UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. TONY J. JACKSON
No. 20-35592
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
January 3, 2022
Before: Richard A. Paez, Milan D. Smith, Jr., and Jacqueline H. Nguyen, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Nguyen
D.C. Nos. 3:18-cv-05657-BHS, 3:14-cr-05242-RJB-2. FOR PUBLICATION
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington Benjamin H. Settle, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted October 8, 2021 Seattle, Washington
Filed January 3, 2022
SUMMARY*
The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court‘s order denying Tony Junior Jackson‘s
The panel held that Jackson‘s notice of appeal was valid and timely because his two requests for a certificate of appealability, received before the deadline set forth in
The panel held that Jackson‘s
The panel affirmed the district court‘s denial of Jackson‘s claim that the government breached the plea agreement because, in addition to the written plea agreement, in which the government promised to recommend a Sentencing Guidelines range of 120-180 months in prison, Jackson also relied on the government‘s oral promise that it would not offer his codefendant a lesser sentence. The panel held that the record was not sufficient to overcome the presumption that Jackson‘s written plea agreement and his sworn statements during the plea colloquy described the complete agreement reached between the parties. The panel further held that Jackson‘s claim was barred by a collateral attack waiver. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Jackson waived his right to collaterally attack his sentence other than to challenge the effectiveness of counsel. The panel held that, because the government did not breach the plea agreement, the waiver was valid.
Reversing in part, the panel held that the district court abused its discretion by failing to consider Jackson‘s pro se letter as a request to amend his
COUNSEL
Lila J. Silverstein (argued), Washington Appellate Project, Seattle, Washington, for Defendant-Appellant.
Teal Luthy Miller (argued) and Ye-Ting Woo, Assistant United States Attorneys; Tessa M. Gorman, Acting United States Attorney, Western District of Washington; United States Attorney‘s Office, Seattle, Washington; for Plaintiff-Appellee.
OPINION
NGUYEN, Circuit Judge:
Tony Junior Jackson appeals from the district court‘s order denying his
We have jurisdiction under
I
A
Jackson pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion in November 2015, pursuant to a written plea agreement with the government.
The plea agreement was fully integrated. It specified that the written document represented “the entire Plea Agreement between the parties,” confirmed that Jackson entered the agreement “freely and voluntarily,” and disclaimed the existence
During the
The Court: And do these agreements represent in their entirety any understanding or agreement that you have with the government?
The Defendant: Yes.
The Court: There are no side agreements or anything that is not written down here?
The Defendant: No, there isn‘t, Your Honor.
The Court: And you feel you understand the terms of these agreements?
The Defendant: I do.
The Court: And has anyone made any other or different promises or assurances to you of any kind to get you to plead guilty, other than what‘s in these plea agreements?
The Defendant: No, sir.
...
The Court: You also indicated here that entering into this plea agreement or these agreements are voluntary, no one has put any pressure on you to do it except the situation you find yourself in; is that correct?
The Defendant: Yes, sir.
The Court: And you‘ve got the whole agreement here in these two documents?
The Defendant: Yes, I do.
Jackson confirmed that he understood the appeal waiver. The court accepted Jackson‘s guilty plea and later sentenced him to 140 months in prison with five years of supervised release.
Now, in his
The government does not dispute that a conversation took place but disputes the exact substance of its response. According to Jackson, when asked whether Young would receive a lower sentence offer, the prosecutor promised “that would not happen” and said: “I promise your co-defendant is not going to get a better agreement, he‘s going to get the same agreement and the same amount of time if not more.” Jackson‘s attorney at the time, Charles Johnston, also maintains that the government “verbally promised Mr. Jackson that, that was not going to happen and that Mr. Young would not get a better offer but the same offer of time if not more.”2 The government concedes
this verbal representation was not a part of the plea agreement. The prosecutor, Bruce Miyake, states in his declaration: “The government indicated that we had extended a similar plea offer to Young and that it did not involve an offer of less than 10 years of imprisonment.” The government maintains that its statement was not a promise, and that Jackson‘s plea agreement “was not interdependent upon the government offering Young the same terms as those accepted by Jackson.”
B
The government initially offered co-defendant Young a recommendation of a Guidelines sentence of 120-156 months in prison in exchange for his guilty plea to conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking. Young accepted the plea agreement and entered a guilty plea in June 2016, a little over six months after Jackson entered his guilty plea. In January 2017, Young moved to withdraw his guilty plea on the ground that the government had failed to disclose relevant evidence in his case. Over the government‘s objection, the court granted Young‘s motion.
After further negotiations, Young pleaded guilty in August 2017 to a less serious charge of interstate transportation for the purpose of prostitution. Unlike the conspiracy to commit sex trafficking charge, which could result in a life sentence, this offense carried a maximum statutory sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment. In exchange for his plea, the government agreed to recommend a binding prison sentence of 90 months. The court accepted Young‘s guilty plea and imposed a 90-month sentence with three years of supervised release.
