Court Opinion

ID: 9485760
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:28:53.633366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:20.105910
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
The majority holds that Floyd’s sentence must be vacated so that the district court may conduct a hearing pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 on whether to accept the “acknowledgment” as an effective amendment of the original plea agreement. If under the provisions of the original plea agreement the government was not obligated to move for a downward departure because Floyd had failed to live up to her end of the bargain, the majority’s holding would be nothing but a superfluity. Because there must be a purpose for the required hearing, this holding implies that the majority has concluded that if only the terms of the original plea agreement apply, the government stands in breach of the agreement. That requires me to dissent.
At the conclusion of an evidentiary hearing, the district court stated:
So, overall the court would find that the agreement calls for her cooperation and her participation in trying to set up a deal where the government can catch the people, and I use the term red-handed, and her attempt to do that. And I find that she has never, never completed that. She finds excuses. I think we have three occasions, and each time there’s an excuse on her part why she wasn’t able to do it. So I find that she has not complied with the plea agreement.
[Ilfs not in good spirit of the agreement if she absents herself and she’s not available, and there’s no evidence one way or the other whether she voluntarily did that or didn’t. And I have to assume that she has the power to come and be available, make herself available. There’s no evidence of phone calls. There’s no evidence of appearances. There’s no evidence of writing or anything to try and get in touch with the agent [responsible for her case]. So that’s certainly not within the spirit of the contract. And you have implied conditions and implied promises that, “I’ll be cooperative, and I’ll make myself available so I can talk. I’ll let people know where I am so I can be available.”
There are three findings embedded in the above-quoted language: (1) the plea agreement required that Floyd cooperate with the government beyond merely giving names; (2) Floyd never followed through, despite having promised to arrange three separate undercover operations; and (3) Floyd’s unaccounted-for absence constituted a breach of her promise to cooperate with the government. The majority presumably does not dispute either the second or the third finding, but instead focuses on the first, and concludes that the district court erroneously interpreted the plea agreement to require Floyd’s cooperation. This result is predicated upon three distinct errors.
First, the majority fails to consider section 5K1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines), which provides that in order for the government to move for a downward departure, it must certify that the defendant rendered substantial assistance. Assuming for a moment that the majority is correct that the fully integrated plea agreement does not, on its face, require Floyd’s cooperation (I also have a problem with this), should not the defendant, who was represented by counsel throughout these proceedings, be held responsible for knowing the law governing the “contract” she signed? Any doubts about this question are laid to rest by paragraph 5 of the plea agreement, which provides that “the sentence will be controlled by the ‘Sentencing Guidelines’ and [defendant] has discussed these Guidelines with his attorney.” Section 5K1.1 is the only provision in the Guidelines that provides authority for a district court to depart downward upon the government’s motion. The Guidelines require “substantial assistance” before the government may request a downward departure, and the plea agreement unambiguously incorporates the Guidelines. Surely the ma*872jority does not require an explicit reference to each specific section of the Guidelines that may become relevant to sentencing for it to become operative. But if not, then how can the absence of an explicit reference to substantial assistance in the text of the agreement itself obviate the requirement of section 5K1.1 that the defendant assist the government to qualify for a downward departure recommendation? I believe it cannot, and thus conclude that under the terms of the original plea agreement, Floyd was required to provide substantial assistance before the government would be obligated to move for a downward departure. I would affirm the district court on this basis alone.
Second, even if we disregard the applicable provision of the Sentencing Guidelines, the district court’s finding that Floyd had not lived up to her end of the bargain is supported by the terms of the original plea agreement. Paragraph 14 of the agreement requires that the information supplied by Floyd be complete as well as truthful. It is not unreasonable, and it certainly is not clearly erroneous, for the district court to have found that just giving names does not amount to complete, truthful, and accurate information regarding narcotics trafficking, as required by paragraphs 8 and 14.
Furthermore, the provisions of the plea agreement support the district court’s finding, which the majority agrees is reviewed for clear error, that the agreement required Floyd to cooperate more extensively with the government. Paragraph 11 specifically refers to the government’s duty to inform the district court of the “nature and extent of defendant’s cooperation with the government” (emphasis added). Read together with paragraphs 8 and 14, this provision indicates that although cooperation is not explicitly mentioned in those paragraphs, it in fact is what the parties intended. The crucial point is that there is support within the four corners of the document for the district court’s interpretation of the arguably ambiguous contractual language to require Floyd’s cooperation. How then can this court declare that interpretation to be clearly erroneous?
