Opinion ID: 165817
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sentence in Excess of the Statutory Maximum

Text: 46 To determine whether a sentence exceeds the statutory maximum within the meaning of Hahn, we first must determine the statutory maximum to which Hahn refers. We look first to the plain meaning of the phrase statutory maximum. Ordinarily and naturally, the phrase statutory maximum refers to the longest sentence that the statute punishing a crime permits a court to impose. Thus, it seems likely that meaning is intended in Hahn. 47 This conclusion is buttressed by the interpretation of statutory maximum in case law contemporaneous with Hahn. Four years prior to our decision in Hahn, the Supreme Court held in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), that [o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348. After Apprendi and before Blakely, we applied Apprendi only where a sentencing court had imposed a sentence above the statutory maximum permitted by the statute of conviction, regardless of what fact finding the court, rather than the jury, conducted [under the Guidelines] to impose a sentence within that statutory maximum. United States v. Price, 400 F.3d 844, 847 (10th Cir.2005) (collecting cases). Thus, in the time between Apprendi and Hahn, which was decided a few months before Blakely, courts nearly unanimously interpreted the phrase statutory maximum according to its plain meaning. 48 That Blakely and Booker take a different approach in defining statutory maximum does not undercut the conclusion that the plain meaning of the phrase was intended in Hahn. In Blakely, the Court gave a new term of art meaning to the phrase statutory maximum when it stated that the statutory maximum for Apprendi purposes is the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected by the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant. Blakely, 124 S.Ct. at 2537 (quotation and emphasis omitted); see Price, 400 F.3d at 847. In Booker, the Court reiterated Blakely's clarification in applying Blakely to the federal sentencing guidelines. See 125 S.Ct. at 749. 49 However, the Blakely/Booker definition of statutory maximum has always been qualified with the phrase for Apprendi purposes, and has only been applied in sentencing guidelines cases. In holding that the term of art meaning for statutory maximum applies in sentencing guidelines cases, the Supreme Court has not mandated that every time the phrase statutory maximum is invoked, the Blakely/Booker definition should apply. Indeed, the use of statutory maximum in Blakely and Booker is distinguishable from the phrase's use in Hahn — a case with no connection to the sentencing guidelines concerns that motivated Blakely and Booker. 50 Hahn instead addressed the enforceability of appellate rights waivers. We have never based the validity of an appellate rights waiver on the application of sentencing guidelines. Rather, we have long considered a waiver's enforceability in light of whether the sentence the district court imposed was within the statutory maximum provided for the offense of conviction. The cases cited by Hahn for the prospect that appellate rights waivers are subject to exception for sentences that exceed the statutory maximum make this clear, in that they are themselves based on holdings that clearly embrace the plain meaning of statutory maximum. 13 51 The conclusion that the plain meaning of statutory maximum should control in interpreting Hahn is bolstered by the Eleventh Circuit's decision in an analogous situation. See Rubbo, 396 F.3d at 1330. In Rubbo, the defendant, prior to Blakely and Booker, entered into a plea agreement in which she waived her rights to appeal her sentence unless the sentence exceeds the maximum permitted by statute. 396 F.3d at 1333 (quotation omitted). The defendant argued that her appeal waiver did not preclude her from challenging the constitutionality of her sentence under Booker, because her sentence was in excess of the statutory maximum as Blakely and Booker apply that term. See Rubbo, 396 F.3d at 1331-32. 52 The Eleventh Circuit rejected the defendant's premise that [the] `statutory maximum' for Booker purposes is the same thing as `the maximum permitted by statute' for purposes of [the defendant]'s appeal waiver, noting: 53 The two are not the same. The context in which the terms are used and the meaning they convey are different.... 54 In the Apprendi/Booker line of decisions, the Supreme Court used the term statutory maximum to describe the parameters of the rule announced in those decisions, a rule that had nothing to do with the scope of appeal waivers. The term was defined in a specialized, which is to say a non-natural, sense. It was defined that way not only for semantic convenience but also in order to justify and explain the holdings the Court entered in those decisions. Everyone knows that a judge must not impose a sentence in excess of the maximum that is statutorily specified for the crime. By labeling a sentence that the judge may not impose under the Apprendi/Booker doctrine as one in excess of the statutory maximum, the Court may have sought to call into play that well-known principle of law. 55 Whether it did, however, is not the point for present purposes. The point here is that the definition of statutory maximum the Supreme Court used to describe and explain its holdings in those cases says nothing about what [the defendant] and the government meant when they used the term the maximum permitted by statute in the appeal waiver. 56 Rubbo, 396 F.3d at 1334 (citations, footnote omitted). Looking to the parties' intent, the Eleventh Circuit held that the parties instead meant the usual and ordinary meaning of the phrase exceeds the maximum permitted by statute — the upper limit of punishment that Congress has legislatively specified for the violation of a statute. Id. at 1334-35 (quotations omitted). 57 The Eleventh Circuit is not the only court of appeals to interpret the phrase statutory maximum in this way. See United States v. West, 392 F.3d 450, 460 (D.C.Cir.2004) (stating that the most reasonable inference is that the phrase statutory maximum in the exception to a defendant's appellate rights waiver refers to the maximum fines and periods of imprisonment for violations of the statutes of conviction). Relatedly, we have held that an exception to a defendant's waiver of his appellate rights for a sentence `above the maximum statutory penalty provided in the statute of conviction' does not refer to the maximum penalty that the court could have imposed under the Guidelines based on the facts that the defendant admitted, but rather to the maximum provided in the statute of conviction. Porter, 405 F.3d, at 1142-1143, 2005 WL 1023395, at . 58 Moreover, using the Blakely/Booker definition of statutory maximum in interpreting Hahn would be improper because doing so would render it virtually impossible for a defendant to waive his or her Sixth Amendment Booker rights. After all, if we were to use the Blakely/ Booker definition of statutory maximum in interpreting Hahn, a defendant could appeal his or her sentence, alleging a constitutional Booker error (or Blakely challenge), and raise that issue regardless of a general waiver of appellate rights in the plea agreement. Yet that result would stand in tension with established Sixth Amendment case law. The Sixth Amendment is the basis for the Blakely/Booker line of authority. See Blakely, 124 S.Ct. at 2534; Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 746; see also Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 476, 488, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (applying Fifth and Sixth Amendments to a state through the Fourteenth Amendment). And it is axiomatic that a defendant may waive his Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 774 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (citing Patton v. United States, 281 U.S. 276, 312-13, 50 S.Ct. 253, 74 L.Ed. 854 (1930), abrogated on other grounds by Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970)); see also Blakely, 124 S.Ct. at 2541 (noting that nothing prevents a defendant from waiving his Apprendi rights). 59 Accordingly, we hold that statutory maximum in Hahn refers to the upper limit of punishment that Congress has legislatively specified for the violation of a given statute. In this case, Defendant's sentence did not fall beyond that limit, and Defendant's waiver of his appellate rights is not unenforceable based on the length of Defendant's sentence relative to that statutory maximum. 60