Court Opinion

ID: 9461758
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:24:03.487946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:15.043196
License: Public Domain

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
This case appears before us in a most unusual posture. In the ordinary appeal following a guilty plea the defendant seeks to set aside that plea, claiming that he is innocent, and that his plea was coerced. Navedo, however, admits his guilt and claims that his trial was coerced. He asserts that he was deprived of the shorter sentence usually attendant upon a plea by the district court’s refusal to accept his admission of guilt. Because he will be required to serve at least an additional year in prison as a result, I believe a statement of my reasons for disagreeing with my brothers is in order.
As I understand the majority, they would uphold the rejection of Navedo’s guilty plea simply because they believe that his statements at the allocution justified Judge Brieant’s doubts as to the requisite factual basis.1 It is clear, however, that a factual basis can be found in the very same evidence which led to Navedo’s conviction after trial. The lower court’s failure to find such grounds resulted not from anything which Navedo said, but rather from a misunderstanding of the responsibilities which Rule 11 *299imposes upon the district judge. Accordingly, I would reverse.
The record makes clear that the trial judge failed to find the requisite factual basis for the guilty plea because, as he candidly acknowledged, he focused exclusively on the April 5 transaction. Nave-do had believed that the powder delivered on that day was cocaine. Because Navedo portrayed himself as Roy’s underling in his responses to the Rule 11 queries, however, the court concluded that Roy may have known that the substance delivered was in fact procaine. Judge Brieant consequently refused to accept Navedo’s plea, because he believed a sufficient showing had not been made that at least one other conspirator had the specific intent to sell narcotics.
In his colloquy with defense counsel after the verdict, however, Judge Brieant with commendable frankness conceded that he would have found a factual basis if he had considered the events surrounding the proposed sale on April 17:
[O]n the 17th . . . the facts are such that the jury could have inferred that he in truth did agree with Roy to deliver true cocaine . and that he sent somebody for cocaine and that there was a brown paper bag which the jury could have inferred had cocaine in it, and that he committed the overt act of going there in the truck to complete the deal
He also stated:
. I must tell you that I never knew until the trial unfolded that there were two separate dates and that these discussions and this brown paper bag and all this other evidence we have been exposed to in the last two days was present in this case at all He wanted to plead to the first count. Perhaps in hindsight I should have let him, but I thought I was doing right at the time.
It is perplexing that the court was unaware of the second sale at the time it rejected the plea, since there were ample indications that the case involved two separate transactions. In its memorandum in support of the plea the Government plainly referred to a second proposed sale.2 Moreover, both Navedo’s post-arrest statement and the indictment referred to the April 17 transaction. The reason for the oversight, it is apparent, was the judge’s misconception that Rule 11 requires the defendant alone to furnish the factual basis for the plea:
I won’t take a guilty plea unless the man himself gives me all the elements, and he didn’t do so.
Because Navedo’s allocution failed to delineate the second transaction precisely, the court confined its consideration to the events of April 5.
Rule 11,' however, clearly contemplates independent inquiry by the court in satisfying itself that there exists a factual basis for the plea. Notes of the Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules to the 1966 Amendment to Rule 11 (specifically mentioning inquiry of government attorney as a source); Irizarry v. United States of America, supra n. 1, 508 F.2d at 963; Davis v. United States, 470 F.2d 1128 (3d Cir. 1973). Indeed, this case illustrates the danger of relying exclusively on information supplied by the defendant himself. A defendant may attempt to minimize his culpability during his allocution because he knows that the same judge will be imposing his sentence. A simple question directed to the Government — “What evidence would you *300present at trial?” — would counteract the defendant’s natural tendency to distort available evidence. In this case it would also have obviated the need for trial, and saved Navedo at least a year in the penitentiary.
Accordingly, I am of the view that Judge Brieant abused his discretion in rejecting Navedo’s plea without good cause. United States v. Gaskins, 158 U.S.App.D.C. 267, 485 F.2d 1046 (1973); Griffin v. United States, 132 U.S.App.D.C. 108, 405 F.2d 1378 (1968). I certainly appreciate the difficulties which confront a trial judge who must decide whether to accept or to reject a plea of guilty. But that should not lead us to ignore the clear facts of this case. Not even the most cautious judge could entertain a suspicion that Navedo’s plea was not intelligently and voluntarily offered. This is simply a case where a factual basis existed for the plea, but the trial judge failed to discover it because he did not fully grasp the facts and the applicable law. It is unfair and inappropriate to subject a defendant to additional incarceration for such reasons.

. Judge Brieant rejected the plea because he believed it lacked a sufficient factual basis. The majority opinion, in discussing “the chief deficiency in the factual basis” presented to Judge Brieant, quotes language from Irizarry v. United States of America, 508 F.2d 960 (2d Cir. 1974), dealing with the defendant’s understanding of the charge. It is undisputed here that Navedo understood the charge, and voluntarily proffered his plea.

. The Government’s memorandum stated:
We submit . . that the court is not required nor should it engage in speculation as to the state of mind of other co-conspirators. Furthermore Navedo told the court during his plea that there were further negotiations for the sale of additional cocaine subsequent to the delivery of the dummy package. However, the arrests took place before that transaction could be consummated.
Thus, it is evident from these subsequent negotiations and from Navedo’s statements to the court that this was a conspiracy to sell cocaine even though the objects of the conspiracy were not attained [Emphasis added.]