Third, the majority also is mistaken in its reliance on the parol evidence rule. The rule is irrelevant to this case. As set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Contracts (Restatement), the rule against parol evidence applies only to the use of “prior or contemporaneous agreements or negotiations” to “contradict a term of the writing.” Restatement, § 215. The district court, however, looked not to “prior or contemporaneous” statements, but to Floyd’s actions subsequent to the execution of the plea agreement. The Restatement expressly provides that such “course of performance” evidence is relevant to contractual interpretation. See Restatement, § 202(4) (“Where an agreement involves repeated occasions for performance by either party with knowledge of the nature of the performance and opportunity for objection to it by the other, any course of performance accepted or acquiesced in without objection is given great weight in the interpretation of the agreement.”); see also id. at Comment g (“The parties to an agreement know best what they meant, and their action under it is often the strongest evidence of their meaning.”); United States v. Haas & Haynie Corp., 577 F.2d 568, 574 (9th Cir.1978); Riess v. Murchison, 329 F.2d 635, 642 (9th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 946, 86 S.Ct. 1196, 16 L.Ed.2d 209 (1966); Idaho Code § 28-2-202 (integrated contract “may be explained or supplemented ... by course of performance”); Nev.Rev.Stat. § 104.2208 (same); Cal.Civ.Proc.Code § 1856(c) (same).
Thus, evidence of Floyd and the government’s ongoing interactions following the execution of the plea agreement is relevant to establishing the meaning of the plea agreement itself, inasmuch as such evidence sheds light on what the parties reasonably intended at the time that they entered into the agreement. In this case, as the district court found, there were at least three occasions after she signed the plea agreement when Floyd reneged on promised sting operations. She herself testified regarding the abortive undercover operations. Floyd surely had ample opportunity to express any objection she may have had to the government’s repeated attempts to get her to cooperate with its investigations. Yet the record is devoid of any suggestion that Floyd ever resisted *873participating in such activities, and her participation is strong evidence that she understood the plea agreement to require it.
As the majority concedes, the parol evidence rule does not bar consideration of subsequent statements such as those contained in the acknowledgment. By signing the acknowledgment, Floyd acquiesced in the government’s understanding that the plea agreement required cooperation beyond what she had provided up to that point. The acknowledgment therefore is surely relevant to the question of the parties’ reasonable understanding of the agreement. Cf. Restatement, § 202(4). But the majority insists that as a “modification” of the agreement, it first must be accepted by the court in a Rule 11 proceeding. The acknowledgment, however, is not properly construed as a modification of the original plea agreement, but, as part of the course of performance of the agreement, see Restatement, § 202(4); II E. Allan Farnsworth, Farnsworth on Contracts § 7.13, at 291-92 (1990), as evidence of the parties’ reasonable intentions with regard to its meaning: that Floyd provide substantial assistance to the government in exchange for a downward departure motion.
It is true that the district court erred as well in concluding that only if the plea agreement was not fully integrated could it consider the subsequent actions of Floyd and the government, but that error worked in Floyd’s favor to the extent it had any impact at all. I will not address the majority’s analysis of the integration issue, because regardless of whether or not the plea agreement was fully integrated, evidence of the parties’ course of performance is relevant to interpreting the plea agreement. The district court pointed to Floyd’s asking “to be given some meth so she could go out and make a deal” as evidence “that she thought cooperation was a part of the plea agreement.” This factual finding is not, on the record before us, clearly erroneous.
To sum up, along the way to rejecting the district court’s finding, ostensibly subject to clearly erroneous review, that the original plea agreement required Floyd to cooperate with the government beyond just giving names, the majority (1) ignores the relevant provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines despite their express incorporation by the plea agreement, (2) disregards language in the plea agreement itself that supports the district court’s interpretation, and (3) misconstrues the parol evidence rule to bar consideration of Floyd’s actions after signing the agreement. Because I conclude the majority’s analysis is in error, I dissent.