Court Opinion

ID: 9927410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-27 00:00:45.889859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:30.541808
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 22-6132      Document: 010110990957        Date Filed: 01/26/2024     Page: 1
                                                                                     FILED
                                                                         United States Court of Appeals
                                          PUBLISH                                Tenth Circuit

                        UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         January 26, 2024

                                                                             Christopher M. Wolpert
                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                              Clerk of Court
                          _________________________________

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

        Plaintiff - Appellee,

  v.                                                           No. 22-6132
                                                       (D.C. No. 5:21-CR-00028-F-1)
  JOHN MIGUEL SWAN,                                            (W.D. Okla.)

        Defendant - Appellant.
                       _________________________________

                                       ORDER
                          _________________________________

 Before MATHESON, BACHARACH, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.
                   _________________________________

        This matter is before the court sua sponte for purposes of revising our decision.

 The court’s January 23, 2024 opinion in this matter is withdrawn and replaced by the

 attached revised opinion. The Clerk shall file the attached revised opinion nunc pro tunc

 to the date the original opinion was filed.

                                               Entered for the Court,

                                               CHRISTOPHER M. WOLPERT, Clerk
Appellate Case: 22-6132     Document: 010110990957        Date Filed: 01/26/2024      Page: 2
                                                                                    FILED
                                                                        United States Court of Appeals
                                        PUBLISH                                 Tenth Circuit

                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         January 23, 2024

                                                                            Christopher M. Wolpert
                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                             Clerk of Court
                          _________________________________

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

        Plaintiff - Appellee,

  v.                                                            No. 22-6132

  JOHN MIGUEL SWAN,

        Defendant - Appellant.
                       _________________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                         for the Western District of Oklahoma
                             (D.C. No. 5:21-CR-00028-F-1)
                        _________________________________

 Keith Bradley of Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP (Virginia L. Grady, Federal Public
 Defender; Leah D. Yaffe, Assistant Federal Public Defender, on the opening brief),
 Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant.

 Allison B. Christian, Assistant United States Attorney (Robert J. Troester, United States
 Attorney, and Jackie Hutzell, Assistant United States Attorney, with her on the brief),
 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
                         _________________________________

 Before MATHESON, BACHARACH, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.
                   _________________________________

 MORITZ, Circuit Judge.
                     _________________________________

       John Swan appeals the district court’s denial of his presentence motion to

 withdraw his guilty plea. At the hearing on Swan’s motion, plea counsel testified that

 he told Swan, who is Black, that all minorities would be removed from his jury and
Appellate Case: 22-6132    Document: 010110990957       Date Filed: 01/26/2024      Page: 3

 that his case would be tried before exclusively white jurors. This material

 misrepresentation about Swan’s right to an impartial jury selected through racially

 nondiscriminatory means occurred just before Swan told plea counsel that he wanted

 to plead guilty. What’s more, counsel’s misrepresentation was neither corrected

 during the district court’s plea colloquy nor negated by Swan’s prior experience in

 the criminal-justice system. Under these circumstances, Swan’s plea was unknowing

 and involuntary, and the district court abused its discretion in denying Swan’s motion

 to withdraw his guilty plea. We thus vacate Swan’s conviction and remand for the

 district court to allow Swan to withdraw his guilty plea and for further proceedings.

                                      Background

       While arresting Swan on a warrant stemming from state domestic-violence

 charges, Oklahoma police officers saw ammunition “f[a]ll from somewhere on . . .

 Swan’s person” and land on the ground. R. vol. 1, 96. The video of the arrest from

 the officers’ body cameras does not show the ammunition falling out of Swan’s

 pocket, but still images taken from the bodycam footage show ammunition on the

 ground near where Swan was taken down. Based on this incident, a grand jury

 indicted Swan for being a felon in possession of ammunition. See 18 U.S.C.

 § 922(g)(1). Swan entered a guilty plea, which the district court accepted after

 conducting a plea colloquy.

       Five months later, the district court allowed Swan’s plea counsel to withdraw

 after finding a complete breakdown of effective communication and the absence of a

 workable attorney-client relationship. On the same day, it appointed new counsel for

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 Swan.

         Around two months later, Swan wrote a pro se letter to the district court

 asserting his factual innocence and indicating that plea counsel had “compelled” him

 to plead guilty. R. vol. 1, 38. The district court treated this letter as a motion to

 withdraw the plea and ordered additional briefing. Swan’s counsel then filed an

 expanded motion to withdraw the plea, arguing that Swan was factually innocent.

