MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER REGARDING DEFENDANT’S MOTION IN LIMINE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION........................................................1015
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS.......................................................1017
A. Protections And Waivability Of Rules 11(e)(6) And 410..................1017
B. Did Young Waive The Rules’ Protections?..............................1018
1. Counsel’s conflict of interest.......................................1018
2. Coercion.........................................................1019
3. Ignorance of rights ...............................................1019
a. Burch and Krilich ............................................1019
b. Eighth Circuit guidance.......................................1022
c. Was any waiver “knowing”?...................................1023
III. CONCLUSION...........................................................1025
As the Supreme Court recently observed, “A criminal defendant may knowingly and voluntarily waive many of the most fundamental protections afforded by the Constitution.”
United States v. Mezzanatto,
I. INTRODUCTION
On July 16, 1998, the United States filed an indictment charging defendant Leland Duane Young, along with others, with drug-trafficking and other offenses. Specifically, in Count I of the indictment, the United States charged Mr. Young with the crime of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine or to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. In Counts IV and V of the same indictment, the United States charged this defendant with separate crimes of using a “communication facility” — in this case, a telephone — in causing or facilitating the commission of the crime of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine or to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute it, in violation of *1016 21 U.S.C. § 843(b). Trial on these charges was set for September 28, 1999, then reset for October 6,1998.
Plea negotiations ensued. On the eve of trial, on October 5,1998, Young accepted a plea agreement under which he agreed to plead guilty to Count I of the indictment. That agreement also provided, inter alia, as follows:
If the defendant does breach this agreement, he faces the following consequences: (1) all testimony and other information he has provided at any time to attorneys, employees or law enforcement officers of the government, to the court, or to the federal grand jury, may and will be used against him in any prosecution or proceeding; (2) the United States will be entitled to reinstate previously dismissed charges and/or pursue additional charges against the defendant and to use any information obtained directly or indirectly from the defendant in those additional prosecutions; and (3) the United States will be released from any obligations, agreements or restrictions imposed upon it under this plea agreement.
Government’s Exhibit 1, Hearing on Motion In Limine, October 25, 1999, Plea Agreement of October 5, 1999 (the “Plea Agreement”), ¶ 11. Pursuant to the Plea Agreement, Young also executed an affidavit that included information concerning his own and other persons’ criminal activities. Government’s Exhibit 2, Hearing on Motion In Limine, October 25, 1999, Affidavit of October 5, 1998 (the “Affidavit”). The government required the Affidavit, in part, to ensure that Young would not back out of the Plea Agreement after obtaining a continuance of the trial and getting a copy of the presentence investigation report.
Performance of the Plea Agreement subsequently fell apart. Therefore, on June 16, 1999, this matter was set for trial on September 27, 1999, on all three charges against Mr. Young. The trial date was later moved to November 1, 1999, then, on October 19, 1999, the trial was rescheduled to begin on October 26, 1999. On June 17, 1999, the day after the first order resetting trial was entered, the government notified defense counsel of its intent to introduce Young’s Affidavit at trial. On October 19, 1999, pursuant to a Stipulated Discovery Order, the government again provided notice of its intent to use the Affidavit at trial.
On October 22, 1999, Young filed a motion in limine seeking to exclude the Affidavit on the ground that it was signed during plea negotiations, and therefore was inadmissible pursuant to Rule 11(e)(6) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and Rule 410 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. On October 21, 1999, having received a copy of Young’s motion in advance of its formal filing, the government resisted the motion in limine. The government asserted that paragraph 11 of the Plea Agreement specifically authorized the government’s use of the Affidavit at trial. The government argued further that the Plea Agreement constituted a valid waiver of Young’s rights under Rules 11(e)(6) and 410 not to have the Affidavit admitted at trial. Specifically, the government argued that Young’s decision to sign the Plea Agreement, and his execution of the accompanying Affidavit, were done “with full knowledge of the consequences should he later change his mind.” Memorandum In Support Of Government’s Resistance To Defendant’s Motion In Limine (Government’s Resistance Brief), p. 4. The government also notified the court, pursuant to a letter dated October 22, 1999, of its intention to seek an interlocutory appeal of this court’s ruling on the motion in limine, should the court exclude the Affidavit.
