Court Opinion

ID: 9940940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-15 18:00:45.048499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:04.239085
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                                 _____________

                                      No. 22-1449
                                     _____________

                            UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

                                             v.

                                  HAKIM WILLIAMS,
                                               Appellant
                                    _____________

                     On Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
                             (D.C. No. 2-18-cr-00579-004)
                      District Judge: Honorable Gerald J. Pappert
                                    _____________

                   Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
                                   October 3, 2023
                                   _____________

              Before: SHWARTZ, MATEY, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges.

                                (Filed: February 15, 2024)
                                     _____________

                                       OPINION*
                                     _____________

       *
       This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7,
does not constitute binding precedent.
MATEY, Circuit Judge.

       Hakim Williams challenges his sentence for crimes he committed as a member of

a drug trafficking organization. According to Williams, the United States departed from

the parties’ plea agreement and the District Court imposed an unreasonable period of

incarceration after the Judge improperly testified as a witness. But seeing no error, we

will affirm the District Court’s judgment.

                                             I.

       Williams was charged with narcotics and firearms offenses. Law enforcement also

suspected that Williams tried to intimidate a cooperating witness at a pretrial hearing, and

then again during the trial of a co-conspirator. Williams later pleaded guilty to several

crimes.1 His written plea agreement included an appellate waiver and stipulations about

the application of the Sentencing Guidelines anticipating Williams should receive a three-

level downward adjustment for accepting responsibility and fully cooperating with the

Justice Department under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1. The initial presentence report (PSR)

concluded that Williams’s total offense level was 37, giving him a Guidelines range of

292 to 365 months’ imprisonment.

       1
         Williams pleaded guilty to three offenses: (1) conspiracy to distribute 500 grams
or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine,
50 grams or more of methamphetamine, and marijuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846
and 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), and (b)(1)(D); (2) possession with intent to distribute 500 grams
or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine,
50 grams or more of methamphetamine, and a mixture and substance containing a
detectable amount of heroin and a detectable amount of fentanyl, in violation of 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), and (b)(1)(C); and (3) possession of a firearm by a felon, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
                                             2
       Before sentencing, the United States changed course and objected to the PSR,

arguing that the District Court should impose a two-level obstruction enhancement based

on Williams’s repeated attempts at witness intimidation. And at Williams’s sentencing

hearing, the United States offered testimony from Agent Elizabeth Becker and a

cooperating witness to demonstrate that Williams had repeatedly intimidated witnesses.2

       Ruling on the motion, the District Court commented that the intimidation was

“plain as day. It was blatant. It was so blatant; my brain wasn’t processing what my eyes

were telling me was happening. And had I been more on the ball, I’d have had him

pinched right there.” App. 176. The Court credited Agent Becker’s testimony “because it

corroborates my own memory, and I have a very clear memory of this because it’s the

only time anything like this has ever happened to me.” App. 187. And the Court

concluded: “I firsthand saw it. There is no doubt what he was doing. None. And there is

no doubt of the effect it had on the testifying witness because he turned to me in an effort

to alert me to the problem.” App. 188.

       As a result, the District Court increased Williams’s offense level by two levels

under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 and denied a decrease for acceptance of responsibility under

U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, producing an advisory sentencing range of 360 months to life

       2
        On top of the intimidation attempted at the pretrial hearing and trial, Agent
Becker testified about a third occurrence. A copy of a cooperating witness’s plea
agreement was found in Williams’s cell. When other inmates learned about the
agreement and cooperation addendum, the witness was attacked.
                                             3
imprisonment. The Court then imposed a sentence of 300 months’ imprisonment, a

downward variance from the calculated range.3 Williams timely appealed his sentence.4

                                              II.

       Williams argues the United States breached the plea agreement by seeking an

obstruction enhancement and opposing points for acceptance of responsibility based on

conduct (the intimidation) known to the prosecution when the agreement was signed. A

breach, Williams reasons, that constitutes a miscarriage of justice and voids the appellate

waiver. Williams also argues that the sentencing court’s findings of fact were clearly

erroneous, and the sentence was an abuse of discretion. Williams also contends that the

District Court judge violated his due process rights by testifying during the sentencing

hearing. Behavior, Williams concludes, that showed bias requiring the Judge’s recusal.

We find no plain error in any of these arguments.5

A.     The Plea Agreement

       Plea agreements are analyzed as contracts, with ambiguities “typically

construe[d]” against the United States. United States v. Yusuf, 993 F.3d 167, 176 (3d Cir.