 Counsel also argued that Swan’s plea was unknowing and involuntary because Swan

 “believed, based on his discussions with [plea] counsel, that he had no choice but to

 plead guilty because it would be his word against the word of the police, and that he

 would necessarily be disbelieved by a jury.” Id. at 52.

         At the hearing on the motion to withdraw the plea, Swan testified that he was

 factually innocent and said that the complete video footage of his arrest showed that

 law enforcement had planted the ammunition after his arrest. He further testified that

 he “didn’t feel like [he] was going to be able to get a fair trial” and that the jury

 would believe the officers over him. R. vol. 3, 21.

         Testifying for the government, plea counsel explained that in his meetings

 with Swan, he showed Swan still images from the bodycam footage of the arrest, as

 well as a short clip of the footage, but not the entire video. He explained that

 although the video did not show the ammunition falling out of Swan’s pocket, the

 still images showed “Swan being placed on the ground, . . . being picked up, and then

 the clip being within close proximity of where he was placed facedown.” Id. at 48.

 Describing his final meeting with Swan, plea counsel said that he showed Swan the

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 video clips and still photos again and told “Swan that it would be his word against all

 of the officers that were present.” Id.

        Plea counsel further testified that he told Swan, during this final meeting, that

 the jury “would be [composed] of no one of minority color.” Id. More than that, plea

 counsel also agreed on cross-examination that he had told Swan the jury “would be

 culled of any minorities.” Id. at 64. According to plea counsel, Swan paused after

 receiving this information and then said “that he was going to go ahead and enter a

 plea of guilty.” Id. at 49. Plea counsel testified that he told Swan he would not let

 Swan plead guilty if the ammunition was not Swan’s. Then, plea counsel stated,

 Swan “disclosed . . . that it was his.” Id.

        The parties then offered closing arguments, with the government contending

 that Swan’s assertion of factual innocence was not credible, that his plea was

 knowing and voluntary, and that he had close assistance of counsel. Swan’s counsel

 argued to the contrary on each point. In so doing, Swan’s counsel twice emphasized

 that plea counsel’s statement about the all-white jury contributed to Swan being

 compelled to enter a guilty plea.

        Ruling from the bench, the district court devoted most of its discussion to

 concluding that Swan’s assertion of factual innocence was “not credible” because

 Swan merely “had a change of heart after he saw the full videos in terms of his

 evaluation of his odds” and “offered nothing other than his speculation that these

 officers would have been motivated to, would have been willing to, and did, in fact,

 plant the [ammunition].” Id. at 92–93. The district court also briefly concluded that

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 Swan had close assistance of counsel and that his plea was knowing and voluntary.

 On the latter point, it did not mention plea counsel’s commentary about the selection

 and makeup of Swan’s potential jury and instead reasoned that because Swan had

 prior experience with the criminal-justice system, he understood what it meant to

 plead guilty. Overall, the district court concluded that Swan failed to show a fair and

 just reason to withdraw his plea and thus denied the motion.1

       At sentencing, the district court imposed the statutory maximum of ten years in

 prison,2 followed by three years of supervised release.3 Swan appeals.

                                         Analysis

       Swan argues that the district court erred in refusing to allow him to withdraw

 his plea. Reviewing that decision, we would typically ask whether the district court

 abused its discretion in assessing, under this circuit’s applicable seven-factor test,

 whether Swan “‘establish[ed] a fair and just reason’ for his request” to withdraw his

       1
          About two months after the district court’s ruling, the Supreme Court decided
 New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). The next
 month, Swan filed a pro se motion to reconsider the ruling on his motion to withdraw
 his plea. The district court permitted argument on the reconsideration motion prior to
 sentencing, and there Swan’s counsel also argued that Swan should be entitled to
 withdraw his plea on grounds of legal innocence because the felon-in-possession
 statute was unconstitutional under Bruen. The district court rejected the Bruen
 argument and denied the motion for reconsideration.
        2
          The statutory maximum for this crime has since increased to 15 years. See
 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, Pub. L. 117-159, sec. 12004(c), 136 Stat. 1313,
 1329 (2022) (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2), (8)).
        3
          Swan’s sentencing range under the United States Sentencing Guidelines was
 57 to 71 months, based on a total offense level of 18 and a criminal-history category
 of VI. The district court imposed a longer sentence based primarily on concerns
 about Swan’s lengthy criminal history, noting that prior sentences had not deterred
 him and that he needed to be incapacitated.
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 plea. United States v. Dominguez, 998 F.3d 1094, 1103–04 (10th Cir. 2021) (quoting

 United States v. Marceleno, 819 F.3d 1267, 1272 (10th Cir. 2016)); see also Fed. R.

