Court Opinion

ID: 9457577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:26:26.450272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:24.775791
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
One would be very tempted to follow the siren’s call of Bye prospectiveness in the interests of sound administration— especially when the song has such felicitous phrasing as does the majority opinion here — were it not for the fact that the record we have before us demonstrates the acumen of McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166 (1969), and what is often called its per se rule.
In the hearing on appellant’s second pro se motion, before Chief Judge Mish-ler, the United States Attorney testified that he was “virtually certain” that Kor-enfeld “was well aware of” the possibility of probation and parole under 18 U.S.C. § 371, the general conspiracy statute to a charge of which Korenfeld was apparently desirous of pleading. Yet the trial court found that Koren-feld was ignorant of the entire concept of parole on the basis of Korenfeld’s own testimony that he knew of the mandatory five year sentence and expected to receive it but had “never heard of the concept of parole” until after he had entered a plea. Rather, the court found that Korenfeld “believed that the time or the term of sentence was the term he would be required to serve,” and held that his plea was knowingly and voluntarily made within the spirit, so to speak, of Bye v. United States, 435 F.2d 177 (2d Cir. 1970). A.t no point, however, is it explained how Korenfeld could have been aware of the possibility of probation and parole under 18 U.S.C. § 371, as the United States Attorney testified he was, but unaware of the concept of parole at all with reference to 21 U.S.C. § 174.
One explanation for Korenfeld’s understanding or lack of it may lie in his ignorance of the English language, since it appears that he is an Argentine national who cannot speak, write, read or understand English. At the time of entering his plea, he apparently talked in “the poor Yiddish that I know” with his lawyer “who didn’t speak Yiddish too well, as well,” and conversed with the court through a Spanish interpreter who, according to Korenfeld, “didn’t speak much *776Spanish.” At one point in the second hearing below Korenfeld indicated, in direct conflict with his subsequent testimony above referred to, that he understood he could not get paroled on the § 174 count but could be paroled on a § 371 charge; he claimed he thought, however, that he was going to get a five year sentence under the § 174 count on which he had actually been charged. (The court had held at a previous hearing that Korenfeld had understood that his sentence might be not less than five and up to 20 years, and reviewed and reaffirmed that determination at the second hearing below.)
This case thus comes to us on a confused record, with the appellant’s own testimony on the subject of his knowledge of parole in conflict, and with the United States Attorney’s testimony on Korenfeld’s knowledge disregarded in the findings below. It was just such an evi-dentiary hearing as was held below that was rejected by eight members of the United States Supreme Court in McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166 (1969), as an improper procedure for handling Rule 11 proceedings. Said the Court:
Rule 11 is designed to eliminate any need to resort to a later fact-finding proceeding ‘in this highly subjective area.’ Heiden v. United States [9 Cir., supra], 353 F.2d 53, at 55. The Rule ‘contemplates that disputes as to the understanding of the defendant and the voluntariness of his action are to be eliminated at the outset * * Ibid. As the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit explained in discussing what it termed the ‘persuasive rationale’ of Heiden: ‘When the ascertainment is subsequently made, greater uncertainty is bound to exist since in the resolution of disputed contentions problems of credibility and of reliability of memory cannot be avoided * * > Waddy v. Heer, 383 F.2d 789, 794 ([6 Cir.] 1967). There is no adequate substitute for demonstrating in the record at the time the plea is entered the defendant’s understanding of the nature of the charge against him. 394 U.S. at 469-470, 89 S.Ct. at 1172 (emphasis original).
From that clear language and the Hal-liday case1 I understand the teaching of McCarthy to be that after April 2, 1969, the Rule 11 proceedings must in and of themselves show the defendant to have been fully aware of the consequences of his plea; put another way, noncompli-anee with Rule 11 requires automatic vacation of a guilty plea.
Concededly here the Rule 11 proceedings do not show that Korenfeld was aware that his sentence under 21 U.S.C. §174 carried with it the consequence of ineligibility for parole. This consequence is one which five circuits had decided is sufficiently material to require that a defendant be informed of it prior to the entry of the plea below.2 Two circuits had previously held otherwise.3 While *777the question had been open under United States ex rel. Brooks v. McMann, 408 F. 2d 823, 825 n. 1 (2d Cir. 1969), this court shortly thereafter followed the majority of circuits in Bye v. United States, 435 F.2d 177 (2d Cir. 1970). Bye may have been a while in coming, but it surely could not have come as any great surprise; as the Tenth Circuit said in Jenkins v. United States, “[w]e do not feel it is a new rule to recognize ineligibility for probation or parole as a material consequence of a plea, but a reasonable application of existing interpretations of Rule 11 to the earlier plea.” 420 F.2d at 437 n. 5.
It is true that United States v. Welton, 439 F.2d 824 (2d Cir. 1971), and Serrano v. United States, 442 F.2d 923 (2d Cir. 1971), declined to apply Bye retroactively, but in those cases guilty pleas were entered prior to the date of McCarthy.4 Furthermore, the two reasons given in Welton for not applying Bye retroactively to pre-McCarthy pleas (see 439 F.2d at 826) would not seem applicable here, in that (1) Korenfeld’s attorney admittedly did not discuss parole with him, and (2) after McCarthy the question of actual prejudice is irrelevant. The majority’s points made today as to why Bye should not be applied retroactively would be more persuasive to me were it not for the lesson of McCarthy, viz., that just such a hearing as was held below (with consequent uncertainty as to what was really the defendant’s understanding, as this record discloses) is to be avoided after April 2, 1969.
Beyond that, while the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure may be “designed to operate prospectively” in the majority’s authoritative language, I am not aware of any general proposition that “the interpretation of the rules by the courts” is to be given only prospective effect “when different practices were accepted.” I believe that the preferable course to follow in determining whether a given interpretation of a plain-speaking rule should be applied only prospectively would be to seek, in the words of Rule 2, Fed.R.Crim.P., “the just determination of every criminal proceeding * * * simplicity in procedure, fairness in administration and the elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay.” On this basis, the wisdom of McCarthy in pointing out “the difficulty of achieving [Rule ll’s] purposes through a post-conviction voluntariness hearing” (394 U. S. at 470, 89 S.Ct. at 1173) is evident, not only in the abstract, but especially on the face of the record before us. As the Sixth Circuit indicated it would do in Harris v. United States, 426 F.2d 99, 101 (6th Cir. 1970), when confronted with a post-McCarthy plea — one made after April 2, 1969 — I would reverse and remand, directing that the plea be vacated. Accordingly I dissent.

