Opinion ID: 2977900
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Breach of the Adamses’ plea agreements

Text: -9- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 “[W]hen a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled.” Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 262 (1971). Mr. and Mrs. Adams argue on appeal that the government breached various aspects of their respective plea agreements. But neither of them made this argument prior to or during their sentencing hearings. We must therefore apply the plain-error standard of review. See United States v. Swanberg, 370 F.3d 622, 627 (6th Cir. 2004) (holding that plain-error review applies where a defendant fails to raise an objection during sentencing that the government has breached the plea agreement). For this court to find plain error, the appellant must “show (1) [an] error, (2) that was obvious or clear, (3) that affected [the] defendant’s substantial rights[,] and (4) that affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings.” United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 386 (6th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Mr. Adams argues that the government breached its agreement with him in three respects: (1) by using the information he provided “against him,” (2) by not moving for a sentence reduction based on his substantial assistance to the government, and (3) by not advising the court of the extent of his cooperation. We address these arguments separately below. a. Use of information provided by Mr. Adams “against him” Mr. Adams notes that AUSA Ward told him at both the beginning and at the conclusion of their September 2006 interview that Ward was going to file a motion for a downward departure in Mr. Adams’s sentence based upon his “substantial assistance.” According to Mr. Adams, Ward’s -10- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 assurances amounted to “a promise not to use anything [Mr. Adams] said against him,” assurances that he allegedly relied on to his detriment. Mr. Adams’s assertion that Ward’s comments somehow estopped the government from later requesting the sentence that it did is unfounded. Ward simply stated that, as of the September 2006 interview, he intended to seek a sentence reduction based on Mr. Adams’s substantial assistance; he never promised that Mr. Adams’s future lies to investigators would not cause Ward to change his mind. Moreover, there is no proof that Mr. Adams relied to his detriment on Ward’s comments. Rather than immediately telling the whole truth to the investigators, Mr. Adams continued to change his story so as to lead them astray. Mr. Adams’s plea agreement provided in relevant part: If, in the opinion of the United States, the defendant renders substantial assistance within the meaning of U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 and 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e), the United States will file a motion pursuant to one or both of these provisions. The defendant acknowledges that, under the terms of this Plea Agreement, [the] United States retains complete discretion in determining whether a departure motion will be filed . . . . Because the totality of the evidence indicated that Mr. Adams, rather than providing substantial assistance, actually impeded the investigation with his repeated lies, the government was well within its discretion to decline to seek a downward departure and instead to seek an enhancement for obstruction of justice. b. Not moving for a downward departure based on substantial assistance -11- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 Mr. Adams next argues that the government improperly refused to move for a sentence reduction pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1. That section of the Guidelines provides in pertinent part as follows: Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense, the court may depart from the guidelines. Id. Under Wade v. United States, 504 U.S. 181, 185-86 (1992), however, this court may not consider such an argument absent a showing that the government’s refusal to file the motion was based on an unconstitutional motive. “[A]lthough a showing of assistance is a necessary condition for relief, it is not a sufficient one.” Id. at 187. The essence of Mr. Adams’s argument is that once AUSA Ward stated his intent to file a departure motion, the government no longer retained any discretion in the matter, but “was obligated to file a departure motion unless the defendant breached the Plea Agreement.” Even if we accepted this claim for the sake of argument, however, Mr. Adams repeatedly breached the plea agreement because he did not “cooperate fully, truthfully, and completely.” Mr. Adams’s breaches of the plea agreement thus relieved the government of any obligation to move for a downward departure. Because the government’s decision was clearly not based on an unconstitutional motive, such as Mr. Adams’s race or religion, his argument on this issue is without merit. c. Failure to inform the court of the nature of Mr. Adams’s cooperation Finally, Mr. Adams makes the unsupported argument that the government breached his plea agreement by failing to advise the district court of the “nature, extent, and value” of his cooperation. -12- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 But the record indicates that the court was fully aware of the extent of Mr. Adams’s “assistance” to the investigators. Because Mr. Adams does not identify what information the government could have presented that was not already before the court, his argument on this point fails.
