Opinion ID: 802933
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court’s Participation in Plea

Text: Negotiations Second, Collins claims the district court violated Rule 11’s prohibition against the court participating in plea negotiations by proposing a solution to its mistake of referencing “the indictment” at the August 18, 2009 hearing. We review this claim de novo. United States v. Torres, 999 F.2d 376, 378 (9th Cir. 1993). Before we do, however, it bears repeating that neither Collins nor the government lodged any objections to the court’s proposal of holding an additional hearing to correct the mistake and ensure the record was clear that Collins 7472 UNITED STATES v. COLLINS was pleading to the intended charge in the First Superseding Indictment. [3] Rule 11(c)(1) provides that “the court must not participate in [plea] negotiations.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c). And, indeed, we have interpreted the Rule’s prohibition strictly. See United States v. Gonzalez-Melchor, 648 F.3d 959, 963 (9th Cir. 2011) (holding that Rule 11(c)(1) establishes “such a bright-line rule that a finding of judicial misconduct in connection with a plea proceeding constitutes plain error and entitles a defendant to withdraw his guilty plea even if the error is identified for the first time on appeal”) (internal citations and quotations omitted). The Rule’s strict precaution against judicial involvement in plea negotiations is a safeguard against the “risk of coercion,” see id., which is present even in cases of seemingly benign involvement by the court. Collins, however, seeks a finding of judicial misconduct based on the district court’s efforts to correct a mere misstatement in the original plea colloquy. He insists that the district court, after identifying that the plea was made to the wrong indictment, should have “left the resolution to the parties.” [4] The district court’s second hearing, to assure that the record reflected Collins’s plea to the superceding indictment as his plea agreement had already provided, cannot reasonably be characterized as “participation” in plea negotiations. There is no evidence or arguments suggesting that the court’s proposed hearing to enter a new plea had any influence on the already finalized plea agreement between Collins and the government, which remained intact and unchanged. See United States v. Frank, 36 F.3d 898, 902 (9th Cir. 1994) (permitting certain court involvement in the plea process where it “took place after, not before, the parties had concluded their agreement, and the prosecutor had laid it out in open court”).2 Had 2 In Frank, where, as here, “the judge . . . was not trying to shape the agreement or persuade either side to accept it,” Rule 11 is not violated. 36 UNITED STATES v. COLLINS 7473 the court failed to correct its mistake, its erroneous colloquy would have remained intact, potentially in contravention of the plea agreement. [5] We hold that the court’s proposal to correct a misstatement in the plea colloquy to which all parties agreed, precisely so that the intent of the plea agreement would be effectuated, does not violate Rule 11’s prohibition of judicial interference.