. One month after it was decided, McCarthy was held prospective only by Hal-liday v. United States, 394 U.S. 831, 833, 89 S.Ct. 1498, 1499 (1969), where the Court said: “We hold that only those defendants whose guilty pleas were accepted after April 2, 1969, are entitled to plead anew if their pleas were accepted without full compliance with Rule 11.”

. Harris v. United States, 426 F.2d 99 (6th Cir. 1970) ; Jenkins v. United States, 420 F.2d 433 (10th Cir. 1970) ; Berry v. United States, 412 F.2d 189 (3rd Cir. 1969) ; Durant v. United States, 410 F.2d 689 (1st Cir. 1969); Munich v. United States, 337 F.2d 356 (9th Cir. 1964). In fairness Harris and possibly Jenkins might not have been available in printed form prior to the arraignment below.

. Trujillo v. United States, 377 F.2d 266 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 899, 88 S.Ct. 224, 19 L.Ed.2d 221 (1967) ; Smith v. United States, 116 U.S.App.D.C. 404, 324 F.2d 436 (1963), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 957, 84 S.Ct. 978, 11 L.Ed.2d 975 (1964). Trujillo was strictly limited to its facts, as pointed out in Bye, supra, 435 F.2d at 179 n. 4, by Sanchez v. United States, 417 F.2d 494, 496 (5th Cir. 1969), and Spradley v. United States, 421 F.2d 1043 (5th Cir. 1970).

. Fong v. United States, 411 F.2d 1181 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 968, 90 S.Ct. 450 (1969), which refused to apply Munich v. United States, note 2 supra, retroactively, also involved a preMcOarthy plea.