UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-6145
JOHN JERMAINE BECKHAM,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Frank D. Whitney,
Chief District Judge. (3:13-cv-00558-FDW)
Submitted: January 29, 2015 Decided: February 9, 2015
Before DUNCAN and HARRIS, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
John Jermaine Beckham, Appellant Pro Se. Amy Elizabeth Ray,
Assistant United States Attorney, Asheville, North Carolina, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
John Jermaine Beckham pled guilty in 2000 to
conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute at least fifty
grams of cocaine base and was sentenced to 300 months of
imprisonment. Beckham was sentenced as a career offender under
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 4B1.1. Beckham previously
filed two prior 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motions contesting his
conviction and sentence. In the instant case, Beckham
challenged his career offender designation under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2241 (2012) and via writs for error coram nobis and audita
querela. As noted by the district court, the Government
conceded that Beckham’s career offender enhancement was
erroneous in light of our later decision in United States v.
Simmons, 649 F.3d 237 (4th Cir. 2011), but argued that Beckham
had waived his appellate rights to challenge his sentence in his
plea agreement, which was reviewed at his plea hearing. The
district court agreed and dismissed Beckham’s petition. For the
reasons that follow, we affirm.
A criminal defendant may waive the right to appeal if
that waiver is knowing and intelligent. United States v.
Poindexter, 492 F.3d 263, 270 (4th Cir. 2007). Generally, if
the district court fully questions a defendant regarding the
waiver of his right to appeal during a plea colloquy performed
in accordance with Fed. R. Crim. P. 11, the waiver is both valid
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and enforceable. United States v. Johnson, 410 F.3d 137, 151
(4th Cir. 2005). Whether a defendant validly waived his right
to appeal is a question of law this court reviews de novo.
United States v. Blick, 408 F.3d 162, 168 (4th Cir. 2005).
Where the Government seeks to enforce an appeal waiver and there
is no claim that it breached its obligations under the plea
agreement, a court will enforce the waiver if the record
establishes that the defendant knowingly and intelligently
agreed to waive the right to appeal, and the issue being
appealed is within the scope of the waiver. Id.
The district court found that Beckham did not allege
that his guilty plea was unknowing or involuntary; the court
nonetheless found that the Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 plea colloquy
established that Beckham knowingly and voluntarily pled guilty
and waived his appellate rights to challenge his conviction and
sentence, except for claims of ineffective assistance and
prosecutorial misconduct. Beckham does not contest the validity
of his plea waiver on appeal but argues that his career offender
designation falls outside the scope of his waiver.
When a defendant pleads guilty, he waives all
nonjurisdictional defects in the proceedings conducted prior to
entry of the plea. United States v. Bundy, 392 F.3d 641, 644
(4th Cir. 2004). A criminal defendant’s guilty plea represents
a break in the chain of events which has preceded it in the
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criminal process, Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 267,
(1973), so that a defendant who has pled guilty has no non-
jurisdictional ground upon which to attack that judgment except
the inadequacy of the plea or the government’s power to bring
any indictment at all. United States v. Moussaoui, 591 F.3d
263, 279 (4th Cir. 2010).
Accordingly, because Beckham does not argue that his
plea waiver and guilty plea were unknowing or involuntary, we
affirm for the reasons stated by the district court. See
Beckham v. United States, No. 3:13-cv-00558-FDW (W.D.N.C. Dec.
18, 2013). We dispense with oral argument as the facts and
legal materials are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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