Opinion ID: 2793944
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Compliance with the Oral Plea Agreement

Text: A conceivable issue exists regarding the government’s stance at sentencing. Before Mr. Willis entered a plea, the government offered in open court to recommend supervised probation in lieu of imprisonment. Change of Plea Tr. at 2-3. After the court took a recess, Mr. Willis agreed to “take the probation offer . . . as presented by the government.” Id. at 7. At the sentencing 3½ months later, the government reminded the district court of the prior agreement to recommend probation. The government stated: In all candor toward the tribunal, when Mr. Willis plead a few – if the court remembers correctly, this was the case that we were bound to pick a jury that morning. The United States did say at that time that depending on – it was contingent on the presentence report the amount of money lost and Mr. Willis’ behavior, that we would recommend a sentence of probation. That being said, I think some things have changed in the meantime, such as Mr. Willis not – and I know we’re not here on that revocation, so at this juncture, Your Honor, the United States will leave it to the discretion of the court on what – to come up with a just and appropriate sentence in this case. Sentencing Tr. at 6. 3 Because the government did not recommend probation, as promised, Mr. Willis could conceivably appeal based on breach of a plea agreement. If Mr. Willis were to appeal on this ground, we would need to review the issue under the plain-error standard because of the failure to raise the issue in district court. See United States v. Mendoza, 698 F.3d 1303, 1309-10 (10th Cir. 2012) (applying the plain-error standard to an appeal based on failure to comply with a plea agreement because of the failure to raise the issue in district court). Under this standard, Mr. Willis would need to show a violation of his substantial rights. Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 133 (2009). This element would require Mr. Willis to show a reasonable probability that if the government had recommended probation, the result would probably have been different. Mendoza, 698 F.3d at 1310. As Mr. Willis’s attorney admits, he cannot satisfy this element of the plainerror standard. The district judge heard the government promise to recommend probation. Months later, at the sentencing, the government reminded the district judge of the promise to recommend probation. Hearing this reminder, the district judge imposed a sentence near the top of the guideline range. In these circumstances, we would conclude that Mr. Willis failed to show a reasonable probability of a lighter sentence if the government had recommended probation. See Mendoza, 698 F.3d at 1309-10 (declining to find a violation of substantial rights under the plain-error standard because the district judge was aware of the 4 prosecutor’s promise to recommend a sentence near the bottom of the guideline range). In other circumstances, defendants might argue that they would not have pleaded guilty if they had known the government would not honor its promise to recommend probation. But Mr. Willis cannot make this argument. As noted in the text, his attorney concedes that Mr. Willis does not seek withdrawal of his guilty plea. If we were to invalidate the plea sua sponte, we might be harming Mr. Willis. Before entering a plea, he expressed anticipation that a guilty plea would trigger a 2-point reduction in his base-offense level. Petition to Enter Guilty Plea at 5. The district court awarded this 2-point reduction to Mr. Willis. Sentencing Tr. at 7-8; Presentence Report at 7. Without the 2-point reduction, Mr. Willis’s guideline range would have been 21-27 months rather than 15-21 months. Thus, we should be wary of considering the possibility that Mr. Willis would have pleaded not guilty if he had known the government would later decline to recommend probation. The appellate record discloses no basis to expect a different result if the government had carried out its promise to recommend probation.