the petition was allowed under “savings clause,” of 28 U.S.C. §2255(e). His petition contended that in light of Begay, he was entitled to a sentence reduction because the criminal vehicular operation conviction did not qualify as a violent felony under the ACCA. The district court dismissed the petition and the defendant appealed. The “threshold question” was whether the defendant qualified for the savings clause. The Seventh Circuit set out three conditions that a prisoner must meet: 1) relying on a “statutory-interpretation case,” rather than a “constitutional case”; 2) relying on a retroactive decision that he could not have invoked in his first §2255 motion; and 3) the “sentence enhancement . . . have been a grave enough error to be deemed a miscarriage of justice corrigible therefore in a habeas corpus proceeding.” In re Davenport, 147 F.3d 605, 609 (7th Cir. 1998). The first and third conditions were not at issue because the court had previously found that Begay was a statutory interpretation case, see Brown v. Rios, 696 F.3d 638 (7th Cir. 2012), and that misapplication of enhancements such as the career offender guideline were “fundamental sentencing defects.” See Brown v. Caraway, 719 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2013). The court found that because Begay had not been decided by the time of the defendant’s first §2255 petition, the third condition was met. “Binding precedent at the time of [the defendant’s] initial §2255 motion barred his current claim that his criminal vehicular operation conviction is not a violent felony under the ACCA.” Because the defendant met the three factors, he was eligible to file a petition for habeas relief under the savings clause of §2255(e). Proceeding to the merits of his claim, the court found that he was not eligible for relief because, although the intervening changes in the law made one of his prior predicate offenses for the ACCA enhancement no longer applicable, the prior conviction for fleeing a peace officer in a vehicle did qualify as a predicate offense. At the time of his original sentencing, the Minnesota conviction for fleeing a peace officer in a vehicle was not considered a violent crime, but now it would be considered one, under Sykes v. United States, — U.S. —-, —-, 131 S. Ct. 2267 (2011). The defendant argued that considering the fleeing offense now amounted to a due process violation. “This antiretroactivity argument is even less persuasive in the context of this case, as [the defendant] is simultaneously attempting to benefit from a retroactive change in the law. We cannot see why [the defendant] is entitled to a one-way ratchet, subject only to changes in law that benefit him but immune from changes in law that are not helpful.” The decision of the lower court was affirmed.

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