Opinion ID: 200774
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Authority to Reject Ventura-Cruel's Guilty Plea

Text: 12 Ventura-Cruel claims that the district court acted without authority in rejecting his guilty plea after having previously accepted it. Specifically, he claims that Fed. R.Crim.P. 11 did not provide the district court with the power to reject his plea. 4 13 It is well settled that a defendant does not have an absolute right to plead guilty. Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 262, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971). The Supreme Court has stressed that the plea phase of the process of criminal justice, and the adjudicative element inherent in accepting a plea of guilty, must be attended by safeguards to insure the defendant what is reasonably due in the circumstances. Id. Rule 11 provides a defendant with these essential safeguards. 14 Before accepting a guilty plea, the district court must address the defendant personally to assure that he understands, inter alia, the charge against him, the possible punishment, that he has a right to an attorney, that he has the right to plead not guilty, that he has a right to a jury trial, and that if he pleads guilty, he waives the right to a trial. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(c). In addition, the district court must determine that the defendant's plea is voluntary and not the result of force, threats, or promises. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(d). 15 Under Rule 11, the district court must also determine whether there is a factual basis for the defendant's guilty plea. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(f). The purpose of this requirement is to protect a defendant who is in the position of pleading voluntarily with an understanding of the nature of the charge but without realizing that his conduct does not actually fall within the charge. Advisory Committee Notes to the 1966 Amendment to Fed. R. Crim P. 11. Rule 11(f) provides that: 16 Notwithstanding the acceptance of the plea of guilty, the court should not enter a judgment upon such a plea without making such inquiry as shall satisfy it there is a factual basis for the plea. 5 17 This rule provides the district court with continuing authority. As the plain language suggests, the district court's obligations under Rule 11(f) continue until it has entered judgment. United States v. Smith, 160 F.3d 117, 121 (2d Cir.1998). Thus, the rule permits the court to retrospectively reject the plea, after originally accepting it. 24 Moore's Federal Practice, § 611.08[2][b] (3d ed.2003); see 8 Charles Alan Wright, Federal Practice & Procedure Criminal, § 174 at 207 (3d ed. 1999) (If a plea has been accepted and the court should later decide that it is not satisfied that there was a factual basis for the plea, it should vacate the plea and then enter a plea of not guilty on behalf of the defendant.); see also Smith, 160 F.3d at 121 (noting that if the court decides that there was no factual basis for a guilty plea after accepting it, the court should vacate the plea and enter a plea of not guilty on behalf of the defendant). In this regard, the Advisory Committee Notes to the 1966 Amendment to Rule 11 state that the normal consequences of a determination that there is not a factual basis for the plea would be for the court to set aside the plea and enter a plea of not guilty. 18 As the rule makes clear, however, the district court's authority to reject a plea under Rule 11(f) is finite; it terminates when the court enters judgment. Rule 32(d)(1) states, a judgment of conviction must set forth the plea; the verdict or findings; the adjudication; and the sentence.  (emphasis supplied). 6 Thus, in a criminal matter, a court must impose sentence before a judgment of conviction can issue. Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314, 337, 119 S.Ct. 1307, 143 L.Ed.2d 424 (1999). Accordingly, the factual predicate for the guilty plea must exist not only at the time that the court initially accepts the plea, but also when it imposes sentence. See United States v. Bennett, 291 F.3d 888, 894 (6th Cir.2002); see also Howard v. United States, 135 F.3d 506, 509 (7th Cir. 1998) (any finding of an adequate factual basis at the initial plea hearing is necessarily preliminary), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 832, 119 S.Ct. 85, 142 L.Ed.2d 67 (1998). 19 Here, the district court initially accepted Ventura-Cruel's guilty plea after determining that there was a factual basis for his plea at the change of plea hearing on February 7, 2000. However, at the safety-valve hearing on February 12, 2001, the court heard evidence that subsequent to the change of plea hearing Ventura-Cruel claimed that he did not know that he was part of a drug conspiracy at the time that he committed the acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. Because a defendant must know that his conduct was part of a drug conspiracy in order to be guilty under 21 U.S.C. § 846, see United States v. Nelson-Rodriguez, 319 F.3d 12, 27-28 (1st Cir.2003), cert. denied, 539 U.S. 928, 123 S.Ct. 2589, 156 L.Ed.2d 606 (2003), the court concluded that it could not accept Ventura-Cruel's guilty plea. Since the district court rejected the guilty plea prior to entering judgment, the court acted within its authority under Rule 11(f). 7 20 Ventura-Cruel relies on several cases in which this Circuit and others have held that a district court exceeds its authority under Rule 11 by rejecting a guilty plea subsequent to having accepted it. See United States v. Cruz, 709 F.2d 111 (1st Cir.1983); accord United States v. Ritsema, 89 F.3d 392 (7th Cir.1996); United States v. Skidmore, 998 F.2d 372 (6th Cir. 1993); United States v. Partida-Parra, 859 F.2d 629 (9th Cir.1988); United States v. Blackwell, 694 F.2d 1325 (D.C.Cir.1982). But in each case, the district court vacated the defendant's guilty plea for a reason other than that the plea lacked a factual foundation. See Ritsema, 89 F.3d at 396 (reversing district court's vacatur of plea because it thought mandated sentence in plea agreement was too lenient); Skidmore, 998 F.2d at 374-75 (reversing district court's modification of plea agreement to excuse defendants from asset forfeiture provision because court deemed provision unfair); Partida-Parra, 859 F.2d at 631 (reversing district court's vacatur of plea because plea agreement contained clerical error); Cruz, 709 F.2d at 112 (reversing district court's vacatur of plea because mandated sentence in plea agreement was inconsistent with sentences received by co-defendants); Blackwell, 694 F.2d at 1336 (reversing district court's vacatur of plea after defendant ignored admonishment that if she testified in favor of co-defendant it would vacate plea). Because none of these cases involved a court rejecting a plea because it lacked a factual predicate, the court's authority to reject a plea under Rule 11(f) was not implicated. 21 The Ninth Circuit explained the scope of the district court's Rule 11(f) authority in Partida-Parra, 859 F.2d at 631. There, the court noted that a district court generally may not accept a guilty plea and then subsequently reject it. Id. However, it observed that Rule 11(f) provides an exception to this general rule: Rule 11(f) implies that acceptance of a guilty plea does not foreclose a subsequent rejection of the plea if factual questions emerge, for instance at sentencing. Id. That is exactly the circumstance here. During the sentencing process, the district court heard evidence that convinced it that there was no longer a factual basis to support Ventura-Cruel's guilty plea. It therefore rejected the guilty plea and entered a plea of not guilty in accord with Rule 11(f). See Smith, 160 F.3d at 121. 8