Opinion ID: 460324
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admissibility of Statements Allegedly Made in Plea Bargain Negotiations

Text: 35 Buhovecky contends that the court committed reversible error in admitting inculpatory statements that he made to Chief Stankovich, relying on Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(e)(6)(C) and (D), which prohibit the admission of statements made during the course of plea bargaining. 13 Buhovecky's contention is unsupported by the rule as amended in 1979. In pertinent part, the current version of the rule provides: 36 Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, evidence of the following is not, in any civil or criminal proceeding, admissible against the defendant who made the plea or was a participant in the plea discussions: 37 .... 38 (D) any statement made in the course of plea discussions with an attorney for the government which do not result in a plea of guilty or which result in a plea of guilty later withdrawn. 39 Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(e)(6) (emphasis added). 40 Prior to its amendment, the rule provided for the exclusion of statements made in connection with, and relevant to, any of the foregoing pleas or offers. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(e)(6) (1975). Some courts construed this rule liberally. See United States v. Herman, 544 F.2d 791 (5th Cir.1977) (holding inadmissible statements the defendant made to two postal inspectors while he was in custody, indicating that he would plea guilty to armed robbery if the murder charges were dropped.); United States v. Brooks, 536 F.2d 1137 (6th Cir.1976) (court refusing to admit defendant's telephoned offer to a postal inspector to plead guilty in exchange for a two-year maximum sentence.). Contra United States v. Grant, 622 F.2d 308, 313 (8th Cir.1980) ([T]he Herman case extend the scope of [Rules 11 and 410] far beyond their intended boundaries. (footnote omitted)); United States v. Stirling, 571 F.2d 708, 731 (2d Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 824, 99 S.Ct. 93, 58 L.Ed.2d 116 (1978). The legislative history of the 1979 amendments manifests congressional disapproval of broad judicial constructions of the previous language, and the revision of the rule appears to have been designed specifically to avoid the result in Herman and other cases reaching similar results. H.Rep. 94-414 No. 414, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. 10 (1975), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, 1975 pp. 674, 714. 14 The rule of is no help to Buhovecky for several reasons. 41 First, Buhovecky and Stankovich clearly did not intend to reach a plea bargain agreement during these discussions. Buhovecky merely asked Stankovich to arrange a meeting at which such an agreement might be reached. See Ceballos, 706 F.2d at 1203 (incriminatory letter held admissible even though the writer had been arrested when he sent it because no plea negotiations were [then] underway.). They could not have expected to come to terms during an unplanned encounter in the American Legion parking lot, during the investigatory stage of the robbery, J. Weinstein & M. Berger, supra, Weinstein's Evidence, p 410 at 410-51 (1982), when Buhovecky had not even been charged with a crime. United States v. Arroyo-Angulo, 580 F.2d 1137, 1148 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 913, 99 S.Ct. 285, 58 L.Ed.2d 260 (1978). Nor could Buhovecky reasonably have believed that Stankovich had any authority to plea bargain, see United States v. Karr, 742 F.2d 493, 496 (9th Cir.1984), because Stankovich told Buhovecky that he lacked such authority. See Rachlin, 723 F.2d at 1376-77; Ceballos, 706 F.2d at 1203. 42 Moreover, Buhovecky's admissions to Stankovich do not fit within the amended rule. The statements were not made in the course of plea discussions with an attorney for the government. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(e)(6)(D). A fortiori, they cannot be said to have been made in the course of any proceedings under [Rule 11(e)(6)(C) ], id. 15 In sum, because Buhovecky's inculpatory statements were not made during Rule 11 plea negotiations with an attorney for the government, the rule did not mandate their exclusion. 16