Opinion ID: 4445950
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Chapman’s guilty plea

Text: We accept the government’s concession that Chapman’s plea agreement should be vacated, and oﬀer a brief explana‐ tion. Chapman, the government, and the sentencing judge all erroneously believed that Chapman’s multiple prior convic‐ tions subjected him to a mandatory life sentence. The record is abundantly clear that Chapman only agreed to the plea agreement because he believed life in prison was his only al‐ ternative. That was not true. Without those two prior Illinois convictions, and assum‐ ing for the moment that his 2000 Indiana conviction was a 18 Nos. 18‐2009, et al. qualifying predicate felony drug oﬀense, Chapman’s manda‐ tory minimum immediately dropped from life to twenty years’ imprisonment. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) (2018). Yet Chap‐ man agreed to a binding term of imprisonment of twenty‐five years—a far greater prison sentence than he could have been sentenced to without any plea agreement at all. And this is all notwithstanding the presence of his 2000 Indiana conviction, the absence of which would cut his mandatory minimum term of incarceration in half, down to ten years. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) (2018). Chapman has met his burden of showing that the error re‐ garding the use of the 1993 Illinois convictions as prior felony drug oﬀenses was prejudicial. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734 (1993). An error such as the one we have here “establishes a reasonable probability that a defendant will serve a prison sentence that is more than ‘necessary’ to fulfill the purposes of incarceration.” Rosales‐Mireles v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897, 1907 (2018) (holding that a plain error in cal‐ culating the correct Guidelines range aﬀected the defendant’s substantial rights and warranted relief). Chapman’s sentenc‐ ing transcript reflects more than a reasonable probability of additional jail time. In accepting the binding plea agreement, the sentencing judge expressed concern over the length of the sentence and stated that it was “diﬃcult to find that this 300‐ month sentence of imprisonment is not greater than neces‐ sary.” Without correction of this error, Chapman may be un‐ necessarily deprived of his liberty and may spend more time in jail than necessary, which we find “seriously aﬀects the fair‐ ness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 736 (brackets omitted). Nos. 18‐2009, et al. 19