United States v. Chaidez-Guerrero

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT December 14, 2016
_________________________________
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 16-6233
(D.C. No. 5:15-CR-00159-HE-1)
JUAN CARLOS CHAIDEZ-GUERRERO, (W.D. Okla.)
a/k/a David Ochoa, a/k/a Tormenta, a/k/a
Carlos Rios Chavez, a/k/a Juan Carlos
Chaidez-Guerro,
Defendant - Appellant.
_________________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
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Before MATHESON, PHILLIPS, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
Juan Carlos Chaidez-Guerrero pleaded guilty to one count of possession with
intent to distribute five grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§ 841(a)(1). He was sentenced to 110 months of imprisonment, below the assessed
Sentencing Guidelines range of 121 to 151 months. Although his plea agreement
contained an appeal waiver, he appealed. The United States has moved to enforce the
appeal waiver under United States v. Hahn, 359 F.3d 1315, 1328 (10th Cir. 2004)
*
This panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not
materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2);
10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law
of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its
persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
(en banc) (per curiam). Through counsel, Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero has responded. We
grant the motion to enforce.
Under Hahn, we consider “(1) whether the disputed appeal falls within the
scope of the waiver of appellate rights; (2) whether the defendant knowingly and
voluntarily waived his appellate rights; and (3) whether enforcing the waiver would
result in a miscarriage of justice.” Id. at 1325. A miscarriage of justice occurs
“[1] where the district court relied on an impermissible factor such as race, [2] where
ineffective assistance of counsel in connection with the negotiation of the waiver
renders the waiver invalid, [3] where the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum, or
[4] where the waiver is otherwise unlawful.” Id. at 1327 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero contends that the appeal is outside the scope of the
waiver and that enforcing the waiver would result in a miscarriage of justice because
it is unlawful. He also invokes the doctrine of frustration of purpose.
Scope of the Waiver. Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero first asserts that the appeal is
outside the scope of the waiver. In relevant part, the waiver provides that
defendant waives his right to appeal his sentence as imposed by the Court,
including any restitution, and the manner in which the sentence is
determined. If the sentence is above the advisory guideline range
determined by the Court to apply to his case, this waiver does not include
the defendant’s right to appeal specifically the substantive reasonableness
of his sentence.
Mot. to Enforce, Attach. 1 at 6-7. Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero relies on the exception for
an above-Guidelines sentence. He asserts that the district court erred in setting the
Guidelines range because, based on double hearsay statements, it found a higher
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quantity of drugs than the parties stipulated in the plea agreement. Thus, he argues,
his sentence is above the correct Guidelines range, taking it outside the scope of the
waiver.
This argument is meritless. The plain language of the plea agreement covers
“the manner in which the sentence is determined” so long as the sentence is not
greater than “the advisory guideline range determined by the Court to apply to his
case.” Id. (emphasis added). Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero was sentenced below the
Guidelines range determined by the court. The appeal is within the scope of the
waiver; to hold otherwise would render the waiver meaningless.
Miscarriage of Justice. Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero next asserts that the waiver is
unlawful. He argues as follows:
The quantity stipulation in the plea agreement is tied to the Guideline range
and the appellate waiver. With respect to the appellate waivers within the
plea agreement, the Guidelines are not advisory because the exceptions to
the defendant’s waiver of his constitutional right to appeal is inextricably
linked to the court’s determination of the Guideline range[;] the
determination of the Guideline range must pass fundamental standards of
due process. The government cannot bypass Mr. Chaidez’s constitutional
rights to due process and confrontation via the plea agreement contract.
Resp. at 5.
This argument focuses on the result of the proceeding, not the right
Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero waived. See United States v. Smith, 500 F.3d 1206, 1213
(10th Cir. 2007). But the exception for an unlawful waiver “looks to whether the
waiver is otherwise unlawful, not to whether another aspect of the proceeding may
have involved legal error.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “To
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allow alleged errors in computing a defendant’s sentence to render a waiver unlawful
would nullify the waiver based on the very sort of claim it was intended to waive.”
Id.To the extent that the argument perceives the parties’ stipulation as to drug
quantity as an integral, immutable part of the plea agreement, it is mistaken. As
discussed below in connection with frustration of purpose, Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero was
well aware that the district court was not bound to accept the parties’ stipulation as to
drug quantity. Further, to the extent that the argument asserts that a waiver cannot
encompass constitutional rights, it again is mistaken. “It has long been established
that a criminal defendant may waive many fundamental procedural and substantive
rights, both constitutional and statutory.” United States v. Mitchell, 633 F.3d 997,
1001 (10th Cir. 2011). The very purpose of a plea agreement is to secure a waiver
of the defendant’s rights. See United States v. Cudjoe, 534 F.3d 1349, 1357
(10th Cir. 2008) (“A defendant waives numerous constitutional rights when he enters
into a plea agreement with the government.”). Also, if Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero is
implying that the waiver is unlawful because it applied in a way he did not anticipate,
this court has held that appeal waivers are enforceable even though a defendant did
not know exactly how the waiver might apply. See Hahn, 359 F.3d at 1326 (rejecting
the argument that “a defendant can never knowingly and voluntarily waive his
appellate rights because he cannot possibly know in advance what errors a district
court might make in the process of arriving at an appropriate sentence”).
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Frustration of Purpose. Finally, Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero invokes the doctrine
of frustration of purpose. Under this doctrine, the court may discharge performance
of a contract when “a reasonably unforeseeable event intervenes, destroying the basis
of the contract and creating a situation where performance by one party will no
longer give the receiving party what induced him to enter into the contract in the first
place.” United States v. Bunner, 134 F.3d 1000, 1004 (10th Cir. 1998). We have
established the following three elements for frustration of purpose: (1) “the
frustrated purpose must have been so completely the basis of the contract that, as
both parties understand, without it the transaction would make little sense”; (2) “the
intervening event cannot fairly be regarded as within the risks the frustrated party
assumed under the contract”; and (3) “the non-occurrence of the frustrating event
must have been a basic assumption on which the contract was made.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted).
Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero has failed to satisfy these conditions. The record
contradicts any inference that the district court’s decision not to honor the parties’
stipulation as to drug quantity was outside the risks of the plea agreement or that its
non-occurrence was a basic assumption upon which the plea agreement was made. In
the same plea-agreement section in which the parties stipulated the drug quantity they
anticipated the government could prove, Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero “acknowledge[d] and
underst[ood] that the Court [was] not bound by, nor obligated to accept, these
stipulations, agreements, or recommendations of the United States or defendant.”
Mot. to Enforce, Attach. 1 at 5. And during the plea colloquy, the district court
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specifically informed Mr. Chaidez-Guerrero (and he agreed) that the court would not
be bound by the parties’ stipulation and would sentence him based on the facts as it
found them. See id., Attach. 2 at 13. In these circumstances, it would not be
appropriate to apply the doctrine of frustration of purpose.
For these reasons, the government’s motion to enforce the plea agreement is
granted and this matter is dismissed.
Entered for the Court
Per Curiam
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