Opinion ID: 788775
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Forfeiture Versus Waiver

Text: 33 As the Olano court explained, forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right, whereas waiver is the `intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.' Id. at 733, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (citations omitted). Olano states clearly that waiver must be the product of intent. Id. Yet, in response to the Government's comment that the Ex Post Facto Clause is inapplicable to the Guidelines, the district court itself stated on the record, Well, it hasn't been — it hasn't been raised . But I toss it out for those who are intellectually hungry. Tr. at 21 (emphasis added). This statement from the district court judge is definitive. The majority reasons that because the judge ... explicitly raises the ex post facto argument in open court, see supra majority opinion at 3, then it can ignore the judge's subsequent statement that the Ex Post Facto issue hasn't been — it hasn't been raised. Tr. at 21. This makes no sense. The fact that the sentencing court and counsel for the Government pontificated about the issue at the sentencing hearing on March1 — while defense counsel remained silent — does not change the legal status of this issue. 34 The majority's attempt to reconstruct the facts of this case so as to appear that defense counsel consciously waived an objection on ex post facto grounds is clearly erroneous. Harrison did not waive his rights intentionally. Although, on the first day of sentencing, the district judge was hinting at the potential ex post facto issue, defense counsel was clearly unaware of the implications of the judge's questions. At most, this is inadvertent forfeiture, not waiver. 35 The majority's strongest evidence of waiver boils down to two statements, both of which require a gigantic interpretive leap to conclude that either demonstrates an intentional relinquishment of Harrison's ex post facto right. First, during the first day of the sentencing hearing (February 24), and before the judge ever mentioned the words ex post facto or the 2002 Guidelines, the judge asked the attorneys how much discretion he had to depart downward. Defense counsel requested a one-level downward departure in criminal history. Without any mention of the differently worded 2002 Guidelines, defense counsel assumed that the judge's request was made pursuant to the (more limiting) 2003 version of the Guidelines. This is not evidence of an intentional waiver — it is evidence of an inadvertent forfeiture. 36 Second, the majority points to February 26 when defense counsel filed an amended motion for downward departure reiterating the request made at the first hearing. Again, at this point, no one mentioned the 2002 Guidelines or the Ex Post Facto Clause. Defense counsel obviously repeated the request because he thought the judge needed clarification on the departure allowed under the 2003 version. Counsel did not comprehend what the judge was getting at, and that is inadvertent forfeiture, not intentional relinquishment. 8 37 Conspicuously lacking from the majority opinion is any express statement in the record made by Harrison or his counsel — at a point in time after the district court mentioned the Ex Post Facto Clause explicitly — that he relinquished or waived his right under the Ex Post Facto Clause. It is not surprising that the record should be devoid of such a statement; a fair reading of the record reveals that defense counsel remained mute because he simply did not comprehend what was going on at the hearing. Defense counsel's confused silence cannot be transformed into an express or intended statement that the Ex Post Facto Clause was inapplicable. 9 38 Once the sentencing resumed on March 1, the judge finally mentioned the Ex Post Facto Clause by name. The Government began to offer an argument to the court on that issue, but the judge explained clearly that the issue was not before the court. As this exchange transpired between the judge and prosecutor, defense counsel remained silent. After the ex post facto issue became explicit, defense counsel never again specified the precise extent of the departure being sought. 39 It is a stretch to rule that waiver of the Ex Post Facto Clauses' guarantee can occur where that issue was definitively not raised before the court, as the record states. But it defies reason to engage in a double-charade and further hold, as the majority does, that such waiver can be achieved by defense counsel's failure to grasp an issue at which a judge is graciously hinting. 40 Ex post facto arguments simply were not asserted or waived by Harrison's counsel, and an inadvertent failure to assert a substantial constitutional right impacting the fairness and integrity of the penal system is precisely what Fed. R.Crim. Proc. 52(b) enables a defendant to resurrect on appeal. Olano, 507 U.S. at 731-32, 113 S.Ct. 1770.