Mrs. Adams asserts that the government breached her plea agreement by failing to inform the district court of her efforts to qualify for a sentence reduction based on acceptance of responsibility and/or the safety-valve provision of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f). But her brief does not identify what information regarding the acceptance of responsibility that the government allegedly failed to bring to the court’s attention. Regardless, considering that the court granted a two-level reduction to Mrs. Adams based on her acceptance of responsibility, she could not have been prejudiced by any such failure on the part of the government. To the extent that Mrs. Adams argues that the government was obligated to present any other information regarding downward departures to the court, her argument fails because her plea agreement explicitly provided that the government was making no promises to her. Any expectations that Mrs. Adams might have held based on the prosecutors’ prior statements to her would therefore have been superseded by the terms of the plea agreement. B. Application of the safety-valve reduction to Mr. and Mrs. Adams Both Mr. and Mrs. Adams contend that the district court erred in finding that they were not entitled to a safety-valve reduction under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, -13- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f). This Act permits a district court to sentence below a statutory mandatory minimum if it finds at sentencing that all of the following five conditions have been met: (1) the defendant does not have more than 1 criminal history point, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; (2) the defendant did not use violence or credible threats of violence or possess a firearm or other dangerous weapon (or induce another participant to do so) in connection with the offense; (3) the offense did not result in death or serious bodily injury to any person; (4) the defendant was not an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor of others in the offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines[,] and was not engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise, as defined in § 408 of the Controlled Substances Act; and (5) not later than the time of the sentencing hearing, the defendant has truthfully provided to the Government all information and evidence the defendant has concerning the offense . . . . 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f). These five factors are incorporated into U.S.S.G. § 5C1.2, which, in conjunction with U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(6), allows a defendant who meets all five criteria to receive a two-level safety-valve reduction in his or her offense level. Defendants bear the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that they are entitled to a safety-valve reduction. United States v. Haynes, 468 F.3d 422, 427 (6th Cir. 2006). A district court’s refusal to find that a defendant qualifies for safety-valve relief is a factual finding that we review under the clear-error standard. United States v. Adu, 82 F.3d 119, 124 (6th Cir. 1996). 1. Mr. Adams -14- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 The district court determined that Mr. Adams had failed to satisfy the fourth and fifth elements of the safety-valve test. Specifically, the court found that Mr. Adams had engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise and that he had not truthfully disclosed to the government all the information he had about the offense. We need not decide whether the district court erred in finding that Mr. Adams had failed to satisfy the fourth safety-valve requirement because his argument concerning the fifth § 3553(f) element—truthfully providing all of the information he had about the offense by the time he was sentenced—is without merit. Mr. Adams primarily contends that, after his deception was discovered, he did everything possible to convince the government that he was being truthful, including his submission to a polygraph examination. But the district court found at sentencing that “the defendant has obstructed and continues to obstruct justice and evade responsibility for his ongoing criminal activity.” The district court’s finding that Mr. Adams was still not being truthful at sentencing is supported by the evidence. A DEA agent testifying for the government pointed out that many of the proceeds from the crime were still not accounted for, and the taped telephone conversations show that Adams knew more information than he was sharing with the police. Because the court’s distrust of Mr. Adams is well supported by the record, its finding that Adams continued to obstruct justice is not clearly erroneous. 