The court held a hearing on Young’s motion in limine to exclude the Affidavit on October 25, 1999. At the hearing, the United States was represented by Assistant United States Attorney Stephanie M. Rose of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Defendant Leland Duane Young was represented by Alfredo Parrish of Parrish, Krudenier, Moss, Dunn & Montgomery, L.L.P., in Des *1017 Moines, Iowa. At the hearing, Young presented his own testimony, and the United States presented the testimony of Young’s counsel at the time the Plea Agreement and Affidavit were executed. The government also submitted as exhibits the Plea Agreement and Affidavit, as well as its letter of June 19, 1999, to defense counsel concerning the government’s intention to use the Affidavit at trial, letters from counsel for Young’s co-defendants concerning their recollections of the plea negotiations, and the transcript of certain grand jury testimony. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court continued the trial to preserve the government’s right to pursue an interlocutory appeal, should the court decide to grant Young’s motion in limine. Defendant’s motion in limine is now ready for decision.
II. LEGAL ANALYSIS
A. Protections And Waivability Of Rules 11(e)(6) And 410
As the Supreme Court recently explained,
Federal Rule of Evidence 410 and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(e)(6) (Rules or plea-statement Rules) are substantively identical. Rule 410 provides:
“Except as otherwise provided in this rule, evidence of the following is not, in any civil or criminal proceeding, admissible against the defendant who ... was a participant in the plea discussions: ... (4) any statement made in the course of plea discussions with an attorney for the prosecuting authority which do not result in a plea of guilty....”
United States v. Mezzanatto,
The Supreme Court noted that “these Rules are subject to only two express exceptions, neither of which says anything about waiver,”
id.
(footnote omitted), and neither of which is pertinent here.
1
However, the Supreme Court rejected the notion that these Rules were “waiverless.”
Id.
Instead, the Court found that “[t]he provisions of [the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure] are presumptively waiva-ble, though an express waiver clause may suggest that Congress intended to occupy the field and to preclude waiver under other, unstated circumstances.”
Id.
at 201,
In the case before the Court in
Mezza-natto,
the Court found that the defendant had conferred with his lawyer after the prosecutor proposed a waiver as a condition of proceeding with plea negotiations, and that the defendant “ha[d] never complained that he entered into the waiver agreement at issue unknowingly or involuntarily.”
Id.
at 210-11,
B. Did Young Waive The Rules’ Protections? 2
The government argues that Young waived the protections of Rules 410 and 11(e)(6), because Young’s decision to sign the Plea Agreement, and his execution of the accompanying Affidavit, were done “with full knowledge of the consequences should he later change his mind.” Government’s Resistance Brief, p. 4. The government points out that those “consequences” include the ones detailed in paragraph 11 of the Plea Agreement, including use of Young’s Affidavit at trial. Young counters that his waiver was not knowing and voluntary.
1. Counsel’s conflict of interest
First, at the hearing on the motion in limine, Young argued that, assuming that paragraph 11 of the Plea Agreement constitutes a waiver of his right not to have his Affidavit used at trial, his counsel suffered from a conflict of interest arising from representation of a co-defendant by an attorney with whom Young’s counsel shared offices. Young argues that this conflict of interest was never disclosed and therefore he never consented to representation despite the conflict. The court concludes that there is insufficient evidence in the record to find any apparent or actual conflict of interest from the relationship of the two defense attorneys in this case. The two attorneys were not partners or associates in the same law firm, although they cooperated on various cases and to
*1019
gether owned the building in which their offices were located, because they were essentially sole practitioners sharing some office facilities.
