Opinion ID: 168344
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Error as to the Terms of the Bargain

Text: At various points in his pro se supplemental brief, M r. Graham objects to the district court’s reliance on the PSR’s erroneous assertion that he had agreed in his plea bargain to relevant conduct involving 1.5 kilograms of cocaine base rather than 7.1 grams. To be sure, the district court committed error here, and the fact that M r. Graham’s repeated objections prompted neither the probation officer, nor the prosecutor, nor the court to check the transcript and correct this mistake is disturbing. Indeed, if the error in the PSR had been determinative of M r. Graham’s sentence, we would reverse and remand for resentencing. But that is not the case here. M r. Graham entered into a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea bargain, in -11- which he agreed to a stipulated sentence of twenty-five years. Such a stipulation “binds the court once the court accepts the plea agreement.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C). The court thus did not use the PSR to calculate a specific sentence, but rather as one data point among several in determining whether to accept the plea agreement. M r. Graham correctly points out that the district court reserved accepting the plea agreement pending review of the PSR. And at the sentencing hearing, the district court credited the erroneous 1.5 kilogram stipulation as one factor in favor of rejecting M r. Graham’s motion and accepting the plea agreement. If these were the only facts before us, we might be inclined to remand for reconsideration based on a corrected PSR. But the transcript of the sentencing hearing convinces us that the court relied on several additional factors in accepting this plea agreement and that a corrected PSR would not have made a difference in the outcome of this case. First, the district court had before it a trial’s worth of evidence regarding M r. Graham’s involvement in this drug conspiracy. See R. Vol. XII, at 11. Second, the court noted that the jury in the continued trial of M r. Graham’s co-defendant found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the conspiracy involved 4.7 kilograms of cocaine base. See id. at 11, 15, 18. Third, the court had before it the fact that M r. Graham agreed to this sentence after evaluating the near totality of evidence amassed against him by the government. Last, and most importantly, the court stated that “the same sentence -12- would be imposed even if the advisory guideline range was determined to be improperly calculated.” Id. at 32. Under these circumstances, we find the error harmless.