Lead Opinion
Adebisi T. Adigun was charged with three drug offenses after officers seized crack and cocaine powder from him on two separate occasions. On the day of his scheduled trial, Adigun pled guilty in open court and was later sentenced to 151 months’ imprisonment. On appeal, Adigun argues that the district court erred by failing to suppress contraband seized from his car and by incorrectly calculating a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence. We find that Adigun waived any objection to the suppression ruling by entеring an unconditional guilty plea before the district court. And though the minimum sentence
I. BACKGROUND
Two arrests, separated by less than a month, led to Adigun’s indictment in the current case. On March 16, 2010, Adigun was seated in the driver’s seat of a van that was parked, with its engine running, in a church parking lot. A Jeep Grand Cherokee, driven by Amy Oakley, pulled into the parking lot next to the van. Officer Michael Haynes said he saw the Jeep run a stop sign and proceeded to investigate. Haynes first questioned Oakley and then walked over to the van. He asked Adigun whether an open can on the car’s console contained beer. When Adigun said yes, Haynes told him to empty the contents onto the ground. While he was reaching for the beer can, Adigun dropped a plastic bag in his other hand outside the passenger window. When Haynes asked Adigun what he had thrown on the ground, he responded, “Well, that’s my girlfriend’s. She likes to smoke crack.” Haynes placed Adigun under arrest.
The next month, on April 7, 2010, Adi-gun was stopped for driving a vehicle with expired license plates. He had paid a friend to use the car and was driving with his girlfriend, Jessica Marczewski, to Chicago from his home in Herrin, Illinois. Officer Todd Zeigler approached the car to advise the occupants of the expired plate. Zeigler said he saw beer bottles missing from a six-pack and suspected Adigun and Marczewski might be drunk. He asked Adigun to accompany him to his patrol car for a driver’s license check. Officer Zeig-ler claimed that in the patrol car, Adigun insisted that he was sober and gave him permission to search for any open alcohol containers in the car. Adigun disputes that he ever gave consent for any search. A microphone system routinely used to record traffic stops was not activated or failed to function prоperly so there was no recording of the alleged consent. When Zeigler searched the car, he saw cocaine powder residue in a plastic bag. A further search revealed crack cocaine lodged beneath a booster seat and Adigun was arrested.
On August 3, 2010, Adigun was charged in a three-count indictment with conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute crack and powder cocaine, aided and abetted by Marczewski. Marc-zewski entered into a cooperating plea agreement with the government. Adigun moved to suppress evidence seized in the March 16 and April 7 arrests. As to the March 16 seizure, the district court denied the motion. With respect to the April 7 seizure, the district court initially granted the motion after hearing testimony from Officer Zeigler and Adigun. The court reasoned that without evidence beyond Zeigler’s contested account, the government could not meet its burden of proof that Adigun consented to the search over thе defendant’s testimony that he had not.
A week before the October 19, 2010 trial was set to begin, Adigun filed a supplemental motion to suppress Marczewski’s testimony as fruit of the April 7 seizure. In responding to the supplemental motion, the government asked the court to reconsider its prior suppression ruling under a new theory: that Adigun had no standing to challenge the search because he was driving a borrowed car beyond the scope of permission and had not established a reasonable еxpectation of privacy. On October 15, the district court agreed and vacated its suppression ruling on the April 7 seizure, permitting all of the evidence to come in against Adigun. The district judge also found that Adigun lacked credi
The morning of trial, Adigun asked for a continuance and a new lawyer. He said that after the court reversed its ruling on the April 7 seizure, disagreements had arisen with his counsel about how to proceеd. Adigun believed his counsel was not prepared for trial given the recent setback. He said: “I just don’t think that my counsel is ready at this time, and ... his perspective on appeal to the output of the trial, I don’t think, is in my best interest.”
Adigun’s attorney advised the court that he was prepared to try the case whether or not evidence from the April 7 seizure was suppressed. But he noted that he had already recommended that Adigun plead guilty both before and after the district court vacated the suppression ruling. When the April 7 seizure had been suppressed, the government had been willing to recommend a sentence of 24 to 30 months. Although he left the final decision up to his client and would vigorously try the case, Adigun’s counsel said he had strongly recommended accepting the initial offer.
The judge denied the continuance and the request for new counsel, advising Adi-gun that his attorney had a reputation for excellent work. He told the defendant, “the jury is here, and I’m going to give you plenty of time, a little morе time, but I’m not going to inconvenience those jurors .... So make up your mind one way or the other. The court has no interest in how you decide it, but you’re going to have to make a decision. I’ve got my stopwatch on.” After speaking with his sister during a 15-minute recess, Adigun agreed to plead guilty.
The district court described the charges in the indictment, verified Adigun’s competence and education level, advised Adigun of his right to proceed to trial and the rights he would be waiving by pleading guilty. The judge stated, “I’m also told by my clеrk that this is an open plea.” Adi-gun’s counsel replied, “It is an open plea. The government has agreed to a few concessions.” One such concession was that “the Fair Sentencing Act will apply with respect to the Guidelines in this matter, the 18-to-l ratio. Obviously, it doesn’t affect any mandatory mínimums.” After the court described the factual basis for the charges in the indictment, Adigun admitted that the facts as described were true and entered a guilty plea.
At sentencing, the district court sustained several of Adigun’s objections to the PSR and adopted his calculation of drug quantity over that offered by the probation officer. An 18-to-l crack-powder ratio under the FSA yielded a Guideline range of 151 to 188 months’ imprisonment. The court then set a mandatory minimum sentence of 120 months. Adigun sought a below-Guideline sentence at the 120-month minimum while the government requested a within-Guideline sentence of 151 months. The district court weighed sentencing factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and rejected a downward variance because the crime was serious and Adigun was “dishonest,” “manipulative,” and “very dangerous.” For these reasons, the court determined, “I think this is a Guideline sentence” and adopted the government’s recommendation of 151 months’ imprisonment. Adigun brought this appeal.
