United States v. Quattlebaum

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 03-4305
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
RANDY LINDIAL QUATTLEBAUM,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Cameron McGowan Currie, District
Judge. (CR-02-548)
Submitted: July 19, 2006 Decided: July 31, 2006
Before WILKINSON and KING, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Russell W. Templeton, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant.
Reginald I. Lloyd, United States Attorney, Jane B. Taylor,
Assistant United States Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
Randy Lindial Quattlebaum pled guilty to conspiracy to
possess with intent to distribute at least 500 grams, but no more
than 3.5 kilograms, of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846(2000). He was sentenced to 168 months in prison. Quattlebaum
appeals, contending that the Government breached the plea agreement
by threatening at sentencing to recommend that he not receive a
downward adjustment based on acceptance of responsibility if he
pressed his objections to the presentence report. He also
complains about the method of calculating his base offense level,
which was based on the weight of crack cocaine rather than powder
cocaine. There was overwhelming evidence before the court that
Quattlebaum converted powder cocaine to crack. Finding no evidence
of a breach, we affirm.
A plea agreement is breached when a government promise
that induced the plea goes unfulfilled. Santobello v. New York,
404 U.S. 257, 262 (1971); United States v. Ringling, 988 F.2d 504,
506 (4th Cir. 1993). The Government is bound only to promises
actually made to the defendant, United States v. Peglera, 33 F.3d
412, 413 (4th Cir. 1994), and the burden lies with the party
asserting the breach to establish the breach by a preponderance of
the evidence. United States v. Snow, 234 F.3d 187, 189 (4th Cir.
2000); United States v. Dixon, 998 F.2d 228, 230 (4th Cir. 1993).
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“We construe plea agreements in accordance with
principles of contract law so that each party receives the benefit
of the bargain.” United States v. Holbrook, 368 F.3d 415, 420 (4th
Cir. 2004), vacated on other grounds, 125 S. Ct. 2934 (U.S.
June 20, 2005) (No. 04-8323). However, because a plea agreement
implicates a defendant’s fundamental and constitutional rights, we
analyze the agreement with more scrutiny than we would a commercial
contract. Id.In his plea agreement, Quattlebaum agreed to plead guilty
to a conspiracy involving at least 500 grams, but less than 3.5
kilograms, of cocaine. The agreement recited that: sentencing lay
within the court’s sole discretion; the sentence would be imposed
in accordance with the federal sentencing guidelines; and that any
estimate of the sentence that Quattlebaum might have received from
his attorneys, the Government, or the probation office was not
binding. The last part of the agreement stated that the “Plea
Agreement contains the entire agreement of the parties,” could “be
modified only in writing signed by all parties; and that any and
all other promises, representations and statements, whether made
prior to, contemporaneous with, or after this Agreement, are null
and void.”
Notably, the agreement contained no stipulations
regarding the base offense level that would be assigned to
Quattlebaum, the manner in which that level would be calculated, or
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any adjustments for acceptance of responsibility. Nor did the
Government make any representations during the plea colloquy or at
sentencing that would have resulted in a modification of the terms
of the agreement. We conclude that Quattlebaum has not met his
burden of establishing a breach of the plea agreement, and we
affirm.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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