See United States v. Kindle,
2. Coercion
Young also suggested that he was coerced into accepting the Plea Agreement containing a purported waiver of Rule 410 and Rule 11(e)(6) rights, because none of the defendants, or at least none of the attorneys representing the defendants, wanted to go to trial on October 6, 1998, and signing the Plea Agreement was a condition placed on the government’s agreement to a continuance. Although a waiver is invalid if it results from coercion,
see, e.g., United States v. Turner,
3. Ignorance of rights
The court concludes that the only, arguably adequate ground for finding “some affirmative indication that the agreement was entered into unknowingly or involuntarily,”
Mezzanatto,
a. Burch and Krilich
Although the Supreme Court’s
Mezza-natto
decision establishes “that absent some affirmative indication that the agreement was entered into unknowingly or involuntarily, an agreement to waive the exclusionary provisions of the plea-statement Rules is valid and enforceable,”
Mezzanatto,
*1020
However, one instructive decision is that of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals in
United States v. Burch,
The extensive colloquy conducted by the trial court clearly supports this determination that appellant knowingly and voluntarily waived his rights under Rules 11(e)(6) and 410. In no way could such a decision to permit the plea statement and the debriefings into evidence constitute an abuse of discretion.
Burch,
A second appellate decision that this court finds instructive is the decision of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in
United States v. Krilich,
Krilich insists that if the conditional waiver means what we think it means, then it is unenforceable because involuntary. Mezzanatto says that waivers of the plea-statement rules are unenforceable if given “unknowingly or involuntarily” (513 U.S. at 210 ,115 S.Ct. 797 ,130 L.Ed.2d 697 ), but this is a far cry from saying that waivers mean whatever the defendants say they understood them to mean; no party to a contract has Humpty Dumpty’s power over language either directly or through the gambit that unanticipated consequences render the agreement “involuntary.” A waiver is voluntary in the absence of coercion, Colorado v. Connelly,479 U.S. 157 ,107 S.Ct. 515 ,93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986); United States v. Brooks,125 F.3d 484 , 492 (7th Cir.1997), and is knowing if made “with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.” Moran v. Burbine,475 U.S. 412 , 421,106 S.Ct. 1135 ,89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986). Krilich does not contend that his assent was coerced and offers no support for a conclusion that he didn’t understand the rights that Rules 410 and 11(e)(6) confer. A defendant’s understanding of the consequences of his waiver need not be perfect; it was Krilich’s understanding of the rights being relinquished, not of all possible repercussions of relinquishing them, that made his waiver knowing. See Colorado v. Spring,479 U.S. 564 ,107 S.Ct. 851 ,93 L.Ed.2d 954 (1987).
Krilich,
This court observes that, although the consequences of the “conditional waiver” of Rule 410 and Rule 11(e)(6) rights is spelled out clearly in the waiver provision in
Kri-lich, see id.
at 1024 (consequences specified for testifying contrary to the proffer .were “using the substance of the proffer at sentencing for any purpose, at trial for impeachment or in rebuttal testimony, or in a prosecution for perjury”), it is less clear from whence came the defendant’s supposed “awareness of ... the nature of the right being abandoned.”
Id.
at 1026 (a waiver “is knowing if made ‘with a full awareness of
both
the
nature of the right
being abandoned
and
the
consequences
of the decision to abandon it.’ ”) (quoting
Moran,
b. Eighth Circuit guidance
Although the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has not had occasion to provide guidance on what is required to waive rights under Rules 11(e)(6) and 410, it has nonetheless provided guidance on what constitutes a knowing and voluntary waiver in a variety of contexts. For example, in
United States v. Turner,
First, the relinquishment of the right must have been voluntary in the sense that it was the product of a free and deliberate choice rather than intimidation, coercion, or deception. Second, the waiver must have been made with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.
Turner,
More importantly, it appears to this court to be a theme of recent decisions of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals involving waiver of rights by a criminal defendant that the defendant must not only know the consequences of his or her purported waiver of rights, but
know or be informed of the specific rights being waived,
that is, be shown to have a “full awareness ... of the nature of the right being abandoned.”
Turner,
c. Was any waiver “knowing”?