II. ANALYSIS
A. Adigun’s Unconditional Guilty Plea
Adigun asks this court to review the suppression rulings made by the district court before his guilty plea. But there is an immediate and obvious barrier to his appeal. An unconditional guilty plea precludes challenge to the denial of a mo
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure permit a defendant to enter a conditional plea of guilty under specific circumstances: The district court and the government must both consent and the defendant must “reserv[e] in writing the right to have an appellate court review an adverse determination of a specified pretrial motion.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2). Here, Adigun pled guilty in open court and there is no written plea agreement identifying the pretrial rulings preserved for appеal.
In United States v. Yasak, we permitted a conditional plea without a written agreement on the basis of representations in the plea transcript.
Adigun further argues that, however the plea is characterized, we can infer from the record that he only pled guilty because he believed he was preserving a right to appeal the suppression rulings. Adigun cites United States v. Carrasco,
The facts in this case are plainly distinct. There is no evidence whatsoever that the government ever offered Adigun a conditional plea agreement. To the contrary, the record suggests that Adigun was consciously waiving his rights, quite unlike Carrasco. Adigun appears to have disagreed with his counsel over the importance of preserving a right to appeal the suppression rulings. He told the district court that his counsel’s “perspective on appeal to the output of the trial, I don’t think, is in my best interest.” But, he later pled guilty despite this disagreement, after both the district court and his counsel advised him he could freely proceed to trial.
We have previously held that the trial court is not obligated to inform defendants of the consequences of an unconditional plea on a potential appeal. United States v. Fisher,
B. Right to Challenge Adverse Suppression Rulings Was Waived
Because Adigun’s plea was unconditional, the government asserts that this court has no subject-matter jurisdiction to review the district court’s suppression rulings. This was our conclusion in United States v. Combs,
Robinson is something of an outlier within this circuit. Beyond Combs, other cases have rejected appellate jurisdiction
Though waiver and forfeiture are related, the terms have sometimes been used interchangeably, which can lead to confusion. The difference is that “forfeiture is the failure to make the timely аssertion of a right, [whereas] waiver is the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.” United States v. Olano,
Though the terms can be confused, the procedural effects of forfeiture and waiver are very different. In cases of forfeiture, Rule 52(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure permits “plain error” to be “considered even though it was not brought to the court’s attention.” But Rule 52(b) does not apply to waivers because a waiving party has already made a conscious choice not to invoke the right, thereby removing the issue from controversy. See Olano,
We note that Robinson cited Rule 52(b) when concluding that plain error review applies “[e]ven when a defendant pleads guilty unconditionally or fails to object at sentencing....”
The critical difference in Robinson’s analysis is that the court exercised jurisdiction under those circumstances, whereas Combs declined to do so. Combs concluded that even when the government fails to assert the waiver effect of a defendant’s unconditional plea, the appellate court has an independent obligation to reject the appeal because it no longer has subject-matter jurisdiction.
As noted above, other circuits have disagreed with us on this question. They treat an unconditional plea as a procedural waiver, which can in turn be wаived or forfeited by the government, and interpret Tol-lett as addressing the preclusive effect of a guilty plea rather than subject-matter jurisdiction. See De Vaughn,
C. The Error in Adigun’s Mandatory Minimum Sentence Was Harmless
Adigun objects to the district court setting a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence based on the quantity of crack cocaine he possessed and distributed. The district court arrived at the minimum sentencе by applying then-controlling precedent from United States v. Fisher,
The government asserts, however, that any error as to the minimum sentence is harmless given the reasons the district court gave for the sentence. We agree. An error is harmless if it “did not affect the district court’s selection of the sentence imposed.” Williams v. United States,
We are not saying that an error setting a mandatory minimum will automatically be harmless if a district court imposes a sentence above that minimum. But on this record, we conclude that the error had no effect on the sentence the district court selected.
III. CONCLUSION
Because we find that the error in Adi-gun’s minimum sentence was harmless and that we cannot review his other claims, we Affirm the district court’s sentence and Dismiss the remainder of this appeal.
Notes
. Adigun has not directly challenged his counsel's effectiveness in advising him to enter an unconditional guilty plea. But we note that it would likely be difficult to establish attorney incompetence on this record. "A conditional plea is not just the defendant’s choice.” United States v. Alvarez-Quiroga,
. But see United States v. Dvorak,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring.
I concur with the result оf the case and the court’s reasoning in II.A and II.C. However, I differ somewhat from the court’s analysis of United States v. Robinson,
In Combs, the defendant pleaded guilty, but later objected to the submission of evidence with a motion to suppress.
Therefore, Combs stated our rule on the extent of the waiver that results from an unconditional guilty plea: If a defendant enters an unconditional guilty plea, the defendant waives — and we therefore lack jurisdiction over — сlaims that: (1) occurred pre-plea; (2) do not challenge the validity of the plea; and (3) do not challenge the jurisdiction of the courts (which parties are not allowed to waive regardless of a plea). See id.; see also Tollett v. Henderson,
Although the defendant’s guilty plea in Robinson had not waived the issues on appeal, the defendant had not raised many of these issues before the district court. Id. at 273. We determined that we could review these issues for plain error under Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b). Id.
In this case, Adebisi T. Adigun’s challenges clearly fall under Combs, and not Robinson. Adigun’s claim challenged the evidence supporting his guilt. This issue occurred pre-plea, and does not attack the validity of the plea or the jurisdiction of the federal court. We therefore lack jurisdiction over this claim because Adigun’s unconditional guilty plea waived it.
