United States v. Spinner

Opinions of the United
2004 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
6-16-2004
USA v. Spinner
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 03-4537
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Recommended Citation
"USA v. Spinner" (2004). 2004 Decisions. Paper 593.
http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2004/593
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
____________
No. 03-4537
____________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
WILLIAM SPINNER,
Appellant.
________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(No. 03-CR-00094-1)
District Judge: Sylvia H. Rambo
___________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
May 28, 2004
BEFORE: RENDELL and COW EN, Circuit Judges, and
SCHWARZER,* District Judge
(Opinion Filed: June 16, 2004)
__________________________
OPINION OF THE COURT
__________________________
*
1 The Honorable William W Schwarzer, Senior United States District Judge for the
2 Northern District of California, sitting by designation.
SCHW ARZER, Senior District Judge:
William Spinner appeals his judgment of conviction for violation of
18 U.S.C. §1001. Spinner contends that his guilty plea was defective because the District
Court did not inform him of his right to plead not guilty. The District Court had
jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231 and we have jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C.
§ 3742(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Finding no plain error, we will affirm.
DISCUSSION
During the plea colloquy, the court advised Spinner:
You are . . . entitled to a jury trial in this matter . . . .
At a trial, the government would have the
responsibility of proving each and every element of the crime
charged against you beyond a reasonable doubt. You are
presumed innocent until that burden is met . . . .
Any finding of guilt by a jury would have to be unanimous . . . .
If you give up your right to a jury trial, you give up
your right to present any defenses that you may have or the
right to appeal any pretrial motions.
The court then asked him, “Is it your desire to give up your right to a jury trial and enter a
plea of guilty to the information?” Spinner responded in the affirmative. The court did
not advise Spinner that he had a right to plead not guilty.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(b)(1)(B) instructs District Courts
conducting a plea colloquy to “inform the defendant of, and determine that the defendant
understands . . . the right to plead not guilty.” Spinner contends that the District Court’s
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plea colloquy was defective because the court failed to explicitly advise him that he had a
right to plead not guilty.
Because Spinner did not preserve an objection in the trial court, our review
is for plain error. “A defendant who fails to object to a Rule 11 error before the District
Court, as [Spinner] failed to do, must satisfy the plain error standard of review on
appeal.” United States v. Dixon, 308 F.3d 229, 233 (3d Cir. 2002) (citing United States v.
Vonn, 535 U.S. 55, 59 (2002)). “The burden is upon the defendant to satisfy a four-part
test in order to obtain plain error reversal of a criminal conviction. The defendant must
show that: (1) an error was committed; (2) the error was plain, that is, clear and obvious;
and (3) the error affected the defendant’s substantial rights.” Id. at 234 (internal
quotation marks omitted). “In cases where the first three elements are satisfied, an
appellate court may exercise its discretion to order such a correction only if the error[]
seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id.
(internal quotation marks omitted).
We find no plain error here. The foregoing colloquy sufficiently informed
Spinner of his right to plead not guilty. A panel of this court recently reached the same
conclusion on substantially similar facts in United States v. Taylor, No. 03-3993, 2004
U.S. App. LEXIS 6933 (3d Cir. April 9, 2004) (unpublished). 2 In Taylor the court
2
Although Taylor, as an unpublished opinion, is not binding authority, we may
look to it as “a paradigm of the legal analysis we should here follow.” Drinker v.
Colonial Sch. Dist., 78 F.3d 859, 864 n.12 (3d Cir. 1996).
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rejected on plain error review Taylor’s contention that his “guilty plea should be reversed
because the district court did not explicitly inform [him] in ipsissimis verbis of his right to
plead not guilty during the plea colloquy . . . , although it fully informed him of his right
to a jury trial.” Id. at *1-2; see also United States v. Saft, 558 F.2d 1073, 1080 (2d Cir.
1977) (finding no error where the trial court did not explicitly inform the defendant of his
right to plead not guilty, but informed him that if he did plead not guilty he would have a
right to a public jury trial).
We agree with the Taylor court’s reasoning. While the District Court did
not utter the magic words “You have the right to plead not guilty,” it did inform Spinner
of his right to a jury trial where the government would be forced to prove his guilt. This
information was sufficient to inform Spinner of his right to plead not guilty and go to
trial, particularly in the circumstances of this case, where the record indicates that Spinner
was well aware of his rights, having pled guilty before the same district judge on two
prior occasions and having challenged both pleas in this Court. We are satisfied that the
alleged error did not “materially hamper[] [Spinner’s] ability to assess the risks and
benefits of pleading guilty.” Dixon, 308 F.3d at 235 (quoting United States v. Powell,
269 F.3d 175, 185 (3d Cir. 2001)).
Moreover, there was no plain error because Spinner suffered no prejudice.
In deciding whether error in a plea colloquy constitutes plain error, we have “interpreted
the . . . requisite showing of impact upon substantial rights to require a demonstration of
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prejudice by the defendant.” Dixon, 308 F.3d at 234. “In other words, [Spinner] must
show that he would have pled not guilty if he was correctly [informed of his right to do
so], and not merely that there may or may not have been a prejudicial impact and that he
might have not pled guilty.” Id.; see also United States v. Knobloch, 131 F.3d 366, 370
(3d Cir. 1997) (finding no prejudice where the District Court erred in describing the
elements of the charged crime at the plea colloquy because there was no “claim by
Knobloch that he would have entered a different plea had the district court correctly
described the necessary elements of the offense”). Spinner does not assert that he would
have pled differently had he been informed of his right to do so in explicit language.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we will AFFIRM the judgment of the District
Court.
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