Court Opinion

ID: 9461826
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:25:33.57431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:16.953058
License: Public Domain

STEVENS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
Because the basic problem exemplified by these appeals arises so frequently,1 *598and because the development of the relevant law has been somewhat tortuous,2 I believe a few additional comments are appropriate.
First, it is important to note that neither United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521 (7th Cir. 1971), nor Gates v. United States, 515 F.2d 73 (7th Cir., 1975),3 was decided on constitutional grounds. Moreover, for the reasons set forth at some length in my dissenting opinion in Smith, I think it is clear that the mere fact that a trial judge accepts a guilty plea without first advising the defendant that he will be ineligible for parole, does not create constitutional error. See 440 F.2d at 529-535.
Second, it is important to differentiate between the two types of constitutional attack which may be made upon a judgment entered pursuant to a guilty plea. Such a judgment might be constitutionally defective either (a) because the plea was not made voluntarily, or (b) because the arraignment procedures, taken as a whole, were fundamentally unfair. See Smith, supra, at 529.
On the issue of voluntariness, it is, of course, inappropriate to take into account subsequent events, such as the actual sentence imposed; necessarily, the plea is either voluntary or involuntary at the time the defendant makes his choice. On the other hand, if the fairness of the entire procedure is at issue, in my judgment the inquiry should not be limited so narrowly. On the fairness issue, in addition to reviewing the arraignment itself, I would think it appropriate also to consider what happened at the sentencing hearing — as the court did in Gates — as well as what may have happened later— as the court refused to do in Gates. In sum, facts subsequent to the acceptance of the plea are irrelevant on a voluntariness issue, but, I believe, relevant on a fundamental fairness question.
Third, it is important to note that this circuit’s interpretation of the impact of Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 94 S.Ct. 2298, 41 L.Ed.2d 109, is not the only permissible reading of that case. We have treated Gates as creating a new category of error, somewhat less serious than constitutional error, and somewhat more serious than ordinary reversible error. Defects in this new intermediate category justify a collateral attack even if the petitioner’s constitutional rights are not violated.
If I were free to write on a clean slate, I would read Davis differently. Unquestionably it recognized a new basis for collateral attack. But the Davis standard, as I understand it, is not less stringent than the fairness standard implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Rather, I believe Davis applies to a different type of issue.
The Davis case involved a change in the law applicable to the merits of the defendant’s case;4 it did not involve a procedural error, such as a violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Even before the Supreme Court decision in Davis, I think it was clear that any procedural error sufficiently serious to be characterized as “a fundamental defect which inherently re-*599suits in a complete miscarriage of justice” would have violated the due process clause and therefore created constitutional error justifying a collateral attack pursuant to § 2255. See Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 428, 82 S.Ct. 468, 7 L.Ed.2d 417. The Davis case did not, as I read it, establish a new standard for judging collateral attacks. It merely applied the constitutional standard already applicable to procedural due process questions to substantive matters not protected by the Constitution.
Under this reading of Davis, our holding that the record discloses no “fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice” is, I believe, merely another way of saying that the Due Process Clause was not violated because the proceedings, viewed as a whole, were not fundamentally unfair.
Fourth, I think it is also important to note that the voluntariness issue in a Rule 11 context is not necessarily judged by the same standard as in a constitutional context. The Constitution does require that the record affirmatively disclose the voluntary character of the defendant’s waiver of his right to trial and his admission of guilt. See Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 242-243, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274. Certainly, as a constitutional matter, the plea may not be the product of deception or coercion, and sufficient advice must be given to make sure that the defendant understands the nature of the protections he is waiving and the serious character of his admission.5 But in my opinion it is the rule and not the Constitution that requires the trial judge to give the defendant specific and accurate advice about the sentence which may be imposed after conviction. Although I recognize that a plea of guilty is more conclusive than a confession, it seems illogical to make the constitutional test of the voluntariness of an admission made in open court significantly more stringent than the test of voluntariness of a confession made in the interrogation room of a police station. Relatively minor errors in the trial judge’s advice to the defendant should not render the acceptance of his plea constitutionally impermissible, particularly if he is represented by competent counsel.
In this case I am satisfied that the trial judge’s failure to advise the petitioner that he would have to serve a special parole term of at least three years after his release from prison did not make his plea involuntary. If there had been a material difference between the punishment which the judge had the power to impose and the punishment which the judge advised the defendant he could receive, the advice might be sufficiently deceptive to make the plea involuntary. That conclusion would follow regardless of what sentence the judge might impose; for, as I previously suggested the voluntariness of the defendant’s choice is unaffected by an event occurring after his choice is made. In this case, I agree that the mandatory parole term, though a matter of importance, is a comparatively minor factor when considered in connection with the judge’s advice to the defendant that he might be imprisoned for as long as 15 years. The omission, in my judgment, did not make the advice which was actually given materially misleading; accordingly, the plea was voluntary.
On the fairness issue, I think the advice should be compared with the actual sentence rather than with a correct statement of the sentence that might properly have been imposed. As long as the actual sentence was less than the maximum as described in the judge’s advice, I would find no unfairness — and certainly not any unfairness sufficiently grave to qualify as constitutional error.

. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Montgomery v. People of the State of Illinois, 473 F.2d 1382 (7th Cir. 1973); Arias v. United States, 484 F.2d 577 (7th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 418 U.S. 905, 94 S.Ct. 3195, 41 L.Ed.2d 1153.

. See Gates v. United States, 515 F.2d 73 (7th Cir., 1975), at pages 76-78.

. The following comment at pages 79-80 of 515 F.2d in Gates refers, of course, to the Smith holding:
“Our court, and the other courts of appeals which have held that failure to inform of parole ineligibility is a violation of the Rule 11 requirement that the plea be made with knowledge of its consequences, did not reach the question of whether such failure rendered the acceptance of the plea unconstitutional.” (Footnotes omitted).
With respect to the Gates holding itself, Judge Hastings pointed out that
“. . . it is not necessary to reach the question of whether the acceptance of the guilty pleas in the instant cases was unconstitutional since we find here that petitioners are entitled to relief on the nonconstitutional ground that the convictions contain a ‘fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice.’ ”

. See also Strauss v. United States, 516 F.2d 980 (7th Cir., 1975).

. Of course, the question whether it was wise for the defendant to plead guilty is quite difierent from the question whether the plea was voluntary. See Smith, supra, 440 F.2d at 530.