Court Opinion

ID: 9494937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:50:41.982171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:43.266196
License: Public Domain

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that John Whitlow was entitled to take an appeal concerning the question of which version of the Sentencing Guidelines manual applied to his case, and that (as the. government concedes) he is entitled to a remand on this point. I write separately because I do not subscribe to some of the majority’s comments about waivers of the right to appeal in plea bargains. The majority trivializes such waivers by stating that it is merely the substitution of the views of one Article III judge for three Article III judges (or, more accurately, four, given the fact that this court always weighs seriously the views of the original trial judge when a panel of three considers an appeal). Most people would agree that three or four heads can be better than one, and there is no reason to suppose that this truism has less force when it comes to Article III judges than it does in any other field of human endeavor. I am also not convinced that these waivers are capable of “buying” such great benefits .for defendants who plead guilty as the majority assumes. In fact, the scope of the issues that may properly be appealed after a guilty plea is exceedingly narrow, as the many cases in which this court has followed United States v. Broce, 488 U.S. 563, 109 S.Ct. 757, 102 L.Ed.2d 927 (1989), make clear. See, e.g., Woodruff v. United States, 131 F.3d 1238, 1241-42 (7th Cir.1997) (no sec. 2255 challenges allowed on grounds such as double jeopardy, sentencing consequences, admissibility of a confession, or the composition of the grand jury, even if the law may have changed after the plea); Young v. United States, 124 F.3d 794, 797 (7th Cir.1997) (conviction based on plea “cannot be in ‘error’ and therefore ... is conclusive on all factual and legal issues other than a contention that the very initiation of the proceedings violated the Con*642stitution.”); United States v. Makres, 937 F.2d 1282, 1285 (7th Cir.1991). It is common for us to receive Anders briefs in cases where a defendant is trying to take an appeal from a guilty plea; responsible counsel often conclude after reviewing the Rule 11 colloquy that led to the plea, the sentencing proceedings, and other' pertinent materials, that no non-frivolous arguments can be made. Prosecutors are well aware of these facts when they negotiate pleas. Thus, there is a risk that appeal waivers do nothing but cut off potentially meritorious arguments either for direct appeal or for collateral attacks under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.
Having said that, I recognize that this court and the other courts of appeals have upheld appeal waivers when they are properly and clearly included in plea agreements. See, e.g., United States v. Behrman, 235 F.3d 1049, 1051 (7th Cir.2000) (voluntary waivers of appeal are valid and enforceable); United States v. Ogden, 102 F.3d 887, 888 (7th Cir.1996) (same); United States v. Wenger, 58 F.3d 280, 282 (7th Cir.1995) (sentencing appeal waivers are presumed valid where the underlying plea is valid); United States v. Teeter, 257 F.3d 14, 23 (1st Cir.2001) (collecting cases). On the other hand, we have also taken care to respect the limits on those waivers. See Behrman, 235 F.3d at 1052 (“just as we are willing to enforce waivers of appeal, we enforce them only to the extent of the agreement.”); Bridgeman v. United States, 229 F.3d 589, 591-92 (7th Cir.2000) (discussing eases and limiting extent of waiver to its explicit terms, despite the government’s effort to suggest a broad reading); United States v. Cupit, 169 F.3d 536, 539 (8th Cir.1999) (language of plea agreement waiving right to challenge sentence did not specifically show that parties agreed that restitution award could not be reviewed); United States v. Zink, 107 F.3d 716, 718 (9th Cir.1997) (waiver of right to challenge sentence did not preclude appeal of restitution order).
Because of the latter line of cases, and because everyone agrees that a defendant may still attack the underlying agreement, I would not speak so harshly of Whitlow’s decision in this case to take an appeal notwithstanding the waiver, nor of his decision to present more than the single Guidelines manual issue to this court. Parties and lawyers are scolded often enough for not attempting to present issues to the court and thus forfeiting or waiving their own or their clients’ rights. The amount of over-inclusiveness that occurred here does not strike me as harmful, particularly as the government has been content to vindicate its interest through a routine motion to strike. That should be enough: I would therefore not invite the government to re-open every other part of the plea agreement just because Whitlow structured his appeal as he did. Furthermore, it is worth noting that we have held that the essential terms of a plea agreement are those addressing “the nature of the charge to which the defendant pleads, the factual basis for the plea and the limits of the district court’s sentencing authority.” United States v. Barnes, 83 F.3d 934, 938 (7th Cir.1996), citing Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 260-63, 92 S.Ct. 495, 30 L.Ed.2d 427 (1971). “The agreement is complete when the parties agree on the nature and extent of the defendant’s culpability.” Id. That implies that a waiver of a right to appeal is not among the essential terms of the overall agreement. If plea agreements are indeed to be interpreted as contracts, United States v. Schilling, 142 F.3d 388, 394 (7th Cir.1998),1 Whit-*643low’s expansion of his otherwise legitimate appeal ought not to constitute a basis for the government to recant on the entirety of the agreement from which it too benefit-ted. It is enough to send the case back to the district court to address the issue that had merit and to leave it at that.

. For instance, if Whitlow alleged that there was no "meeting of the minds” as to the non-appealability of his plea, I suspect that we would not for that reason set aside the whole *643plea, because the term in question was not an essential term of the agreement. Barnes, 83 F.3d at 939.