2. Mrs. Adams -15- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 Mrs. Adams also argues on appeal that the district court should have granted her a safetyvalve reduction. Her Presentence Report determined that the safety-valve reduction was not applicable because Mrs. Adams had “not truthfully provided the government with all [the] information and evidence” that she possessed about the offense. The government argued against the reduction before the district court, and the court denied the reduction. Because Mrs. Adams did not object to this determination at the sentencing hearing, we therefore review it under the plain-error standard. See United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 385 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc). The government asserted that it was unclear whether Mrs. Adams was being truthful at the time of sentencing because she had failed some of the questions on her polygraph examination. Given Mrs. Adams’s prior deception, the court could reasonably conclude that she was still withholding information from the government. Moreover, Mrs. Adams did not present any evidence to rebut the government’s argument on this issue. The district court’s conclusion that she did not carry her burden of proof was therefore not plainly erroneous. C. Mr. Adams’s acceptance of responsibility The next issue is Mr. Adams’s contention that the district court erred in denying him a reduction in his offense level due to his acceptance of responsibility. United States Sentencing Guidelines § 3E1.1 permits a two-level reduction in the offense level of a defendant who “clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility for his offense.” The defendant bears the burden of showing that he has indeed accepted responsibility. United States v. Paulette, 457 F.3d 601, 608 (6th Cir. 2006). We will not set aside the district court’s determination as to whether a defendant has -16- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 accepted responsibility unless that determination is clearly erroneous. Id.; see also U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 cmt. n.5 (“The sentencing judge is in a unique position to evaluate a defendant’s acceptance of responsibility. For this reason, the determination of the sentencing judge is entitled to great deference on review.”). The application of a sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice ordinarily indicates the defendant’s failure to accept responsibility for his actions, although it is not an absolute bar. There may be “extraordinary cases in which adjustments under both §§ 3C1.1 and 3E1.1 may apply.” U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, cmt. n.4. Mr. Adams asserts that his is such an extraordinary case. He bears the burden of proving this assertion. See United States v. Gregory, 315 F.3d 637, 641 (6th Cir. 2003) (“[I]t is the defendant’s burden to demonstrate that his case is extraordinary such that he deserves the downward adjustment.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Mr. Adams notes that he pled guilty, participated in six interviews with the investigators, and ultimately disclosed to the government significant amounts of truthful information, including the location of $158,000 in drug proceeds. But this argument ignores the fact that Adams repeatedly lied to the investigators even after entering his guilty plea and that they had no way of knowing whether he was still withholding information at the time of his sentencing. Indeed, the district court stated in the sentencing hearing that Adams “obstructed and continues to obstruct justice and evade responsibility for ongoing criminal activity.” (Emphasis added.) The cases cited by Mr. Adams to support his argument on this issue are easily distinguishable. One such case is United States v. Harper, 246 F.3d 520 (6th Cir. 2001), overruled -17- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 on other grounds by United States v. Leachman, 309 F.3d 377, 384 n.7 (6th Cir. 2002), where this court gave examples of the sort of extraordinary situations in which a defendant who had obstructed justice might still be entitled to a downward departure for acceptance of responsibility. For instance, a defendant awaiting trial might escape custody but then immediately turn himself in to authorities. Id. at 528. Similarly, the court noted that a defendant might qualify if he “immediately confessed after writing an obstructive letter and then offered to plead guilty.” Id. Neither of these examples is even arguably analogous to Mr. Adams’s continual obstruction of justice after agreeing to cooperate with the government’s investigation. Mr. Adams also relies on United States v. Williams, 176 F.3d 301 (6th Cir. 1999), where one of the defendants, after pleading guilty, provided “timely and complete information to the government concerning his own involvement in the offense.” Id. at 311 (internal quotation marks omitted). The defendant later recanted his trial testimony and moved to withdraw his plea, necessitating a hearing on the issue, before he restated his original position and once again accepted responsibility. Id. This court held that the defendant, who received an obstruction-of-justice enhancement based on the recanting of his trial testimony, was nonetheless subject to a two-level reduction for his eventual full acceptance of responsibility. Id. Nothing about Mr. Adams’s ongoing scheme of deception parallels the Williams defendant’s one-time lapse in cooperation. Finally, Adams cites United States v. Gregory, 315 F.3d 637 (6th Cir. 2003), where the defendant admitted that he obstructed justice by accepting and swallowing balloons of drugs given to him by his sister and by writing his sister a letter urging her not to cooperate with the government. -18- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 But the defendant then accepted responsibility and “fully cooperated subsequently.” Id. at 640. All instances of obstruction of justice in Gregory occurred before the defendant pled guilty and began cooperating with the government. Id. Here, as already noted, Mr. Adams