Court Opinion

ID: 9960132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-15 16:00:52.287198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:19:12.852785
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 23-6193     Document: 010111031889       Date Filed: 04/15/2024    Page: 1
                                                                                  FILED
                                                                      United States Court of Appeals
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                           April 15, 2024
                          _________________________________
                                                                          Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                              Clerk of Court
  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

        Plaintiff - Appellee,

  v.                                                         No. 23-6193
                                                     (D.C. No. 5:23-CR-00018-F-1)
  ROGER TERRY GURLEY, JR.,                                   (W.D. Okla.)
  a/k/a Dark Side,

        Defendant - Appellant.
                       _________________________________

                              ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
                          _________________________________

 Before TYMKOVICH, BACHARACH, and CARSON, Circuit Judges.
                  _________________________________

       Roger Terry Gurley, Jr., appeals from his sentence, but his plea agreement

 contains an appeal waiver. The government now moves to enforce that waiver under

 United States v. Hahn, 359 F.3d 1315, 1328 (10th Cir. 2004) (en banc). Through

 counsel, Gurley responds that the appeal waiver is unenforceable because of an

 alleged misunderstanding, or allegedly substandard advice from his previous

 attorney, about the scope of the sentencing hearing that would follow his guilty plea.

 We reject these arguments and grant the government’s motion.

       *
          This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines
 of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for
 its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
Appellate Case: 23-6193    Document: 010111031889        Date Filed: 04/15/2024     Page: 2

 I.    BACKGROUND & PROCEDURAL HISTORY

       In December 2002, Gurley’s ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend went to a

 motel in Oklahoma City to retrieve the ex-girlfriend’s belongings from a room she

 had shared with Gurley. Gurley was still there. He and the new boyfriend were both

 armed and they exchanged gunfire, but no one was hurt. Officers later located

 Gurley in possession of a handgun with a scratched-off serial number.

       The following month, a grand jury in the Western District of Oklahoma

 indicted Gurley for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The grand jury also

 indicted him for possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

       Gurley agreed to plead guilty to the first charge in exchange for dismissal of

 the second charge. The parties executed a plea agreement embodying the terms of

 their deal, including Gurley’s “knowing[] and voluntar[y] waive[r],” Suppl. R. at 31,

 of his right to appeal on any ground except the substantive reasonableness of a

 sentence above the range recommended by the sentencing guidelines, should the

 district court impose such a sentence. The agreement also stated that the maximum

 prison sentence for the charge to which he would plead guilty is fifteen years, and the

 sentence ultimately imposed would be up to the district court.

       At the ensuing change-of-plea hearing, the district court conducted a thorough

 colloquy to ensure Gurley understood the terms of his agreement, specifically

 including the appellate waiver, which the district court discussed from multiple

 angles. For example, the district court asked Gurley if he understood that he was

 waiving his “right to appeal the sentence that I impose in this case, as long as that

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 sentence is within or below the advisory guideline range that I apply in this case.”

 R. at 17. Gurley responded that he understood. The district court continued, “And in

 this agreement, you’re waiving those rights, even though you do not yet know what

 your sentence in this case will be; do you understand that?” R. at 17–18. Gurley

 again responded that he understood. The district court then covered essentially the

 same ground again, emphasizing that it had authority to impose a sentence up to the

 statutory maximum, and confirming that Gurley understood he was giving up his

 right to appeal the sentence other than a sentence above the guidelines range.

       At another point during the plea colloquy, the district court specifically

 focused on the indeterminacy of the sentence at the plea phase. The court told

 Gurley that, when deciding on his sentence, it would consider “any other relevant or

 similar conduct, whether or not that conduct is charged in this case,” and Gurley

 confirmed his understanding. R. at 15. The court then stated,

              For these reasons, Mr. Gurley, I want you to understand
              that as a practical matter, as you stand before the Court
              today, you have no way of knowing with any certainty
              what the consequences of your plea will be, because I
              don’t have the presentence report and I don’t have the
              other information that I ultimately will have to consider in
              determining the sentence in this case and I don’t know
              what the consequences of your plea will be; do you
              understand that?

 Id. Gurley said that he understood.

       After covering other aspects of the plea agreement, the district court found that

 Gurley was knowingly and voluntarily pleading guilty. The court therefore accepted

 the plea and set the matter for sentencing.

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        At the sentencing hearing, the major dispute was why Gurley had exchanged

 gunfire with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. The presentence report gave two

 sides of the story. According to the ex-girlfriend, it appeared Gurley had been lying

 in wait for her at their old room, intending to shoot her, and he fired the first bullet at

 her. He then chased her and her boyfriend, firing more rounds in their direction. The

 boyfriend managed to fire one round back at Gurley before he and the girlfriend took

 cover in the main office, at which point Gurley fled. According to Gurley, however,

 the new boyfriend shot at him, and he returned fire only in self-defense.

