Opinion ID: 3035363
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Validity of Pacheco’s Guilty Plea

Text: Pacheco challenges the validity of his guilty plea because the district court failed to advise him of his right to have a jury determine the facts upon which any sentence enhancements under the Guidelines were predicated, a right recognized by United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. ___, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005). We review the adequacy of a guilty plea colloquy de novo. United States v. Villalobos, 333 F.3d 1070, 1073 (9th Cir. 2003). [1] Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 obligated the district court to describe to Pacheco the consequences of his plea that had “a definite, immediate and largely automatic effect on the range of [his] punishment.” United States v. Lit- 1 At sentencing, Pacheco could have moved to withdraw his guilty plea for the “fair and just reason” of an intervening Supreme Court decision. See United States v. Ortega-Ascanio, 376 F.3d 879 (9th Cir. 2004). He did not do so. Instead, noting the change in law after Blakely, Pacheco’s attorney declared, “[Pacheco] does not wish to withdraw from the plea agreement. He wishes you to sentence him in accordance to [sic] it . . . .” 16680 UNITED STATES v. PACHECO-NAVARETTE tlejohn, 224 F.3d 960, 965 (9th Cir. 2000) (citation omitted). Clearly, potential changes in the law did not have such an effect on Pacheco’s ultimate sentence. Pacheco cannot, now, claim that his guilty plea was rendered involuntary or unknowing because of the district court’s colloquy, which, at the time it was given, correctly stated his rights. [2] Thus, we hold that a guilty plea colloquy is not deficient solely because the district court did not advise a defendant of rights established by subsequent judicial decisions or changes in the law. Cf. Littlejohn, 224 F.3d at 967-68 (finding no error where the district court had no knowledge or reason to know of defendant’s prior convictions at the time of plea hearing, so failed to advise defendant that his sentence could be enhanced based on those convictions). Although Pacheco’s claim raises an issue of first impression, our conclusion is the natural result of well-established law stating that substantive changes in the law do not invalidate guilty pleas. Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 756-758 (1970) (holding that the Constitution does not require invalidation of guilty pleas “simply because it later develops that the State would have had a weaker case than the defendant had thought or that the maximum penalty then assumed applicable has been held inapplicable in subsequent judicial decisions”); United States v. Cardenas, 405 F.3d 1046, 1048 (9th Cir. 2005) (noting that “a change in the law does not make a plea involuntary and unknowing”) (citing United States v. Johnson, 67 F.3d 200, 202-03 (9th Cir. 1995)). If a guilty plea is not rendered involuntary or unknowing because of subsequent changes in the law, it necessarily follows that a guilty plea cannot be invalidated because the court did not inform a defendant of those then-nonexistent rights. Any other result would force district courts to anticipate all possible changes in the law. Moreover, it would vitiate the decisions in Brady and Johnson because every defendant claiming his plea was involuntary or unknowing because of a subsequent change in the law would also have the claim that UNITED STATES v. PACHECO-NAVARETTE 16681 the guilty plea colloquy was deficient for failing to inform him of that change.