The court now turns to the question of whether Young made a knowing waiver of his rights under the plea-statement Rules in light of these precedents. In this case, unlike the situation in
Burch,
there is no indication that Young “specifically ... waived his rights under Rules 11(e)(6) and 410,”
Burch,
Furthermore, in light of Krilich-and decisions of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals requiring both awareness of the nature of rights and consequences of waiving them,
see Krilich,
Indeed, the government concedes as much, relying instead on Young’s knowledge of the consequences of backing out of the Plea Agreement, as stated in paragraph 11 of the Agreement, as providing sufficient evidence of a knowing waiver. The court does not believe the two prongs of a knowing waiver — knowledge of the nature of rights waived and the consequences of waiving them' — can be conflated in this way, at least not in the circumstances presented here. A defendant cannot “knowingly” waive rights unless he in fact “knows” he or she has such rights in the first place. The court agrees with the government that it is not necessary to an effective waiver for the
source
of rights to be identified — that is, it was not necessary to state that Young was “waiving rights
under Rule 410 of the Federal Rules of Evidence and Rule 11(e)(6) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure
against use of plea statements.” Such a disclosure would undoubtedly have been sufficient for a knowing waiver of the plea-statement Rules, and is consequently preferred, but the requirement is that the defendant know the
nature
of the rights at issue, not that he or she know the
source
of the rights.
See, e.g., Turner,
The ineffectiveness of the purported waiver of Young’s plea statement rights is perhaps highlighted by the fact that, in every other portion of the Plea Agreement that purportedly waives some of Young’s rights, the Plea Agreement specifically delineates the right and expressly states that Young is “waiving” the right or will be “deprived” of the right by entering into the Plea Agreement. Taking these instances in the order in which they appear, the court finds that in paragraph 12 of the Plea Agreement, Young expressly “waives all claims he may have based upon the statute of limitations, the Speedy Trial Act, and the speedy trial provisions of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.” Plea Agreement, ¶ 12. Again, in paragraph 13, the Plea Agreement states that “[t]he defendant waives all constitutional and statutory speedy trial rights he may have [and] also waives all statute of limitations or other objections or defenses he may have related to the timing or timeliness of the filing or prosecution of charges referred to in this paragraph.” Id. at ¶ 13. These express waivers, like the purported waiver of plea statement rights in paragraph 11, appear in a section captioned “GENERAL MATTERS.” Other express waivers are stated in a section denominated “ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF DEFENDANT’S UNDERSTANDING.” Paragraph 15, which reflects the requirements of Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c), states that “[t]he defendant understands that by entering a plea of guilty he will be giving up his right to plead not guilty; to trial by jury; to confront, cross-examine and compel attendance of witnesses; to present *1025 evidence in his defense; to remain silent and refuse to be a witness against himself by asserting his privilege against self-incrimination and to be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at ¶ 15. Similarly, paragraph 17 specifically notifies the defendant that pleading guilty deprives him of certain, specific rights, including “the right to vote, to hold public office, to serve on a jury and to possess firearms.” Id. at 17.
These provisions demonstrate that the government knows how to draft an effective waiver of rights that shows that the defendant knew both the
nature
of the rights at issue and the
consequences
of waiving them.
See Turner,
III. CONCLUSION
There is no evidence in the record in this case from which the court could find that Young was aware of the nature of his rights with regard to plea statements. Therefore, there is some affirmative indication that Young’s waiver of his rights under Rules 410 and 11(e)(6) the agreement was entered into “unknowingly.”
Mezzanatto,
IT IS SO ORDERED.
. The parties did not address who bears the burden of proof in this situation. Although Young, as the movant in limine, would ordinarily have the burden to show that evidence is excludable, the court assumes, without deciding, that the government would bear the burden of proving that Young knowingly and voluntarily waived his rights under Rules 410 and 11(e)(6) to exclude the Affidavit.
Cf. Colorado v. Connelly,
Notes
. The exceptions, as explained by the Court in Mezzanatto, are the following:
[a] statement made by a criminal defendant in the course of plea discussions is “admissible (i) in any proceeding wherein another statement made in the course of the same ... plea discussions has been introduced and the statement ought in fairness be considered contemporaneously with it, or (ii) in a criminal proceeding for perjury or false statement if the statement was made by the defendant under oath, on the record and in the presence of counsel.” Fed. R. Evid. 410. Accord, Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(e)(6).
Mezzanatto,
. In
Burch,
the court first found that the question before it was broader than that presented in
Mezzanatto. Burch,
. Indeed, comparable requirements have also been applied in the civil context.
See, e.g., Haghighi v. Russian-American Broadcasting Co.,
. For example, the familiar Miranda warning is sufficient where it notifies the arrestee of his or her "right to remain silent” and what will happen if he or she gives up that right, even though the source of the "right to remain silent” is not identified.
