Opinion ID: 1189970
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: martin waived his right to appeal the sufficiency of the government's evidence

Text: Martin first challenges the sufficiency of the evidence that supports his conviction. Specifically, he contends that there was no evidence that the firearm he is charged with possessing traveled in, or affected, interstate commerce. The Government contends that Martin waived his right to appeal the interstate commerce nexus by entering a guilty plea to the charge without reserving the right to appeal the issue. Martin counters that because his argument is a jurisdictional one, it is not waived. Whether a defendant has waived his right to appeal is a legal question that an appellate court reviews de novo. United States v. McGilvery, 403 F.3d 361, 362 (6th Cir.2005). Generally, a voluntary and unconditional guilty plea bars any subsequent non-jurisdictional attack on the conviction. United States v. Pickett, 941 F.2d 411, 416 (6th Cir.1991). However, under Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2), a defendant may, with the approval of the court and consent from the government, enter a conditional guilty plea reserving in writing the right to have an appellate court review an adverse determination of a specified pre-trial motion. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2). [2] The provision places an affirmative duty on the defendant to preserve all potential collateral challenges through the preservation mechanism of Rule 11(a)(2). Pickett, supra, 941 F.2d at 416. [I]n the absence of a court-approved reservation of issues for appeal, [a defendant pleading guilty] waives all challenges to the prosecution except those going to the court's jurisdiction. Id. (citing Hayle v. United States, 815 F.2d 879, 881 (2nd Cir.1987)). Where a defendant does not specify an issue for preservation on appeal, federal courts have normally held that Rule 11(a)(2) bars its presentation on appeal. In Pickett, the defendant pled guilty to trafficking in controlled substances. He subsequently appealed his conviction, arguing that his prosecution in federal court commenced in violation of the Speedy Trial Act and that his indictment for violation of federal drug laws subsequent to his state indictment for trafficking in drugs violated the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause. Pickett, 941 F.2d at 416. Because the defendant did not enter a conditional plea that specified these issues for preservation on appeal, the Pickett court determined that operation of Rule 11(a)(2) barred the presentation of both of these arguments against his conviction upon appeal. Id. Similarly, in United States v. Napier, 233 F.3d 394, 399 (6th Cir.2000), we determined that the defendant's challenge of the district court's pretrial evidentiary rulings had not been preserved for appeal where the defendant's plea agreement only reserved the right to appeal the district court's order denying his motions to dismiss the indictment. This Circuit has specifically interpreted Rule 11(a)(2) to bar a defendant's challenge that evidence was insufficient to support a conviction, absent a conditional plea that specified the issue for preservation on appeal. For example, in United States v. Bahhur, 200 F.3d 917 (6th Cir.2000), the defendant argued that the statutory prerequisites necessary to sustain his conviction for a prohibited monetary transaction in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957 were not met because he never engaged in a transaction involving a quantity of food stamp coupons in excess of $5,000. [3] Id. at 922. Although the defendant characterized his objection as a jurisdictional one, the court held that, in fact, it was a non-jurisdictional argument against the sufficiency of the government's evidence and was waived when the defendant failed to enter into a conditional plea reserving this issue for appeal under Rule 11(a)(2). Id. at 923. Similarly, in United States v. Turner, 272 F.3d 380 (6th Cir.2001), the court found that a defendant who was charged with violation of the Hobbs Act, through his guilty plea, waived his right to argue that the government failed to produce an adequate basis upon which the court could conclude the conspiracy to commit robbery affected interstate commerce. Id. at 383. Specifically, the court noted that [a]lthough the Hobbs Act's interstate commerce element is commonly referred to as a `jurisdiction element,' the failure of the government to prove a nexus between the crime and interstate commerce is not jurisdictional in a sense that it deprives the district court of subject matter jurisdiction. Id. at 390. In the present case, Martin waived his right to appeal the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction by entering a guilty plea that did not reserve the issue for appeal. His written Notice of reservation of right to appeal did not reserve this issue for appellate review; it only reserved the right to have an Appellate Court review the Adverse Determination and Decision relative to the Motion to Suppress Evidence seized during the search of the residence at 1219 Greenup Street, Covington, Kentucky, filed [on] May 3, 2005. As in Napier, Martin may have reserved the right to appeal other issues, but he did not reserve the right to appeal the sufficiency of the government's evidence. See Napier, 233 F.3d at 399.