Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Background
A.
Facts
Course of Proceedings
10
11
12
II.
Discussion5
13
14
15
16
17
18
1.
19
to that conviction.
Instead, says Castro, the Court
consistently emphasized that he was giving up his right to a
second trial and the right to appeal his sentence. Thus, Castro
argues, it is at least reasonable to conclude that the plea
agreement did not concern the count on which there had
already been a full trial. (Appellants Reply Br. at 5.)
Although he does not say so explicitly, Castro appears
to be seeking shelter in our precedent that a judges
affirmative statements during a plea colloquy can sometimes
overcome the otherwise plain terms of a plea agreement.7
Such judge-created ambiguity must be construed against
the government, Saferstein, 673 F.3d at 243, because, [i]f it
is reasonable to rely upon the courts words for clarification,
then we cannot expect a defendant to distinguish and
disregard those statements of the court that deviate from the
language of a particular provision in a lengthy plea
agreement, United States v. Wilken, 498 F.3d 1160, 1168
(10th Cir. 2007).
Castros argument is an elaboration on that precedent.
He argues in essence that, by talking at length about the rights
he would give up by foregoing a second trial, the District
Court left him thinking that the waiver applied only
prospectively and not as to the already fixed history of the
case. He suggests, in other words, that it is not only a district
courts affirmative statements that can change the scope of a
7
20
Miscarriage of Justice
21
22
States v. Green, 293 F.3d 886, 895 (5th Cir. 2002) (internal
quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Vasquez,
560 F.3d 461, 469 (6th Cir. 2009) (Because [defendant]
failed to move for a judgment of acquittal at either the close
of the governments case or the close of his case, we will
reverse his conviction only if the record is devoid of evidence
pointing to guilt, such that a manifest miscarriage of justice
occurred. (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States
v. Irby, 558 F.3d 651, 653 (7th Cir. 2009) ([R]eversal is
warranted only if the record is devoid of evidence pointing to
guilt, or if the evidence on a key element was so tenuous that
a conviction would be shocking. (internal quotation marks
omitted)); United States v. Spinner, 152 F.3d 950, 956 (D.C.
Cir. 1998) ([A] miscarriage [of justice] would exist only if
the record is devoid of evidence pointing to guilt, or because
the evidence on a key element of the offense was so tenuous
that a conviction would be shocking. (alteration and internal
quotation marks omitted)).
These insights from the plain error context are
applicable to the miscarriage of justice argument before us
now. Cf. Hahn, 359 F.3d at 1327 (holding that for an error to
result in a miscarriage of justice that overcomes an appellate
waiver the error [must] seriously affect[] the fairness,
integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings
(quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993)
(alterations in original)). Castro is therefore required to show
that, when viewed in the light most favorable to the
government, the record is entirely devoid of evidence that he
committed each element of a 1001 offense specifically,
that he made a false statement to government officials when
he insisted that he had not received money from Encarnacion
in repayment of his $90,000 loan so that allowing his
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
The
Procedural
and
Substantive
Reasonableness of Castros 60-Month Sentence
Under Count Nine
31
32
33
34
Conclusion
35