Court Opinion

ID: 9474971
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:13:46.025348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:26.050584
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with the majority that we should not grant relief for a mere formal violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. See United States v. Timmreck, 441 U.S. 780, 99 S.Ct. 2085, 60 L.Ed.2d 634 (1979). However, in my judgment the circumstances surrounding the entry of petitioner’s guilty plea violated a core concern of Rule 11, and thus rendered the plea proceeding fundamentally unfair.
In this case, the Government agreed to recommend a maximum sentence of 18 months’ incarceration if petitioner would plead “guilty” and would cooperate in future cases. As part of the plea-screening process, petitioner appeared before a magistrate. The magistrate executed a form known as the “forty questions form” with the defendant. Question 34 of that form stated: “Do you understand that if the court refuses to accept such an agreement, you would have the right to withdraw your plea of guilty and plead not guilty?” The defendant answered “yes.”
Before passing sentence, the district judge informed petitioner that the court was probably going to give him a more severe sentence than what was recom*1546mended in the plea agreement. However, the judge did not inform petitioner that, contrary to the statement in the forty questions form, petitioner could not withdraw the guilty plea after he was sentenced. Petitioner entered a guilty plea. The judge accepted this plea and sentenced petitioner to ten years’ imprisonment.
Through counsel, appellant filed a motion for reduction of sentence pursuant to Fed. R. Crim.P. 35, which motion was denied. Despite appellant’s request that counsel appeal this denial, counsel did not file any appeal.
As the majority notes, because this case is an appeal from the denial of relief in a collateral proceeding under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255, we must apply a different standard than we would if the case arose on direct appeal. In order to obtain relief on the issue of the Rule 11 violation, petitioner must show that there was “cause” for his failure to raise the issue on direct appeal, and that the violation resulted in “actual prejudice.” United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982).
As previously noted, the reason petitioner did not file a direct appeal in this case was that his attorney refused to file such an appeal, in spite of petitioner’s explicit request that he do so. Under these circumstances, petitioner has demonstrated “cause” for his failure to challenge the plea proceedings on direct appeal.
To show “actual prejudice,” petitioner must demonstrate that the alleged error “by itself so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process.” Frady, supra, 456 U.S. at 167, 102 S. Ct. at 1594. This Court has equated the violation of one of the “core concerns” of Rule 11 with “actual prejudice.” See United States v. Dayton, 604 F.2d 931, 938 (5th Cir.1979) (en banc), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 904, 100 S.Ct. 1080, 63 L.Ed.2d 320 (1980). Thus, petitioner would be entitled to relief if he can show that the plea proceeding in the instant case violated one of the core concerns of Rule 11.
In United States v. Dayton, supra, we held that Rule 11 has three core concerns: (1) a guilty plea must be free from coercion; (2) the accused must know the direct consequences of the guilty plea; and (3) the accused must understand the nature of the charges against him. See United States v. Corbett, 742 F.2d 173, 178 (5th Cir.1984). The record indicates that petitioner was not coerced into pleading “guilty,” and that he understood the nature of the charges against him. However, the record also shows that the accused was not informed of the direct consequences of his guilty plea.
Petitioner clearly was apprised of one consequence of the guilty plea: that, in the event a guilty plea was entered, he would probably receive a more severe sentence than that which the Government had recommended. However, petitioner was not apprised of an equally significant consequence: that, in the event the court did not uphold the Government's end of the bargain, petitioner would not be entitled to revoke his end of the bargain. In addition to failing to inform petitioner of this consequence, the magistrate affirmatively misinformed petitioner on this subject. On the basis of the “forty questions form,” appellant had every reason to believe that he would be entitled to withdraw his plea if he received a stiffer sentence than the Government had agreed to.
Under these circumstances, the majority errs in holding that the defendant knew the direct consequences of his guilty plea. See United States v. Iaquinta, 719 F.2d 83 (4th Cir.1983); United States v. Missouri Valley Construction Co., 704 F.2d 1026 (8th Cir.1983). I find the majority’s argument that the district court accepted the plea agreement, while simply refusing to follow the “recommendation” of that agreement, to be remarkable. I would hold that the district court’s failure to address a core concern of Rule 11 rendered the plea proceeding fundamentally unfair, and that petitioner’s guilty plea should be set aside. Accordingly, I dissent.