C
In January 2017, Jackson filed his first
In August 2018, after Young pleaded guilty a second time and received his 90-month sentence, Jackson filed the instant
On March 30, 2020, the district court denied Jackson‘s
Jackson appeals the district court‘s March 30, 2020 Order and the denial of his motion for reconsideration.
II
A
The government initially argued in its briefing that we lack jurisdiction to hear
We review jurisdictional questions de novo, United States v. Struckman, 611 F.3d 560, 571 (9th Cir. 2010), and we review a district court‘s order denying or granting an extension to file a notice of appeal for abuse of discretion, Pincay v. Andrews, 389 F.3d 853, 858 (9th Cir. 2004).
Jackson‘s notice of appeal was due on May 29, 2020. See
On June 16, 2020, the district court granted Jackson‘s motion to file out of time, denied his motion for reconsideration on the merits, and denied Jackson‘s motion to construe the COA request as a request to appeal. The court instructed Jackson to file a notice of appeal by the standard deadline. By this time, however, the notice of appeal deadline had already passed. Jackson filed another notice of appeal on June 26, 2020.
Jackson‘s two requests for a COA made clear his intention to appeal the March 30, 2020 Order—Jackson referred to the district court‘s March 30, 2020 Order in his pro se motion to construe, and asked that his motion for reconsideration of the March 30, 2020 Order be construed as a request to appeal. See Lockman Found. v. Evangelical All. Mission, 930 F.2d 764, 772 (9th Cir. 1991) (finding that even errors in the notice of appeal “should not bar appeal as long as the intent to appeal a specific judgment can be fairly inferred and the appellee is not prejudiced or misled by the mistake” (citing United States v. One 1977 Mercedes Benz, 708 F.2d 444, 451 (9th Cir. 1983))). Both were received by the district court before the May 29, 2020 deadline. We therefore find that Jackson‘s notice of appeal was valid and timely.4
The government contends that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear Jackson‘s
Under
Here, Jackson‘s
We are unpersuaded by the government‘s argument to the contrary. According to the government, any alleged breach of the plea agreement occurred in June 2016, when the government offered Young its promise to recommend a sentence of between 120–156 months in prison, which was lower than Jackson‘s recommended sentence range of 120–180 months. But the government ignores Jackson‘s claim that the government breached his agreement by offering Young a lower sentence recommendation of 90 months, not by offering Young a sentence with the same 120-month minimum. On its face, Jackson‘s claim is clearly based on events that took place after his first petition was resolved. The district court correctly determined that it had jurisdiction to hear Jackson‘s motion.
C
We next consider the merits of Jackson‘s
A federal prisoner may collaterally attack the legality of his conviction or sentence through a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under
Jackson claims that he was induced into pleading guilty by a verbal promise from the government that it would not offer Young a shorter sentence recommendation. The government concedes that a conversation occurred shortly before Jackson‘s plea hearing, but disputes that it made a binding promise about Young‘s sentence or that it induced Jackson‘s plea.
We review de novo whether the government breached a plea agreement, United States v. Clark, 218 F.3d 1092, 1095 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing United States v. Fisch, 863 F.2d 690, 690 (9th Cir. 1988)), and review the district court‘s interpretation and construction of a plea agreement for clear error, id. (citing United States v. Ajugwo, 82 F.3d 925, 928 (9th Cir. 1996)).
“[W]hen a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise must be fulfilled.” Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257, 262 (1971). It is not enough for a defendant to claim that a promise was made, however; he must also show that his guilty plea rested in a significant degree on that promise. See id.
Our task is to determine what the defendant reasonably believed to be the terms of the plea agreement at the time of his plea. United States v. Franco-Lopez, 312 F.3d 984, 989 (9th Cir. 2002). To do so, we generally limit our review to the terms of the written plea agreement and the statements made under oath during the plea colloquy. See Brown v. Poole, 337 F.3d 1155, 1160 (9th Cir. 2003). “Because a plea agreement is, at bottom, a contract between the government and a criminal defendant, for the most part ‘we construe [a] plea agreement using the ordinary rules of contract interpretation.‘” United States v. Transfiguracion, 442 F.3d 1222, 1228 (9th Cir. 2006) (alteration in original) (citing Poole, 337 F.3d at 1159).
Because the sworn statements during the plea colloquy “speak[] in terms of what the parties in fact agree to,” United States v. Benchimol, 471 U.S. 453, 455 (1985), they “carry a strong presumption of truth,” Muth v. Fondren, 676 F.3d 815, 821 (9th Cir. 2012). See also Blackledge v. Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 73-74 (1977) (“[T]he representations of the defendant, his lawyer, and the prosecutor at such a [plea] hearing, as well as any findings made by the judge accepting the plea, constitute a formidable barrier in any subsequent collateral proceedings.“).
At the same time, we are mindful of the unique constitutional concerns involved in plea agreements: “The analogy to contract law is, in certain circumstances imperfect, and we do not always follow it.” Transfiguracion, 442 F.3d at 1228 (citing United States v. Barron, 172 F.3d 1153, 1158 (9th Cir. 1999) (en banc)); see also United States v. Garcia, 956 F.2d 41, 43–44 (4th Cir. 1992) (enforcing the government‘s verbal promise not to make a defendant cooperate and declining to strictly apply the parol evidence rule where the government conceded it made the promise and wrote the promise in the cover letter of the plea agreement, but omitted it from the written agreement itself). “The interests at stake and the judicial context in which [plea agreements] are weighed require that something more than contract law be applied.” Transfiguracion, 442 F.3d at 1229 (internal citation and quotations omitted).
