Court Opinion

ID: 9494800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:47:27.286928+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:38.238362
License: Public Domain

DONALD, District Judge.
I agree with the majority’s decision regarding the district court’s error in finding that Lucas constructively possessed the firearm. With respect to the district court’s compliance with F.R.Crim. P. 11 (Rule 11), however, I respectfully dissent.
Before accepting Lucas’s plea to the charges in the indictment, the district court was required by Rule 11 to determine that Lucas understood any applicable minimum and maximum penalties provided by law. As Lucas’s indictment charged drug possession under § 841(a)(1), but failed to specify drug quantity, the only penalty available to the court at the plea hearing was provided by § 841(b)(1)(C), which carried no minimum and a 20-year maximum sentence. Consequently, in instructing Lucas that he faced a 10-year minimum and a maximum life sentence under § 841(b)(1)(A), the district court deprived Lucas of the opportunity to make a knowing and informed plea. More specifically, the district court misled Lucas with its material statement that he could face a sentence up to and including life in prison. The district court, therefore, committed clear error.
Because the district court placed Lucas in the position of having to make a plea without all of the material information, I find that voluntariness was negated. The majority reasons that because he did not receive a sentence in excess of the 20 year maximum the court’s error is harmless. From a purely academic perspective, that may the case. However, in the real life situation of a defendant who reasonably believes that he risks facing the possible loss of liberty forever, the choices he makes will hardly be academic. Thus, Lucas may have reasonably made vastly different decisions had he been informed that the risks were capped at a time certain, i.e. 20 years, as opposed to life. Indeed, the erroneous instruction may arguably have compelled Lucas to relinquish his constitutional right to trial by jury.
The majority contends that because all parties knew the maximum quantity of drugs that could be attributed to Lucas fell under § 841(b)(1)(A), the district court properly stated the potential penalty that Lucas faced when he entered his guilty plea.
However, even conceding that Lucas was aware of the possibility of sentencing pursuant to § 841(b)(1)(A), the district court wholly failed to instruct Lucas as to the range of applicable penalties. As such, in substance and scope, the district court’s instruction as to sentencing was clearly erroneous.
Accordingly, as the district court’s erroneous instruction prevented Lucas from knowingly and voluntarily waiving his con*427stitutional rights, I would reverse Lucas s conviction.