 Crim. P. 11(d)(2)(B) (allowing withdrawal of plea before sentencing if “defendant

 can show a fair and just reason for requesting the withdrawal”). But one of those

 seven factors, and one that Swan raises on appeal, is whether the plea was knowing

 and voluntary. See Dominguez, 998 F.3d at 1103–04. The requirement that a plea be

 knowing and voluntary stems from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth

 Amendment and is a legal issue that we review de novo. United States v. McIntosh,

 29 F.4th 648, 655 (10th Cir. 2022); see also id. at 655 n.1 (explaining that district

 court necessarily “abuses its discretion if it denies a motion to withdraw a plea that

 was not knowingly and voluntarily entered”). We therefore begin—and ultimately

 end—our assessment of Swan’s overall withdrawal argument with his position that

 his plea was not knowing and voluntary.

       A knowing and voluntary plea “must be ‘deliberate and intelligent and chosen

 from available alternatives.’” Id. at 655 (quoting United States v. Libretti, 38 F.3d

 523, 529 (10th Cir. 1994), aff’d, 516 U.S. 29 (1995)). Stated differently, “[t]o enter a

 plea that is knowing and voluntary, the defendant must have ‘a full understanding of

 what the plea connotes and of its consequence.’” Marceleno, 819 F.3d at 1276

 (quoting United States v. Hurlich, 293 F.3d 1223, 1230 (10th Cir. 2002)). Thus, and

 as relevant here, “[a] plea may be involuntary when an attorney materially

 misinforms the defendant of the consequences of the plea.” Fields v. Gibson, 277

 F.3d 1203, 1213 (10th Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Rhodes, 913 F.2d 839,

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 843 (10th Cir. 1990)). In that instance, “the defendant must show the plea was a

 product of [the] material misrepresentation[],” meaning that he or she “relied” on the

 misrepresentation or that the misrepresentation impacted the decision to plead.

 United States v. Williams, 919 F.2d 1451, 1456 (10th Cir. 1990).

       Swan contends that his plea was not knowing or voluntary “because he was

 informed that one of the rights he was waiving by pleading guilty—his right to an

 impartial jury trial—was effectively nonexistent.” Aplt. Br. 18. In support, he relies

 on plea counsel’s testimony that the jury “would be [composed] of no one of minority

 color” and that Swan “wasn’t going to get a very good jury because it would be

 culled of any minorities.” R. vol. 3, 48, 64. Swan contends this statement materially

 misrepresented the nature of his right to an impartial jury, and he asserts that this

 misrepresentation impacted his decision to enter his plea.

       To its credit, the government does not dispute that plea counsel’s commentary

 on the selection process for and racial makeup of Swan’s hypothetical jury

 fundamentally and materially misrepresented the constitutional guarantees of being

 tried by a jury of one’s peers that is selected without racial discrimination.4 As the

 Supreme Court has long held, “[p]urposeful racial discrimination in selection of the

 venire violates a defendant’s right to equal protection because it denies him the

       4
          The government also does not argue that Swan forfeited this argument by
 failing to make it below and waived it on appeal by failing to argue for plain error.
 The government has therefore waived any such argument. See United States v.
 Heckenliable, 446 F.3d 1048, 1049 n.3 (10th Cir. 2006) (holding that government
 “waived the waiver” where it did “not argue [d]efendant waived his present
 challenge”).
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 protection that a trial by jury is intended to secure.” Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79,

 86 (1986); see also Flowers v. Mississippi, 139 S. Ct. 2228, 2243 (2019) (“Equal

 justice under law requires a criminal trial free of racial discrimination in the

 jury[-]selection process.”). Thus, as the government does not dispute, plea counsel’s

 statement to Swan was a material misrepresentation about one of the rights Swan was

 sacrificing by pleading guilty.

