F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
MAY 7 1999
TENTH CIRCUIT
__________________________ PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 98-4063
(D. Utah)
PATRICK GARRETT HEAPS, (D.Ct. No. 97-CR-188)
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before BRORBY, KELLY and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
Defendant Appellant Patrick Heaps challenges the district court’s ruling
that the government did not breach its obligation under a plea agreement. He
claims the prosecutor failed to recommend an adjustment for acceptance of
responsibility as promised, and requests that we remand with instructions to
comply with the plea agreement or allow him to withdraw his guilty plea. We
exercise jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of
law of the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the
citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under
the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
On June 11, 1997, a grand jury indicted Mr. Heaps for bank robbery and
related firearm offenses. Mr. Heaps negotiated an agreement to plead guilty to
three of the counts against him in return for the dismissal of the remaining
charges. However, before the court could sentence him, Mr. Heaps escaped from
custody. Several months later, authorities arrested him again and a grand jury
indicted him for felony escape and other related firearm offenses. Mr. Heaps
negotiated a second plea agreement with the government in which he agreed to
plead guilty to the escape charges in return for the government’s promise to
request dismissal of several other counts and recommend an adjustment for
acceptance of responsibility. The district court consolidated the robbery case and
the escape case based on a joint motion by the parties.
At the consolidated sentencing hearing April 21, 1998, Mr. Heaps argued
the court could not sentence him for the robbery and escape individually, but
must group the two convictions as required under United States Sentencing
Guidelines §§ 3D1.2 and 5G1.2, and then adjust for acceptance of responsibility
on the overall offense level. In response, the government maintained its posture
of treating the crimes separately, arguing against a reduction for acceptance of
responsibility for the robbery conviction, but not opposing a reduction for the
escape conviction. Mr. Heaps objected when the prosecutor argued against an
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adjustment claiming the government had agreed to recommend a three-level
reduction for acceptance of responsibility as part of the plea agreement. The
government responded that it had only agreed to the adjustment in the escape
case, not for the robbery, and that at the time the parties made the plea agreement
they anticipated the court would sentence each offense separately. At the
conclusion of the hearing, the district court did, in fact, sentence the offenses
separately, imposing 270 months for the bank robbery and related firearm
conviction, and forty-six months for the escape charges, with the sentences to run
concurrently. The court expressly denied an adjustment for the robbery case, but
the escape sentence included an adjustment for acceptance of responsibility as
recommended by the government.
Not long after the sentencing hearing, the district court issued a
Memorandum and Order correcting a technical error it made during the
calculation of Mr. Heaps’ sentence. The court recognized, as Mr. Heaps had
contended at the sentencing hearing, it should group the multiple counts to
produce a single sentence as required under the U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2(c). After
grouping the offenses, the district court reassessed whether to grant the
adjustment for acceptance of responsibility for the overall offense based on the
totality of Mr. Heaps’ conduct. Finding Mr. Heaps’ escape from custody
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“inconsistent with any acceptance of responsibility,” the court declined to adjust
the sentence. Ultimately, however, the court’s decision to group and restructure
the sentence did not change the previously determined term of confinement.
On appeal, Mr. Heaps reasserts his claim that the government breached the
plea agreement when it argued against an adjustment for acceptance of
responsibility. He contends he reasonably interpreted the government’s promise
during the second plea negotiation for the escape case to mean it would
recommend an adjustment for acceptance of responsibility at sentencing for the
“overall conduct” of both consolidated cases. He bases this interpretation of the
agreement on the assumption that the prosecutor knew before agreeing to
recommend an adjustment that the court had consolidated the cases and would
have to group them for sentencing. Because the guidelines require courts to
apply any adjustment for acceptance of responsibility for grouped offenses to the
total combined counts and not each count individually, Mr. Heaps contends he
understood the escape case plea agreement to mean that, by agreeing, the
government would recommend an adjustment overall – not just for the escape
charge alone. Therefore, Mr. Heaps asserts when the government did not argue
for a reduction for the overall conduct, and instead argued against the adjustment
for the robbery case, it breached its obligation and thwarted his expectations
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under the plea agreement.
Whether government conduct violates a plea agreement is a question of law
we review de novo. United States v. Hawley , 93 F.3d 682, 690 (10th Cir. 1996).
As an initial matter, we note that when a defendant enters into a plea agreement,
the court must ensure he receives what he is reasonably entitled to under the
agreement. Hawley , 93 F.3d at 692. In other words, the government may not
breach the terms of the plea agreement that caused a defendant to plead guilty.
See Santobello v. New York , 404 U.S. 257, 262 (1971); United States v. Brye ,
146 F.3d 1207, 1209 (10th Cir. 1998). In addition, even if the district court
indicates the government's conduct or comments allegedly breaching the
agreement had no influence on the ultimate sentence, we must still grant the
defendant a remedy if a breach occurred. Santobello , 404 U.S. at 262-63.
In order to determine if a breach has occurred, we apply a two-step
process. We first “examine the nature of the government’s promise;” and then
“evaluate this promise in light of the defendant’s reasonable understanding of the
promise at the time the guilty plea was entered.” Brye , 146 F.3d at 1210 (internal
citations omitted). General contract principles govern our analysis, and if any
ambiguities are present, we resolve them against the drafter. Hawley, 93 F.3d at
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690.
