Opinion ID: 3035363
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Remand Pursuant to Booker and Ameline

Text: Finally, appellants ask us to remand their cases to the district court in light of Booker and United States v. Ameline, 409 F.3d 1073, 1074 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc). As the decisions in Booker and Ameline could not affect the district court’s determination at re-sentencing, remand is unnecessary. [6] Pacheco and Gomez were each sentenced outside of the Guidelines pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement. The provisions of the Guidelines relating to plea agreements— U.S.S.G. §§ 6B1.1-4, p.s.—are policy statements only. The binding law is (and was then) Federal Rule of Criminal Proce- 2 Pacheco also argues that, because his guilty plea was invalid, his appeal waiver is necessarily invalid as well. However, since his guilty plea was valid, this argument fails. UNITED STATES v. PACHECO-NAVARETTE 16683 dure 11(c)(1)(A) and (C). Moreover, the district court is not permitted to deviate from the sentences stipulated in such agreements. See, e.g., Mukai, 26 F.3d at 955. Neither Booker nor Ameline has any bearing on these rules. That the plea agreements stipulated (and the district court evaluated) upward departures is inapposite because the stipulated sentences were not based on the Guidelines. The parties determined that the defendants’ acceptance of the maximum statutory sentence was the appropriate concession for the government’s forbearance to prosecute. Any reference to the Guidelines was designed to make those prior determinations fit into what the parties believed was a mandatory scheme. Indeed, at Pacheco’s sentencing hearing the government explained, “we also wanted to provide a basis that the Court could make its determination to accept the upward departure more than simply the Government is not going to file these other charges. We wanted the Court to have a separate basis [to accept the 120- month sentence]. . . . But in essence . . . that was an afterthought . . . .” [7] We conclude that, where a defendant was sentenced after pleading guilty pursuant to a plea agreement that included a specific sentence stipulation that did not exceed the statutory maximum and was not contingent upon the Guidelines, remand is not required to comport with Booker and Ameline.3 Accord United States v. Silva, 413 F.3d 1283, 1284 (10th Cir. 2005); Cieslowski, 410 F.3d at 364 (“A sentence imposed under a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea arises directly from the agreement itself, not from the Guidelines . . . . As Booker 3 We need not determine whether or to what extent a plea agreement containing a stipulation of a particular Guideline range or a sentence otherwise based or contingent upon the Guidelines must comport with the Guidelines, as that situation is not before us. 16684 UNITED STATES v. PACHECO-NAVARETTE is concerned with sentences arising under the Guidelines, it is inapplicable in this situation.”). We further note that, even if appellants could avail themselves of the protections afforded by Booker and Ameline, their “express and generally unrestricted waiver[s] of appeal rights foreclose[ ] the objections now asserted . . . pursuant to Booker or Ameline.” United States v. Cortez-Arias, 403 F.3d 1111, 1114 n.8, as amended, 425 F.3d 547, 548 (9th Cir. 2005).