       The government nevertheless argues that this material misrepresentation did

 not render Swan’s plea unknowing and involuntary. It first seeks to elevate the

 applicable standard that Swan must meet from showing a material misrepresentation

 that rendered his plea unknowing and involuntary to establishing a claim for

 ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668

 (1984). For support, it relies on habeas cases involving claims of plea-stage

 ineffective assistance of counsel for the proposition that “[w]hen an involuntariness

 claim rests on the faulty legal decisions or predictions of defense counsel, the plea

 will be deemed constitutionally involuntary only when the attorney is held to have

 been constitutionally ineffective.” Worthen v. Meachum, 842 F.2d 1179, 1184 (10th

 Cir. 1988) (emphasis added), overruled on other grounds by Coleman v. Thompson,

 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991); see also Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 56 (1985) (“Where,

 as here, a defendant is represented by counsel during the plea process and enters his

 plea upon the advice of counsel, the voluntariness of the plea depends on whether

 counsel’s advice ‘was within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in

 criminal cases.’” (quoting McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771 (1970))).

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        But Strickland doesn’t apply here. Swan’s argument is not that plea counsel

  ineffectively made a “faulty legal decision or prediction,” Worthen, 842 F.2d at

  1184—his argument is that plea counsel materially misrepresented the nature of his

  right to a jury trial and rendered his waiver of that right unknowing and involuntary

  because he did not know what he was surrendering. In other words, Swan does not

  take issue with the quality of his representation as it pertains to plea counsel’s legal

  guidance specific to his case; rather, he states that he did not understand one of the

  rights he was giving up because plea counsel materially mischaracterized that right.

  Cf. Worthen, 842 F.2d at 1183–84 (applying Strickland to claims that plea counsel

  misrepresented when defendant would be paroled, that defendant would receive

  immunity on other charges, and that counsel would represent defendant in other

  matters). Indeed, we have often separately examined claims of attorney

  misrepresentation in the knowing-and-voluntary context outside of Strickland. See

  Laycock v. New Mexico, 880 F.2d 1184, 1186–87 (10th Cir. 1989) (assessing

  voluntariness of plea in light of attorney’s alleged material misstatements about

  potential for suspended sentence separately from five ineffectiveness claims subject

  to Strickland); United States v. Rhodes, 913 F.2d 839, 842–44 (10th Cir. 1990)

  (assessing voluntariness of plea in light of attorney’s alleged material misstatements

  about likely length of sentence and then reviewing ineffectiveness claim separately,

  under Strickland); United States v. Carr, 80 F.3d 413, 416–19 (10th Cir. 1996)

  (analyzing voluntariness of plea under three arguments, only one of which also

  constituted ineffectiveness claim). We take the same path here and review Swan’s

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  claim as he presents it: a claim that his plea was not knowing and voluntary.

        Under that standard, Swan must show the material misrepresentation impacted

  his decision to plead guilty. See Williams, 919 F.2d at 1456. The record here

  establishes just that. Plea counsel recalled concluding his final meeting with Swan by

  “inform[ing] . . . Swan that it would be [Swan’s] word against all of the officers that

  were present, the body[-]cam footage, and jurors that would be [composed] of no one

  of minority color.” R. vol. 3, 48. And on cross-examination, plea counsel agreed that

  he in fact told Swan all minorities would be removed from the jury. The government

  then asked plea counsel what Swan decided to do; plea counsel replied that “Swan at

  that point paused” and “then [said] that he was going to go ahead and enter a plea of

  guilty.” Id. at 49. This testimony and timeline establishes that Swan relied, at least in

  part, on plea counsel’s material misrepresentation.5

        The government asserts that Swan cannot show reliance because his motions to

  withdraw his plea did not mention plea counsel’s misrepresentation and instead

  focused on factual innocence. But when those motions were filed, Swan did not yet

  know he had been materially misinformed about his jury-trial right, and thus neither

  did his counsel. Moreover, the pro se motion mentioned that plea counsel’s

        5
            To be sure, plea counsel later indicated that “the still photos and the clip of
  the video” are what “changed” Swan’s assertions of innocence into a desire to plead
  guilty. R. vol. 3, 71. And the district court noted “that [Swan’s] decision to plead
  guilty was driven by the facts and by [his] realistic assessment of his chances at
  trial.” Id. at 88. But Swan viewed the photos and video clip during the same
  conversation in which plea counsel materially misrepresented the jury-trial right, and
  we cannot separate the two—particularly in light of plea counsel’s description of
  precisely when, during their final conversation, Swan decided to plead.
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  statements “compelled” him to plead, and Swan’s counseled motion asserted that

  Swan thought he would be “disbelieved” by a jury: both concerns would reasonably

  flow from being told that the jury would be culled of all minorities. R. vol. 1, 38, 52.

