Court Opinion

ID: 9495087
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:53:59.18155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:48.099846
License: Public Domain

TÁSHIMA, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The district court conducted a thorough plea colloquy, satisfying the requirements of Fed. R.Crim.P. 11, and unconditionally accepted Patterson’s plea of guilty. Jeopardy consequently attached. See United States v. Wong, 62 F.3d 1212, 1214 (9th Cir.1995) (citing United States v. Smith, 912 F.2d 322, 324 (9th Cir.1990), for the proposition that jeopardy attaches at the time the court accepts a guilty plea); accord United States v. Aliotta, 199 F.3d 78, 83 (2d Cir.1999) (stating that jeopardy generally attaches when the district court accepts the defendant’s guilty plea). Thus, the district *634court did not have the authority to vacate the plea.
After finding that the plea was knowing and voluntary, and that there was a factual basis for each of the elements of the offense, the court accepted the plea, set the date for sentencing, and told Patterson about the Presentence Report (“PSR”) that was going to be prepared. The court found
that Mr. Patterson is fully cognizant and capable of entering an informed plea, he has been made aware of the nature of the offense and the elements that make up that charge, as well as what the Government’s evidence would be to establish his guilt to this charge of manufacturing marijuana. The Court further finds that the plea of guilty has been entered knowingly and voluntarily, and by his admission of guilt, there is an independent basis in fact containing each of the essential elements of the offense.
The Court, therefore, is going to accept the Defendant’s plea of guilty and enter a judgment of guilt thereon.
The court then set the sentencing date and admonished Patterson to be truthful with the presentence investigator, reminding him that the court would “take everything into consideration right up to the day of sentencing.” Id. at 20.
“The record demonstrates that the district court complied with Rule 11 in accepting” Patterson’s plea. United States v. Aguilar-Muniz, 156 F.3d 974, 976 (9th Cir.1998). As required by Rule 11, and similar to Aguilar-Muniz, the court advised Patterson of the nature of the charges against him, the minimum and maximum penalties, and the rights Patterson was giving up. See id. at 976-77. The court also determined that there was a factual basis for the plea and that the plea was knowing and voluntary, not obtained by coercion or pressure. In all respects, therefore, the requirements of Rule 11 were satisfied, and the plea was validly accepted by the court. Cf. id. at 977 (finding a waiver of the right to appeal knowing and voluntary where the district court engaged in an “extended colloquy” with the defendant); United States v. Grant, 117 F.3d 788, 791 (5th Cir.1997) (rejecting the defendant’s contention that he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea because “the district court meticulously satisfied its obligations under Rule 11”). The plea agreement made no sentencing recommendation, but this is not unusual and is specifically authorized by Rule 11(e)(1)(A). See United States v. Fine, 975 F.2d 596, 600 (9th Cir.1992) (en banc) (noting that the plea was pursuant to Rule 11(e)(1)(A), and that the government accordingly promised only to dismiss some counts, not to recommend a specific sentence); United States v. Gilliam, 255 F.3d 428, 431 (7th Cir.2001) (plea agreement noted minimum and maximum sentences, but noted that the final determination regarding the sentence would be determined by the court). The subsequent acceptance or rejection of the plea agreement does not invalidate the validly accepted plea. See United States v. Hyde, 520 U.S. 670, 674, 117 S.Ct. 1630, 137 L.Ed.2d 935 (1997) (“Guilty pleas can be accepted while plea agreements are deferred, and the acceptance of the two can be separated in time.”); United States v. Ewing, 957 F.2d 115, 118 (4th Cir.1992) (noting that the flaw in the defendant’s position was “its failure to acknowledge the distinction between a plea of guilty and a plea agreement”).
