Opinion ID: 166241
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Booker/Blakely violation

Text: 15 In Booker, the Supreme Court held that for federal sentences, [a]ny fact (other than a prior conviction) which is necessary to support a sentence exceeding the maximum authorized by a plea of guilty or a jury verdict must be admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. 125 S.Ct. at 756. Defendant raises constitutional Booker error, 6 arguing that her Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the district court made factual findings regarding the amount of loss and the number of victims that enhanced her offense level by fourteen points. 16 A defendant's right to a jury trial at sentencing, just like the right to a jury trial at the guilt-innocence phase, can be voluntarily waived. Here, defendant's guilty plea (which was entered prior to the Supreme Court's decisions in Blakely and Booker ) contained such a waiver. Our task, then, is to determine whether this waiver applies to Defendant's rights under Booker.
17 A waiver is the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege. United States v. Chavez-Salais, 337 F.3d 1170, 1172-73 (10th Cir.2003). Here, when submitting her petition to plead guilty, Defendant also executed a written waiver of her Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial which read as follows: 18 Comes now the undersigned defendant having been fully apprised of my rights, do hereby waive a jury and agree to try the above styled and numbered criminal proceedings to the Court as provided by Rule 23(a), Rules of Criminal Procedure. 19 In addition, Defendant's petition to plead guilty contained the following statement regarding her waiver of constitutional rights: WAIVER OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS 20 I know I have the right to plead NOT GUILTY to any offense charged against me. If I plead NOT GUILTY I know the Constitution guarantees me. . . the right to a speedy and public trial by jury. . . . 21 In regard to my right to a jury trial, I know I am the only person who can waive, that is give up, that right. I also fully understand that if I have a trial by a jury, I have the right of the assistance of an attorney; also the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against me; and the right not to be compelled to incriminate myself. Furthermore, I understand that to convict me, all 12 jury members would have to agree that I am GUILTY. 22 On appeal, Defendant argues that since her initial waiver was entered before the Supreme Court decided Booker or Blakely, she could not have waived jury trial rights created by those decisions because they did not yet exist. We disagree. As the Sixth Circuit has recognized, 23 [p]lea agreements . . . may waive constitutional or statutory rights then in existence as well as those that courts may recognize in the future. . . . 24 [W]here developments in the law later expand a right that a defendant has waived in a plea agreement, the change in law does not suddenly make the plea involuntary or unknowing or otherwise undo its binding nature. 25 United States v. Bradley, 400 F.3d 459, 463 (6th Cir.2005), petition for cert. filed (June 9, 2005) (No. 04-10620). Citing Bradley, this court has held that a waiver of appellate rights was not rendered unknowing or involuntary by the Supreme Court's subsequent issuance of Booker or Blakely. United States v. Green, 405 F.3d 1180, 1190 (10th Cir.2005). Similarly, we do not believe these decisions should negate waivers of other constitutional rights, such as the right to a trial by jury. 26 Furthermore, the record indicates that after Blakely was decided, the district court offered Defendant an opportunity to withdraw her guilty plea and waiver of jury trial rights, an opportunity Defendant refused. If there was any doubt as to the scope or voluntariness of Defendant's pre- Blakely waiver, that doubt was erased when Defendant, having full knowledge of Blakely, declined the offer to withdraw her plea.
27 Because Defendant waived, without qualification, her right to a jury trial in her guilty plea, we conclude that she may not now assign as error the failure of the district court to afford her a jury determination of facts relevant to sentencing. We will, however, consider Defendant's two points of error related to the district court's application of the guidelines. 28