The record here, however, is not sufficient to overcome the presumption that Jackson‘s written plea agreement and his sworn statements during the plea colloquy describe the complete agreement reached between the parties. Jackson‘s
Jackson‘s statements to the court during the plea colloquy were also clear and unambiguous. He explicitly confirmed that the written agreement was complete and that the government made no other promises. When asked whether there were “side agreements or anything that is not written down” in the plea agreement, Jackson responded: “No, there isn‘t, Your Honor.” And when asked if “anyone made any other or different promises or assurances” to him “of any kind to get [him] to plead guilty, other than what‘s in the[] plea agreement[],” Jackson told the court that the government did not make him any promises. He confirmed more than once that the written agreement was full and complete, and agreed that it represented “in [its] entirety any understanding or agreement that [he had] with the government.”
The timing of the conversation between the parties is also instructive. Immediately after Jackson‘s counsel spoke with the government about Young, Jackson told the court that the government made him no promises other than what was written in the plea agreement. Now, however, Jackson asks us to ignore his sworn statements, disregard his written plea agreement, and convert the government‘s informal verbal statement about what it intended to do with Young‘s case into a binding promise. We cannot do so here.
This case is analogous to United States v. Ajugwo, 82 F.3d 925 (9th Cir. 1996). In Ajugwo, 82 F.3d at 927-28, the petitioner argued that during plea negotiations, the government verbally agreed to waive its right to challenge the applicability of a sentencing “safety valve” provision. The alleged verbal promise was explicitly contradicted by the written terms of the final plea agreement, however, which reserved the government‘s right to argue the sentencing provision did not apply. Id. The government denied verbally promising otherwise. Id. The plea agreement was fully integrated, stating there were “no additional promises, understandings or agreements” between the government and the petitioner, and that none could be added “unless in writing and signed by all parties.” Id. at 929. Because the plea agreement was unambiguous and fully integrated, we declined to admit the petitioner‘s extrinsic (or “parol“) evidence to add the alleged verbal promise, and rejected the claim that the agreement was breached. Id. at 928–29.
Like in Ajugwo, Jackson‘s plea agreement is unambiguous, fully integrated, and expressly disclaims the existence of other promises. The government denies making the promise and disputes Jackson‘s claims. The use of extrinsic evidence to modify Jackson‘s plea agreement is similarly inappropriate. See United States v. Pacheco-Osuna, 23 F.3d 269, 271 (9th Cir. 1994) (“[W]e have previously eschewed the invitation to consider parol evidence for the purpose of adding terms to or changing the terms of an integrated plea agreement.“).5
In Jackson‘s case, of course, the government does not concede that its statement to Jackson‘s counsel was a promise, and the record before us does not demonstrate that Jackson entered the plea based on a misrepresentation by his attorney. Jackson raises several arguments about the effectiveness of his counsel, which will be explored on remand when the district court considers his ineffective assistance of counsel claim, as discussed below. For instance, Jackson claims he was following his attorney‘s instructions when he disclaimed the verbal promise at the colloquy and was assured by his attorney that “he would handle it.” Jackson also contends that his attorney‘s failure to commit the verbal promise into writing constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. These issues should be addressed in the first instance by the district court and thus are not before us here.
This case also does not rise to the level of Santobello v. New York, where the government admitted it promised not to make a sentencing recommendation and its promise induced the petitioner‘s plea. 404 U.S. at 262. When the government broke its promise, it argued that its breach was unintentional and immaterial. Id. at 259, 262. The Supreme Court disagreed and held that the government needed to fulfill the promise it made that induced the petitioner to plead guilty. Id. at 262–63.
On this record, Jackson‘s claim for breach fails.
2
The government also argues that Jackson‘s breach of plea agreement claim is barred by the collateral attack waiver. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Jackson waived his right to collaterally
Instead, Jackson argues that the waiver is invalid because the government breached the plea agreement. See United States v. Hernandez-Castro, 814 F.3d 1044, 1045 (9th Cir. 2016) (“A defendant is released from his or her appeal waiver if the government breaches the plea agreement.” (citing United States v. Gonzalez, 16 F.3d 985, 989–90 (9th Cir. 1993))). Because we find that the government did not breach Jackson‘s plea agreement, however, we agree with the district court that Jackson waived his right to collaterally attack his sentence on this basis. Therefore, the waiver is enforceable.
D
We remand for the district court to consider the merits of Jackson‘s ineffective assistance of counsel claim in the first instance. Jackson filed a letter on March 6, 2020 asking to add an ineffective assistance of counsel claim to his
Additional claims may relate back to timely filed
The district court abused its discretion by failing to consider Jackson‘s pro se letter as a request to amend his
AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED AND REMANDED IN PART.