“ ‘[A] plea of guilty entered by one fully aware of the direct consequences ... must stand unless induced by threats (or promises to discontinue improper harassment), misrepresentation (including unfulfilled or *635unfulfillable promises), or perhaps by-promises that are by their nature improper as having no proper relationship to the prosecutor’s business (e.g., bribes).’ ” United States v. Kaczynski, 239 F.3d 1108, 1114 (9th Cir.2001) (quoting Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 755, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970)) (alteration in the original), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 122 S.Ct. 1309, 152 L.Ed.2d 219 (2002); In Brady, the Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s contention that intervening caselaw rendered his guilty plea involuntary. The Court held that the plea was intelligent “because, although later judicial decisions indicated that at the time of his plea he ‘did not correctly assess every relevant factor entering into his decision,’ he was advised by competent counsel, was in control of his mental faculties, and ‘was made aware of the nature of the charge against him.’ ” Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 619, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998) (quoting Brady, 397 U.S. at 756-57, 90 S.Ct. 1463) (citations omitted). In fact, “absent misrepresentation or other impermissible conduct by state agents, a voluntary plea of guilty intelligently made in the light of the then applicable law does not become vulnerable because later judicial decisions indicate that the plea rested on a faulty premise.” Brady, 397 U.S. at 757, 90 S.Ct. 1463 (citation omitted). The fact that the defendant did not anticipate a subsequent judicial decision “d[id] not impugn the truth or reliability of his plea.” Id.
In United States v. Sanchez, 269 F.3d 1250 (11th Cir.2001), cert. denied, -— U.S. -, 122 S.Ct. 1327, 152 L.Ed.2d 234 (2002), the Eleventh Circuit relied on Brady to reject the defendants’ contention that Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), invalidated their guilty pleas. Id. at 1285. The defendants had pled guilty to an indictment that did not contain a drug quantity. After Apprendi was decided, the defendants argued that the Rule 11 colloquy was insufficient because the district court did not inform them of all of the elements of the offense, and that their guilty pleas were induced by the threat of a harsher punishment than was permissible under the indictment. The court reasoned that, even though Apprendi reduced the maximum possible penalty the defendants faced, “there is ‘no requirement in the Constitution that a defendant must be permitted to disown his solemn admissions in open court that he committed the act with which he is charged simply because it later develops that ... the maximum penalty then assumed applicable has been held inapplicable in subsequent judicial decisions.’” Id. (quoting Brady, 397 U.S. at 757, 90 S.Ct. 1463) (alteration in the original). Their pleas therefore were still valid and the plea colloquies sufficient. Id.
As in Sánchez, Patterson’s plea was voluntarily and “intelligently made in the light of the then applicable law.” Brady, 397 U.S. at 757, 90 S.Ct. 1463. The majority does not explain why the government should be allowed to hold the defendant to the bargain when it is favorable to the government, but renege when it is not. Cf. Gilliam, 255 F.3d at 433-34 (affirming sentence much longer than anticipated by defense counsel because of criminal history, and reasoning that, had the defendant “at the moment he entered his plea, been unaware of. the impact the Guidelines would have on his sentence, that lack of knowledge would not require the vacating of his plea”); United States v. Ritsema, 89 F.3d 392, 401 (7th Cir.1996) (noting that “defendants are rarely released from their agreements, despite the fact that the plea bargain has turned out not to be such a bargain after all”). To permit the government to withdraw from an unfavorable, but valid, plea is particularly troublesome be*636cause the rules do not even contemplate that the government can move to set aside a valid, accepted plea. United States v. Partida-Parra, 859 F.2d 629, 632 (9th Cir.1988).
The majority’s position rests solely on its assertion that Patterson’s plea, although accepted by the court, was “conditionally” accepted and that jeopardy therefore did not attach.1 This assertion can be accepted, however, only if one blinds oneself to the record. The district court could not have been clearer, firmer, or more direct when it unconditionally stated: “The Court, therefore, is going to accept the Defendant’s plea of guilty and enter a judgment of guilt thereon.” That the court retained its sentencing discretion does not make its acceptance of the plea “conditional.” Sentencing necessarily cannot take place until after a plea (or verdict) of guilty is unconditionally accepted and, except in the case of a Rule 11(e)(1)(C) plea, a court fully retains its sentencing discretion after the plea is unconditionally accepted.2 Here, unlike a Rule 11(e)(1)(C) plea agreement, the plea agreement expressly provided that “the Court has not made any commitment relating to the appropriate sentence in this case, and is not bound by this agreement.” (Emphases in the original.) Thus, there is no factual basis in the record to support the majority’s assertion that Patterson’s plea was only “conditionally” accepted by the court.
Moreover, the only authority cited in support of the majority’s “conditional” acceptance assertion is United States v. Cordova-Perez, 65 F.3d 1552 (9th Cir.1995). In Cordovar-Perez, however, the district court rejected the agreement after viewing the PSR on the basis that the agreement did not reflect the seriousness of the defendant’s offense behavior. Id. at 1554. By contrast, the district court here did not base its withdrawal of the plea on any matter disclosed by the PSR, but only on intervening caselaw.
