Opinion ID: 1085401
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Factual Basis

Text: Federal Rule of Evidence 410 prohibits the use of “a guilty plea that was later withdrawn” or a “statement made during a proceeding on” that plea under Rule 11. Nelson argues that the admission of his signed factual basis violates this Rule. The government responds that the plea agreement contained an enforceable waiver provision stating that even if Nelson decided not to plead guilty, the factual basis could be used against him in a future prosecution. A district court’s admission of evidence, if objected to, is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Sylvester, 583 F.3d 285, 288 n.4 (5th Cir. 2009). “[D]e novo review of attendant legal issues “is a component part of that abuse of discretion review.” Id. The Supreme Court has held that “absent some affirmative indication that the agreement was entered into unknowingly or involuntarily, an agreement to waive the exclusionary provisions of the pleastatement Rules is valid and enforceable.” United States v. Mezzanatto, 513 U.S. 196, 210 (1995). This court in Sylvester allowed the government to use the defendant’s statements, made during plea negotiations, in its case-in-chief, 2 Nelson also asserts that Grace’s statements violated the Confrontation Clause. Nelson does not point to a Confrontation Clause objection preserved at trial and he has failed to fully brief the issue on appeal. Moreover, Nelson describes Grace’s statements as “nontestimonial,” but the Confrontation Clause extends only to testimonial statements. See Brown v. Epps, 686 F.3d 281, 286 (5th Cir. 2012). 14 Case: 12-30101 Document: 00512407432 Page: 15 Date Filed: 10/15/2013 No. 12-30101 provided that “the defendant, as a condition to engaging in negotiations with the government, knowingly and voluntarily waived all rights to object to such use.” 583 F.3d at 288; see also United States v. Mitchell, 633 F.3d 997, 1006 (10th Cir. 2011) (collecting cases). But cf. United States v. Newbert, 504 F.3d 180, 186–87 (1st Cir. 2007) (declining to find a breach of the agreement sufficient to enforce a waiver of rights where the waiver provision did not define breach and where the defendant possessed newly-discovered evidence “that he could not . . . have discovered” before pleading guilty and that “establish[ed] a plausible basis for concluding that the defendant was not guilty”). Nelson argues that this case is distinguishable from Sylvester because the government in Sylvester detrimentally relied on the plea agreement by offering the defendant life imprisonment rather than the death penalty and by using the factual statements in debriefing sessions. Although “[a] plea agreement is interpreted in accordance with general principles of contract law,” United States v. Harper, 643 F.3d 135, 139 (5th Cir. 2011), the Sylvester court did not base its conclusion on the government’s reliance on the agreement. Instead, the court adhered to the Supreme Court’s rationale in Mezzanatto that admitting factual bases will aid the truth-finding process. See Sylvester, 583 F.3d at 290 (citing Mezzanatto, 513 U.S. at 204). While Nelson argued at trial, and references on appeal, that the factual stipulation was composed with “no real input [from] the defendant whatsoever,” as we noted in Sylvester, “[w]hile in theory an innocent defendant might execute such a waiver . . . the benefit of evaluating as much relevant evidence as possible outweighs the mere possibility of such danger, and will, on balance, enhance the reliability of a fact-finder’s conclusions.” Id. at 294. The statements made in Sylvester were arguably less reliable than those at issue here: there was no threat of the death penalty to potentially induce Nelson to incriminate himself; unlike the oral statements at issue in Sylvester, the stipulation here was reduced to writing and signed by Nelson, and the plea 15 Case: 12-30101 Document: 00512407432 Page: 16 Date Filed: 10/15/2013 No. 12-30101 agreement explicitly provided that the government could admit the factual basis if Nelson failed to plead guilty to the Bill of Information. Cf. Sylvester, 583 F.3d at 289. Importantly, in both cases, counsel was involved in the waiver of Rule 410. We conclude that Nelson, with counsel, validly waived the exclusionary provisions of the plea-statement rules and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the stipulated factual basis into evidence.