We review the express language used in the agreement in order to
determine the nature of the government's promise. Brye , 146 F.3d at 1210. The
plea agreement negotiated in the context of the escape charges plainly states
“[t]he government agrees to recommend acceptance of responsibility, assuming,
of course, that the defendant continues to accept responsibility.” In this instance,
the words of the agreement alone are insufficient to determine whether the
government promised to recommend adjustment only for the escape case or for
the overall conduct. Consequently, in order to construe the agreement “to
comport with the parties’ reasonable understanding ... at the time the guilty plea
was entered,” we must review it in light of the surrounding circumstances and the
context of the sentencing proceedings. Id. at 1212. We find that even though the
escape case had been consolidated with the bank robbery case for sentencing, the
court and the parties were still dealing with the offenses as though they would
receive separate sentences. In fact, as the district court noted: separate
presentence reports were prepared, Mr. Heaps responded to the reports
individually, the cases continued to maintain separate docket numbers, and the
court did not consolidate the cases into a joint indictment or information.
Moreover, the district court continued to treat the offenses on an individual basis
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at every step in the process until it issued its final Memorandum and Order
acknowledging the need to group the offenses. The plain language of the
agreement coupled with the separate treatment of the robbery and escape cases
persuades us the government’s promise to recommend an adjustment for
acceptance of responsibility extended only to the escape charge, not the overall
conduct.
The second prong of our inquiry requires us to evaluate the government’s
obligation in light of the defendant’s reasonable understanding of the promise at
the time of the guilty plea. Brye , 146 F.3d at 1210. Mr. Heaps claims he
interpreted the escape case plea agreement to mean the government was
promising to recommend an adjustment for acceptance of responsibility with
regard to his overall conduct – not just the escape charge. However, examining
the reasonableness of Mr. Heaps’ interpretation in light of the surrounding
circumstances, we find he had to have known, or at least suspected, the
government did not share his subjective interpretation of the plea agreement. As
mentioned above, even though the robbery and escape offenses had been
consolidated for sentencing, the parties and the court continued to treat the cases
separately. Even without complete knowledge of the negotiations between the
government and Mr. Heaps, we can fairly infer from the express language of the
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written plea agreement and the attending circumstances that the scope of the
agreement was limited to the escape case and had no bearing on the previous
robbery conviction for which he had already entered a plea and was still awaiting
sentencing. Moreover, if Mr. Heaps was aware at the time of making his plea in
the escape case that the grouping requirements would force the court to decide
whether to adjust for acceptance of responsibility for the overall offense and not
the escape case alone, he should have informed the government and insisted the
plea agreement clearly reflect the overall applicability of its obligation. 1
In short,
although we must give deference to what a defendant reasonably understands at
the time he enters the plea, we find Mr. Heaps’ interpretation plainly
unreasonable when viewed in the overall context of the sentencing proceedings.
See United States v. Rourke , 74 F.3d 802, 806 (7th Cir.) (interpreting plea
agreement under objective standards rather than relying solely on defendant's
belief as to the scope of the plea agreement), cert. denied , 517 U.S. 1215 (1996).
Finally, we must decide whether the government fulfilled its promise under
the agreement to recommend adjustment for acceptance of responsibility for the
1
Although we do not imply that the defendant bears the responsibility of
clarifying the plea agreement, if Mr. Heaps was in fact aware of the ramifications of the
guideline grouping requirements before he entered the plea agreement, he should have
made some effort to ensure the government shared his understanding.
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escape offense. Although Mr. Heaps argues the government failed to specifically
“recommend” an adjustment as promised, we find the government met its
obligation. Even though the prosecutor only stated at the sentencing hearing that
it did not “take exception to [Mr. Heaps’] acceptance of responsibility” with
respect to the escape and firearm possession charge; we hold that statement,
combined with the specific adjustment recommendations acknowledged in the
presentence report, is sufficient to meet the government’s obligation. See United
States v. Smith , 140 F.3d 1325, 1327 (10th Cir. 1998) (holding “the term
‘recommendation’ in a plea agreement does not require the prosecutor to allocute
in favor of specific adjustments in the defendant’s sentence if the
recommendations are contained in the [presentence report] and the prosecutor
does not allocute against an agreed-upon adjustment”).
In this case Mr. Heaps seized on the opportunity presented by the grouping
requirement under the guidelines to try and bind the government to a promise it
never actually made, and get in through the back door an overall adjustment the
government would probably never have agreed to otherwise. We find this
approach inventive but ultimately unpersuasive. Because the plain language of
the agreement and the context in which it was made does not reflect any promise
by the government to recommend adjustment for acceptance of responsibility
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overall, we decline to accommodate Mr. Heaps’ attempt to parlay the
government’s initial, limited promise into an obligation to recommend adjustment
for acceptance of responsibility for the overall offense. The district court
correctly ruled that the government “undoubtedly lived up to its bargain” by not
opposing an adjustment for acceptance of responsibility for the escape charge,
and that the government was perfectly within its rights to argue against the
adjustment in the robbery case without violating the plea agreements. Although
subsequent unilateral acts by the district court in restructuring Mr. Heaps’
sentence effectively denied him the benefit of the adjustment for acceptance of
responsibility he had bargained for, those decisions are not the subject of this
appeal. Only the government’s compliance with the plea agreement is at issue
here, and for the reasons stated above, we hold the government did exactly what
it promised. Accordingly, we AFFIRM .
Entered by the Court:
WADE BRORBY
United States Circuit Judge
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