The majority also ignores that the continued viability of Cordova-Perez has been called into question by United States v. Hyde, 124 F.3d 1033, 1034 (9th Cir.1997) (Ferguson, J., concurring), on the basis of the Supreme Court’s reversal of our decision in United States v. Hyde, 92 F.3d 779 (9th Cir.1996). See Hyde, 520 U.S. 670, 117 S.Ct. 1630, 137 L.Ed.2d 935; see also Froistad v. State, 641 N.W.2d 86, 90 (N.D. 2002) (noting that Cordova-Perez is no longer good law as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hyde). In fact, although the Supreme Court did not specifically address the viability of Cordova-Per-ez in Hyde, it did reject the defendant’s proffered distinction between “fully accepted” and “conditionally accepted” guilty *637pleas. See Hyde, 520 U.S. at 679, 117 S.Ct. 1630.
In Hyde, the Supreme Court reversed our conclusion that the defendant had an absolute right to withdraw his guilty plea before the district court accepted the plea agreement. Id. at 673, 117 S.Ct. 1630. The district court had accepted the guilty plea, but deferred decision on whether to accept the plea agreement until the PSR was prepared. Before sentencing, the defendant sought to withdraw his guilty plea, but the district court denied the motion for failure to provide a fair and just reason, pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 32(e). The Supreme Court reasoned that, although it might be true that “[t]he guilty plea and the plea agreement are ‘bound up together,’ ” id. at 677, 117 S.Ct. 1630 (quoting Cordova-Perez, 65 F.3d at 1556), the guilty plea can be accepted while the plea agreement is deferred, id. at 674, 117 S.Ct. 1630; “the Rules nowhere state that the guilty plea and the plea agreement must be treated identically,” id. at 677, 117 S.Ct. 1630. The Court therefore held that, once a plea is accepted, even if the plea agreement is deferred, Rule 32(e)’s requirement that the defendant show a fair and just reason to withdraw the plea applies. Id. at 677-80, 117 S.Ct. 1630.
Although Hyde focused on the requirements of Rule 32(e), the import of its holding is clear — once the court has accepted a guilty plea, even if it has deferred acceptance of the plea agreement in order to review the PSR, the defendant may withdraw the plea only by showing a fair and just reason. If the defendant’s ability to withdraw the plea is limited, a fortiori, the government’s ability should be at least as limited, because the Rules do not even “contemplate!] government motions to set aside a plea.” Partida-Parra, 859 F.2d at 632.
Not only is Cordova-Perez’s conclusion suspect because of Hyde, it is also inconsistent with our decision in Partida-Parra. In Partida-Parra, the government mistakenly permitted the defendant to plead guilty to a misdemeanor rather than a felony and subsequently moved to set aside the guilty plea, which had already been accepted by the district court. The district court granted the motion and set the case for jury trial. We noted, however, that “the district court’s authority under the Rules to revisit an accepted guilty plea is limited.” Id. The district court may vacate a plea if questions about the factual basis for the plea subsequently arise, if the defendant shows a fair and just reason, or if a fraud was committed upon the court. Id. at 631-33. The district court accordingly did not have authority under either the Federal Rules or under the “common law” of plea agreements to vacate the plea. Id. at 632 n. 3, 633-34; see also United States v. Fagan, 996 F.2d 1009, 1013 (9th Cir.1993) (asserting that, “once the district court accepts a guilty plea, absent fraud or breach of the plea agreement by the defendant, the court has no authority to vacate the guilty plea because of a government - motion asserting ‘that a mistake of fact (on [the government’s] part) prevented the formation of a binding agreement’ ”) (quoting Partida-Parra, 859 F.2d at 633) (alteration in the original); cf. United States v. Fleming, 239 F.3d 761, 764 (6th Cir.2001) (“When presented with a knowing and voluntary plea agreement, a district court’s options are limited.... Further, once a court accepts a plea agreement, ‘it is bound by the bargain.’ ”) (quoting United States v. Mandell, 905 F.2d 970, 972 (6th Cir.1990)); Aguilar-Muniz, 156 F.3d at 978 (stating that, “[a]fter a plea agreement has been accepted and entered by the court, the court may not rescind the plea agreement on the government’s motion unless the de*638fendant has breached the agreement”); United States v. Kurkculer, 918 F.2d 295, 301-02 (1st Cir.1990) (holding that the district court could not set aside a guilty plea over a defendant’s objection upon the prosecution’s breach of the agreement).
