Opinion ID: 2979723
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jones’s waiver of his appellate rights

Text: Jones’s remaining challenges concern the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence. But, just as this court previously decided with regard to Canty, Jones agreed to a substantial waiver of his appellate rights. Jones argues that he did not waive the right to bring these challenges to the reasonableness of his sentence. Whether a defendant’s plea agreement has waived the right to appeal his or her sentence is reviewed de novo. United States v. Murdock, 398 F.3d 491, 496 (6th Cir. 2005). In his plea agreement, Jones acknowledged that “[i]f the Court imposes a sentence that does not exceed the top of the range described in ¶ 2 of this agreement [i.e., a life sentence], defendant waives any right he may have to appeal his conviction or sentence.” Jones carved out from this broad waiver the limited right to appeal if the government were to move for a downward departure and the court proceeded to sentence him to over 360 months’ imprisonment. But because Jones was sentenced to exactly 360 months’ imprisonment, this appellate right was never triggered. According to Jones, the blanket waiver provision regarding “any right he may have to appeal his conviction or sentence” does not apply if the government filed a motion for a downward departure based on his substantial assistance. But nothing in the plea agreement limits this broadly applicable waiver in the way that Jones suggests. Although the agreement’s provision for the right to appeal sentences above 360 months (if the government moved for a downward departure) does not explicitly state that this right is reserved from Jones’s general waiver of his other appellate rights, -12- No. 08-1658, United States v. Jones this is the only reasonable reading of the two separate appellate-waiver provisions in Jones’s plea agreement. Jones bargained for the government to drop the remaining charges against him, to refrain from seeking the death penalty, and to recommend a sentence of 360 months in prison instead of life if he provided substantial assistance. In exchange, Jones agreed to waive “any right he may have to appeal,” except for the limited right to appeal sentences above his bargained-for 360 months. Jones has provided no reason why we should read the limitation that he suggests into his broad waiver of appellate rights. As this court noted in Canty’s appeal, “[p]lea agreements are contractual in nature, so we use traditional contract law principles in interpreting and enforcing them.” Canty, 2011 WL 1441909, at  (quoting United States v. Harris, 473 F.3d 222, 225 (6th Cir. 2006)). The only reasonable interpretation of Jones’s waiver of appellate rights is that even if the government moved for a downward departure based on his substantial assistance, Jones had waived his right to appeal so long as his sentence did not exceed the recommended 360 months. Moreover, at Jones’s plea hearing, the parties agreed that Jones’s ability to appeal sentences above 360 months constituted the only exception to Jones’s broad waiver. This necessarily implies that he had no such right if the sentence imposed was 360 months or less. The appellate-waiver provision therefore unambiguously applies to the type of procedural- and substantive- reasonableness claims that Jones now attempts to raise on appeal. In addition, Jones claims that his reservation of appellate rights for sentences above life imprisonment was “an impossibility and illusory.” But this provision, when read in context, makes -13- No. 08-1658, United States v. Jones eminent sense. First, because Jones bargained for the government to refrain from seeking the death penalty, his waiver of appellate rights even if the government sought a life sentence was not illusory. And because Jones reserved the additional right to appeal sentences above 360 months if the government moved for a downward departure, he received even more from his plea bargain than just the government’s guarantee that he would not face the death penalty. Jones attempts to counter these points by noting his agreed-upon ability to seek a sentence even lower than 360 months. But, as this court explained regarding the same aspect of Canty’s plea agreement, “[t]he fact that [Jones] had a right to argue for imposition of a lower sentence before the district court does not equate to a right to appeal the district court’s refusal to impose a lower sentence unless explicitly exempted from the appellate waiver provision.” Id. at  n.4. Finally, Jones claims that he did not waive the ability to appeal any miscarriages of justice that took place at his sentencing, such as the allegedly erroneous Guidelines calculations or the district court’s lack of reasoning. Although Jones is correct regarding the well-settled principle “in the federal courts that a defendant who waives his right to appeal does not subject himself to being sentenced entirely at the whim of the district court,” his procedural- and substantive-reasonableness challenges do not rise to the level that this principle contemplates. See United States v. Caruthers, 458 F.3d 459, 471 (6th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted) (holding that defendants cannot waive the right to appeal sentences above the statutory maximum). The force of Jones’s challenges are particularly weak because he agreed to the 360-month sentence that he received, a sentence clearly less than the statutory maximum of life imprisonment. -14- No. 08-1658, United States v. Jones A defendant may waive even constitutional rights, provided that the waiver is knowing and voluntary. Canty, 2011 WL 1441909, at . As this court explained regarding Canty’s very same waiver of appellate rights, “this court has ‘repeatedly enforced plea agreements waiving specific appellate rights under similar circumstances.’” Id. at  (quoting United States v. Coker, 514 F.3d 562, 573-74 (6th Cir. 2008)). We therefore adopt the same conclusion reached in Canty’s case that “the plain language of the written agreement here precludes [Jones] from raising the arguments he now presents on appeal.” Id.