       3
          The District Court pointed to Williams’s age and “personal and family
history”—including Williams’s employment record, family ties and responsibilities, and
“mental health . . . issues”—as grounds for the downward variance. App. 256, 259.
        4
          The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231, and we have
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742.
        5
          Williams did not make these arguments in the District Court, so our review is
limited to plain error. See United States v. Adair, 38 F.4th 341, 355 (3d Cir. 2022)
(citation omitted). Williams must show a plain error of law that affected a substantial
right, where “failure to correct the error would ‘seriously affect[] the fairness, integrity or
public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” United States v. Defreitas, 29 F.4th 135, 144
(3d Cir. 2022) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732
(1993)).
                                               4
2021) (citation omitted). But the defendant must contemporaneously object during the

sentencing hearing and specifically argue that the United States “violat[ed] its obligations

under the plea agreement” to preserve the issue for appeal. Puckett v. United States, 556

U.S. 129, 133, 135 (2009).

       Williams raised no claim of breach before the District Court. Indeed, at the end of

the sentencing hearing, Williams’s counsel stated he had no objections “with respect to

any procedural or substantive matters.” App. 262. We therefore review the United

States’s departure from the plea agreement for plain error and find none. Puckett, 556

U.S. at 134–36, 143.

       Moreover, even under plain error review, there was no breach of the plea

agreement. Section 12 of the plea agreement permitted the United States to argue “the

applicability of . . . other provision[s] of the Sentencing Guidelines, including . . .

adjustments,” such as for obstruction of justice. App. 26. Thus, the United States did not

breach by arguing for that enhancement. Furthermore, although the United States argued

in its objections to the initial PSR that the District Court should deny Williams an

acceptance of responsibility reduction based on post-plea acts of intimidation, or pre- and

post-plea acts of intimidation together, at sentencing, the United States did not oppose an

acceptance of responsibility reduction. For these reasons, the United States did not breach

the plea agreement.

B.     The Appellate Waiver

       Appellate waivers in plea agreements are valid, so long as the waivers were

“entered into knowingly and voluntarily.” United States v. Khattak, 273 F.3d 557, 562

                                               5
(3d Cir. 2001). An appellate waiver may be invalidated, however, if a District Court

made “an error amounting to a miscarriage of justice.” Id. (citation omitted); see United

States v. Jackson, 523 F.3d 234, 242 (3d Cir. 2008). In this case, Williams does not argue

that he entered into the plea agreement unknowingly or involuntarily, and nothing in the

record reveals otherwise. And Williams was not prejudiced by the United States’s

sentencing arguments, as his sentence is neither procedurally nor substantively

unreasonable.6 Therefore, the appellate waiver in Williams’s plea agreement is valid and

enforceable.7

       6
          Williams’s sentence was procedurally reasonable because the District Court
properly calculated the Guidelines range, considered motions to depart, and meaningfully
addressed the relevant factors set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553. See United States v. Gunter,
462 F.3d 237, 247 (3d Cir. 2006). Williams has also not shown that his sentence rested on
“a clearly erroneous factual conclusion or an erroneous legal conclusion.” United States
v. Tomko, 562 F.3d 558, 567–68 (3d Cir. 2009) (en banc) (citation omitted). Williams’s
sentence was also substantively reasonable. The District Court considered the “totality of
the circumstances” against the factors outlined in § 3553(a). The Court described the
gravity of the offense and the unique nature of the obstruction while also noting the
difficulty of Williams’s circumstances and praising the support his family provided. In
light of Williams’s personal history, the District Court granted a five-year downward
variance, a significant reduction. Taken together, it cannot be said that “no reasonable
sentencing court would have imposed the same sentence.” United States v. Shah, 43 F.4th
356, 367 (3d Cir. 2022) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
        7
          Although we need not reach the issue of the District Court’s impartiality because
of the appellate waiver, we would find no error in any event. “[O]pinions formed by the
judge on the basis of . . . prior proceedings[] do not constitute a basis for a bias or
partiality motion unless they display a deep-seated favoritism or antagonism that would
make fair judgment impossible.” Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994).
Williams has not pointed to any specific statements or actions showing such antagonism,
and no reasonable observer would perceive bias based on the conduct alleged and facts
presented. See United States v. Ciavarella, 716 F.3d 705, 719 (3d Cir. 2013) (applying
the “reasonable observer” standard to a recusal inquiry). The District Court based its
assessment of Williams’s conduct on what it saw in the prior hearings rather than on any
of Williams’s personal characteristics.
                                            6
                                    ***

For these reasons we will affirm the District Court’s sentence.

                                      7