        The difference between the two stories mattered. If the court found that

 Gurley opened fire with intent to kill, as suggested by the girlfriend’s version of

 events, it could justify a sentencing range calculated by cross-reference to the

 guideline for attempted murder. Factoring in all other adjustments and Gurley’s

 criminal history, the guidelines range based on attempted murder was 168 to 180

 months. Without considering attempted murder, the range was 151 to 180 months.

        The government played a motel surveillance video for the court. Based on the

 video and other circumstances, the court found intent to kill. The court accordingly

 calculated the guidelines range as 168 to 180 months, and it sentenced Gurley to the

 top end of that range, corresponding to the statutory maximum.

        This appeal timely followed.

 II.    ANALYSIS

        When the government moves to enforce an appeal waiver, we ask three

 questions: “(1) whether the disputed appeal falls within the scope of the waiver of

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 appellate rights; (2) whether the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his

 appellate rights; and (3) whether enforcing the waiver would result in a miscarriage

 of justice.” Hahn, 359 F.3d at 1325. Gurley concedes the first inquiry, i.e., that this

 appeal falls within the scope of the waiver.

       As to the second and third inquiries, Gurley presents essentially the same

 argument. He claims he was not informed, ahead of the plea deal, that his guidelines

 calculation would ultimately turn on his intent when he fired his gun. He accordingly

 says he received ineffective assistance of counsel before the plea, making the

 resulting plea involuntary (the second Hahn inquiry) and threatening a miscarriage of

 justice if this court were to enforce the appeal waiver (the third Hahn inquiry).

       “Generally, we only consider ineffective assistance of counsel claims on

 collateral review.” Id. at 1327 n.13. There are “rare [ineffective assistance] claims

 which are fully developed in the record [and] may be brought . . . on direct appeal,”

 United States v. Galloway, 56 F.3d 1239, 1242 (10th Cir. 1995), but this is not one of

 them. Gurley’s phrasing of the argument shows he is trying to raise it without

 developing the record. He says “there is reason to believe [his trial] counsel [who is

 not the same as his appellate counsel] materially misinformed him of the

 consequences of the plea and possible disposition,” Resp. at 7, and “[b]ased on his

 attorney’s arguments at sentencing, one does not have to strain to imagine that the

 advice [he] relied on when deciding to plead guilty was incomplete at best,” id. at 9.

 This framing of the issue arises from the fact that Gurley’s trial counsel argued at

 sentencing that Gurley’s discharge of his gun amounted to, at most, assault with a

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 dangerous weapon, rather than intent to kill. Counsel did not argue self-defense,

 as Gurley claims he wanted. Failure to argue self-defense, in Gurley’s view, shows

 that counsel did not understand what was really at stake, both at sentencing and at the

 pre-plea phase.

       These inferences from sentencing arguments do not substitute for a record.

 For example, we do not know what Gurley’s trial counsel knew or reasonably should

 have known about likely sentencing factors at the time he advised Gurley about the

 plea deal, and we do not know what advice he actually gave to Gurley at that time. If

 he did not give the advice that Gurley claims he should have received, we do not

 know enough of the circumstances to say whether that lack of advice amounted to

 ineffective assistance. And we do not know if there is any evidence that Gurley

 would have rejected the plea if he had known his sentence could turn in part on his

 intent when he fired his gun. See Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985) (“[T]o

 satisfy the ‘prejudice’ requirement [of an ineffective assistance claim], the defendant

 must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he

 would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.”).

       Thus, whether Gurley frames this as a question of voluntariness or a

 miscarriage of justice, it is not a reason to excuse him from his appeal waiver and

 allow him to argue ineffective assistance in this proceeding. 1 Moreover, if Gurley

 also means to argue that his plea was involuntary, or that enforcing the appeal waiver

       1
         The plea agreement does not forbid Gurley from raising ineffective
 assistance of counsel through a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion.
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 would be a miscarriage of justice, even if his trial counsel had given effective advice,

 we disagree.

       As described previously, the plea agreement affirms that it was entered into

 knowingly and voluntarily, and the district court conducted a thorough plea

 colloquy—which included a specific warning that Gurley’s uncharged conduct might

 factor into his sentence. See Hahn, 359 F.3d at 1325 (“When determining whether a

 waiver of appellate rights is knowing and voluntary, we especially look to . . .

 whether the language of the plea agreement states that the defendant entered the

 agreement knowingly and voluntarily[, and whether the district court conducted] an

 adequate Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 colloquy.”).

       As for a miscarriage of justice, Gurley must show that (1) the district court

 relied on an impermissible factor such as race, (2) there was ineffective assistance of

 counsel specifically as to the negotiation of the appeal waiver, (3) the sentence

 exceeds the statutory maximum, or (4) the waiver is otherwise unlawful. See Hahn,

 359 F.3d at 1327. “[This] list is exclusive.” United States v. Shockey, 538 F.3d 1355,

 1357 (10th Cir. 2008). Gurley does not claim his alleged misunderstanding about the

 focus of the sentencing hearing fits under any of these possibilities. We therefore

 find no potential miscarriage of justice.

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 III.   CONCLUSION

        We grant the government’s motion and dismiss this appeal.

                                           Entered for the Court

                                           Per Curiam

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