         The government also argues that Swan’s prior experience with the judicial

  system proves that plea counsel’s misrepresentation did not make a difference to his

  decision to plead guilty because Swan necessarily knew how jury trials work.6 But as

  Swan replies, the record contains nothing about the nature of his prior experiences in

  criminal court. Indeed, although the government notes that Swan cited his prior

  criminal-court experience as one of the reasons he was entering a guilty plea, such

  fact does not assist the government—for all we know, he had an all-white jury in that

  prior case, which would only reinforce the material misrepresentation at issue here.

  In short, that Swan has prior experience in criminal court does not mean he could not

  have relied on plea counsel’s material misrepresentation in this case.

         Last, the government invokes the thoroughness of the district court’s colloquy

  under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 at the change-of-plea hearing. But the

  Rule 11 colloquy is not the source of the misrepresentation at issue here, so the

  government’s argument puts the cart before the horse. Cf. Williams, 919 F.2d at 1456

  (“Both the attorneys and the court have a duty to apprise the defendant of the

  consequences of the plea and ensure that it is voluntary.”). Even if “[n]othing in Rule

  11 requires a court to advise a defendant that he is giving up his right to a fair,

         6
          Recall that Swan’s prior experience in the criminal-justice system was also
  the basis for the district court’s knowing-and-voluntary ruling.
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  impartial, or unbiased jury,” Aplee. Br. 13, the more relevant question here is

  whether anything in the Rule 11 colloquy negated or overcame plea counsel’s

  material misrepresentation about Swan’s jury-trial rights. See Dominguez, 998 F.3d at

  1106 (noting that defendant did “not contest the sufficiency of the court’s Rule 11

  colloquy” but addressing other circumstances that could have rendered plea

  unknowing or unintelligent). And there is no dispute here that the district court did

  not delve into the right to an impartial jury selected without racial bias, effectively

  (although certainly unintentionally) allowing plea counsel’s misrepresentation to

  stand uncorrected. Thus, we reject the government’s Rule 11 argument.

        In sum, because plea counsel advised Swan that his jury would be culled of all

  minorities—suggesting implicitly “that [Swan] would not receive a fair trial because

  of race”—Swan was materially misinformed about the nature of one of the rights he

  was sacrificing by pleading guilty: his right to a jury trial, which includes the right to

  a jury of his peers selected via nondiscriminatory means. Aplt. Br. 13. And plea

  counsel’s testimony established that Swan relied on this misrepresentation when

  deciding to plead guilty. Nothing in the Rule 11 colloquy corrected the

  misrepresentation; nor, on this record, did Swan’s prior experience with the criminal-

  justice system. We therefore hold that Swan’s plea was not knowing and voluntary

  and that the district court accordingly abused its discretion in denying Swan’s motion

  to withdraw his plea.7 See McIntosh, 29 F.4th at 655 n.1 (“[A] district court abuses its

        7
         We reach this conclusion based solely on the knowing-and-voluntary
  requirement and thus need not consider Swan’s arguments on other plea-withdrawal
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  discretion if it denies a motion to withdraw a plea that was not knowingly and

  voluntarily entered.”). And because an unknowing and involuntary guilty plea is

  void, “the plea cannot stand, and we must vacate the conviction[] that flowed from

  it.” Id. at 661–62.

                                        Conclusion

         Swan’s plea was not knowing and voluntary because, during the conversation

  in which he decided to plead guilty, his plea counsel materially misrepresented his

  right to an impartial jury selected through racially nondiscriminatory means. We

  therefore vacate Swan’s conviction and remand for the district court to allow Swan to

  withdraw his plea and for further proceedings.

  factors, including factual and legal innocence. But we pause to note that to the extent
  that Swan’s legal-innocence argument seeks broader relief than simply withdrawing
  his plea (he asserts that his statute of conviction is unconstitutional), we are bound to
  follow our recent decision in Vincent v. Garland, 80 F.4th 1197 (10th Cir. 2023). See
  United States v. Lira-Ramirez, 951 F.3d 1258, 1260–61 (10th Cir. 2020) (“We must
  generally follow our precedents absent en banc consideration.”). As Swan
  acknowledges, Vincent forecloses his position that the felon-in-possession statute is
  unconstitutional under Bruen, and he now maintains that argument solely for
  preservation purposes.
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