continued to lie to the government long after he supposedly began to cooperate with the investigation. The facts of Mr. Adams’s case align much more closely with a recent case cited by the government—United States v. Jeross, 521 F.3d 562 (6th Cir. 2008). In Jeross, the defendant in a drug-distribution conspiracy engaged in repeated attempts, both before and after pleading guilty, to obstruct justice by intimidating a coconspirator who was cooperating with the government. Id. at 582. Only after the government revised its recommended offense level upwards as a result of his threatening conduct did the defendant begin to cooperate with the government by attending debriefings with investigators. Id. This court rejected the defendant’s argument on appeal that his case was one of the exceptional few in which an obstruction-of-justice enhancement could coexist with an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction. Considering the defendant’s belated decision to cooperate in light of the defendant’s long pattern of obstruction, this court held that he had “failed to meet the ‘exacting standard’ under Gregory of showing that he is entitled to an acceptance-ofresponsibility reduction after having obstructed justice.” Id Here, Mr. Adams’s obstruction of justice was arguably even more significant than that of the Jeross defendant. There was no suggestion in Jeross that the defendant continued to obstruct justice after he began to assist the investigators. Mr. Adams, in contrast, continually lied to the government long after he purportedly began “cooperating” with the investigation. But even if we give Mr. -19- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 Adams the benefit of the doubt that he truly “came clean” once he submitted to the polygraph test, that cooperation was no more significant than the debriefings provided by the defendant in Jeross, who was not found eligible for the acceptance-of-responsibility reduction. In short, Mr. Adams cannot show that his case is one of the “extraordinary cases in which adjustments under both §§ 3C1.1 and 3E1.1 may apply.” See U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, cmt. n.4. The district court thus properly declined Mr. Adams’s request of a sentence reduction based on his acceptance of responsibility. D. Mrs. Adams’s sentence enhancement for obstruction of justice We now turn to Mrs. Adams’s contention that the district court erred in enhancing her sentence based on obstruction of justice. In reviewing a district court’s application of the obstruction enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1, we review de novo the determination that specific conduct constituted obstruction of justice, but will not set aside the district court’s factual findings unless clearly erroneous. United States v. Camejo, 333 F.3d 669, 674-75 (6th Cir. 2003). Section 3C1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines provides as follows: If (A) the defendant willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense of conviction, and (B) the obstructive conduct related to (i) the defendant’s offense of conviction and any relevant conduct; or (ii) a closely related offense, increase the offense level by 2 levels. U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. In finding that Mrs. Adams had obstructed justice, the district court determined that she had personally spent part of the drug proceeds during the course of the investigation, had protected and warned her coconspirators, and had lied to the probation officer regarding her financial -20- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 assets. These factual findings were abundantly supported by the record, including numerous recordings of Mrs. Adams discussing her obstructive activities with Mr. Adams. And clearly the district court was correct in concluding that such conduct constitutes obstruction of justice under § 3C1.1. In sum, the court did not err in enhancing Mrs. Adams’s sentence based on obstruction of justice. E. The district court’s use of the recorded telephone conversations The Adamses next contend that the government violated the Fourth Amendment when a DEA agent obtained and reviewed recordings of their conversations over a prison telephone. They also assert that the district court erred by considering those recordings at sentencing. We review a district court’s decisions on the admission of evidence at sentencing under the abuse-of-discretion standard. United States v. Bingham, 81 F.3d 617, 630 (6th Cir. 1996). As an initial matter, Mrs. Adams’s argument on the issue was arguably waived because she did not object to the admission of the recordings at the sentencing hearing. See Watkins v. Kassulke, 90 F.3d 138, 141-42 (6th Cir. 1996) (“[T]he failure of counsel to object in a timely manner to the admission of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment waives the right to have that evidence suppressed.”); but see United States v. Caldwell, 518 F.3d 426, 430 (6th Cir. 2008) (“[T]here is some debate over whether we should treat a suppression argument raised for the first time on appeal as a waiver (subject to review only if the defendant can show ‘good cause’) or a forfeiture (subject to ‘plain error’ review)”) (internal citations omitted). -21- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 Regardless of whether the Adamses’ suppression argument was waived as to Mrs. Adams, however, their argument fails on the merits. To challenge a search on constitutional grounds, a defendant must have a “legitimate expectation of privacy” in the thing that was searched. Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 104-06 (1980). The Adamses could not have expected privacy where a message at the start of every telephone call informed the inmates that they had no right to privacy and that their conversation was being recorded and possibly monitored. Indeed, Mr. Adams has conceded that he had no such expectation. The Adamses’ recorded admissions regarding their obstruction of justice were thus properly admitted by the district court. F. The reasonableness of the Adamses’ sentences The final issue on appeal is the reasonableness of the Adamses’ respective sentences. First, to the extent that Mr. and Mrs. Adams claim that the district court should have departed downward under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0, such a claim is not reviewable on appeal. We will “not review decisions of a district court not to depart downward unless the record reflects that the district court was not aware of or did not understand its discretion to make such a departure.” United States v. Puckett, 422 F.3d 340, 345 (6th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). There is no indication in this case that the district court was not aware of or did not understand its discretion to make a downward departure. Moving on to the overall reasonableness of the Adamses’ sentences, “[s]entences imposed post-Booker are reviewed for procedural and substantive reasonableness.” United States v. Conatser, 514 F.3d 508, 519 (6th Cir. 2008). We -22- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 must first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence—including an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines range. Gall v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 586, 597 (2007). The Adamses’s briefs do not challenge the procedural reasonableness of their sentences. Moreover, we find no indications that the district court committed any procedural errors. The record makes clear that the court reviewed all the relevant information provided by Mr. and Mrs. Adams, the government, and the Probation Office before it imposed the sentences. Thus, neither Mr. Adams’s sentence nor Mrs. Adams’s sentence was procedurally unreasonable. We next review the sentences for substantive reasonableness. Id. at 594. “A sentence may be considered substantively unreasonable when the district court selects a sentence arbitrarily, bases the sentence on impermissible factors, fails to consider relevant sentencing factors, or gives an unreasonable amount of weight to any pertinent factor.” Conatser, 514 F.3d at 520. The applicable Guidelines range represents the starting point for substantive-reasonableness review because it is one of the § 3553(a) factors and because the Guidelines purport to take into consideration most, if not all, of the other § 3553(a) factors. Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 596-97 & n.6. Although a district court may not presume that the range is reasonable, United States v. Foreman, 436 F.3d 638, 644 n.1 (6th Cir. 2006), a properly calculated within-Guidelines sentence will be afforded a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness on appeal. United States v. Williams, 436 F.3d 706, 708 (6th Cir. 2006). -23- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 Mr. and Mrs. Adams’s sentences—which were both at the bottom of their respective Guidelines ranges—were substantively reasonable. The only substantive-reasonableness argument that Mr. and Mrs. Adams clearly articulate in their briefs is that their sentences were unreasonably high relative to those received by their coconspirators. True enough, § 3553(a)(6) requires the sentencing court to consider “the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6); Conatser, 514 F.3d at 521. But this factor “concerns national disparities between defendants with similar criminal histories convicted of similar conduct—not disparities between codefendants.” Conatser, 514 F.3d at 521 (emphasis in original). “Disparities between the sentences of coconspirators can exist for valid reasons, such as differences in criminal histories, the offenses of conviction, or one co-conspirator’s decision to plead guilty and cooperate with the government.” Id. at 522. Here, there are numerous valid explanations for the sentencing disparities between Mr. and Mrs. Adams on the one hand and their coconspirators on the other. Mr. Adams, for example, played the primary role in removing the main stash of marijuana from his barn after Robbins’s arrest. He subsequently sold the marijuana on his own initiative. And, as noted extensively above, both Mr. and Mrs. Adams repeatedly obstructed the government’s investigation and likely never came completely clean about the location of the marijuana and/or the drug proceeds. These circumstances dictate that the disparities in the sentences of Mr. and Mrs. Adams as compared with those of their coconspirators were entirely justified. -24- USA v. Adams Nos. 07-5162, 07-5725 In the absence of any other arguments regarding the substantive reasonableness of their sentences, Mr. and Mrs. Adams have failed to overcome the presumption that their sentences were reasonable. We therefore find no error in their respective sentences of 151 and 60 months of imprisonment.