Court Opinion

ID: 9495878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:12:42.694301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:15.083962
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The district court acted within its authority when it construed the plea agreement between Carlos Cervantes-Valencia and the government to encompass the ten months’ imprisonment Cervantes-Valencia served in state prison for the same criminal conduct that underlies the federal offense to which he pled guilty. It is the role of the district court to construe ambiguous terms in a plea agreement. The district court should “enforce the literal terms of the plea agreement, but construe ambiguities in favor of the defendant.” United States v. Franco-Lopez, 312 F.3d 984, 989 (9th Cir.2002) (citing United States v. Quach, 302 F.3d 1096, 1100-01 (9th Cir.2002)) (internal cite omitted). In construing a plea agreement, the district court must decide what the “defendant reasonably believed to be the terms of the plea agreement at the time of the plea.” Id.
Under paragraph 12 of the plea agreement, both parties were permitted to “supplement the facts stipulated to in this agreement by supplying relevant information to the United States Probation Office and the Court” before sentencing. At sentencing, the district court could reasonably have read paragraph 12 to mean that the parties intended that the court could construe the plea agreement in light of additional information supplied by the parties before sentencing. Otherwise there would be no point in furnishing supplemental information to the court.
The district court’s construction of the plea agreement did not disturb the bargain between the parties.1 Under the district court’s reading of the agreement, Cervantes-Valencia still served thirty months’ imprisonment for his offenses.
Accordingly, I dissent.

. Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, the district court's decision did not contradict United States v. Mukai, 26 F.3d 953, 955 (9th Cir.1994), because the district court did not “modify" the sentence by departing upward or downward from Cervanles-Valencia’s sentence, but instead construed the agreement to encompass the time Cervantes-Valencia served for the same criminal conduct.