Similar to Partidor-Parra, in Ritsema, the Seventh Circuit held that the district court had “exceeded its limited authority under Rule 11” when it withdrew its prior approval of a plea agreement based on its belief “that it had erred in deeming the count to which [the defendant] pled guilty adequately representative of his criminal conduct.” 89 F.3d at 400, 402.
Once the court has accepted a plea agreement, ... it is, as a general rule, bound by the terms of that agreement. There is no provision in the rules allowing a court to reject or modify an agreement once accepted. On the contrary, the principle that a plea agreement once accepted is binding is signaled by Rule 11 itself.
Id. at 399 (footnotes and citations omitted). Thus, the Rules of Criminal Procedure “do not grant the court the power to revisit a plea merely because át a later date the court has second thoughts about a bargain it has already approved.”' Id. at 401. Just as criminal defendants “are rarely released from their agreements” when a “plea bargain has turned out not to be such a bargain after all,” neither should the government be permitted to do so. Id.
Patterson’s plea was not defective, and the district court validly and unconditionally accepted the plea. Thus, as Patterson correctly contends, his guilty plea constituted a conviction for the lesser included offense of manufacturing an unspecified quantity of marijuana, and he could not subsequently be retried for the greater offense of manufacturing 100 or more marijuana plants.3 See Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 167-70, 97 S.Ct. 2221, 53 L.Ed.2d 187 (1977) (holding that the double jeopardy clause prohibited prosecution for the greater offense of auto theft following the defendant’s conviction for the lesser included offense of joy-riding); Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 189-91, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957) (finding double jeopardy violated where defendant was retried on a first degree murder charge following reversal of his conviction by jury of a lesser included offense, second degree murder); cf. United States v. Timbana, 222 F.3d 688, 701-02 (9th Cir.) (rejecting the defendant’s argument that his plea was not knowing and voluntary where he assured the court he voluntarily gave up his rights in order to enter a plea to a lesser offense than that charged in the indictment), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1028, 121 S.Ct. 604, 148 L.Ed.2d 516 (2000).
Under Partida-Parra, the district court did not have the authority to withdraw the plea. Accordingly, Patterson’s sentence' should be vacated and the case remanded for resentencing based on the offense to which he pleaded guilty.

. The majority correctly rejects the government's contention that the plea was defective for failure to include drug quantity as an element of the offense. Maj. op. at 623 (citing United States v. Buckland, 277 F.3d 1173 (9th Cir.2002) (en banc)).

. Thus, far from being "unique,” Maj. op. at 625 n. 2, the facts of this case are typical. See, e.g„ Hyde, 520 U.S. at 676-77, 117 S.Ct. 1630 (quoting advisory committee notes to Rule 32(e), stating that pleas are not to be viewed as "tentative, subject to withdrawal before sentence”); United States v. Wallace 276 F.3d 360, 363-64 (7th Cir.2002) (affirming the district court’s denied of the defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea, where drug quantity was to be determined later by the district court); Gilliam, 255 F.3d at 431-33 (finding the guilty plea knowing and voluntary, even though the final determination of the sentence was to be made by the court later, and the sentence was much longer than predicted by the government and defense counsel); United States v. Littlejohn, 224 F.3d 960, 967 (9th Cir.2000) (noting that the PSR "is not prepared until one is necessary— after a defendant had pled guilty and been convicted”).

. The statute that Patterson violated is 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). The offense that is the lesser offense is the violation of § 841(a) with no finding of quantity, subjecting Patterson to the sentencing provision of § 841(b)(1)(D), with its five-year maximum. The greater offense is the violation of § 841(a) with a finding of 100 or more plants, resulting in his sentence under § 841(b)(1)(B). "[I]t is clearly not the case that ‘each [provision] requires proof of a fact which the other does not.’ " Brown, 432 U.S. at 168, 97 S.Ct. 2221 (quoting Blockburger, 284 U.S. at 304, 52 S.Ct. 180). Rather, "[a]s is invariably true of a greater and lesser included offense, the lesser offense ... requires no proof beyond that which is required for conviction of the greater ... The greater offense is therefore by definition the ‘same’ for purposes of double jeopardy as any lesser offense included in it.” Id.