[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-14250 MARCH 27, 2012
Non-Argument Calendar JOHN LEY
________________________ CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 1:11-cr-00165-RWG-ECS-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
JOSE LINARES,
a.k.a. Churro,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(March 27, 2012)
Before CARNES, WILSON and BLACK, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Jose Linares appeals his 235-month sentence, imposed after he pled guilty
to conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute at least 500 grams of
methamphetamine and at least 50 kilograms of marijuana, in violation of 21
U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), and 841(b). Linares contends the Government breached
his plea agreement by advocating for the application of a specific offense
characteristic enhancement found in U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(4) and an aggravating
role enhancement found in U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(c). We affirm Linares’s sentence.
We review de novo whether the government breached a plea agreement.
United States v. De La Garza, 516 F.3d 1266, 1269 (11th Cir. 2008). However,
the district court’s factual findings on the scope of the agreement are reviewed
only for clear error. United States v. Al-Arian, 514 F.3d 1184, 1191 (11th Cir.
2008).
Plea agreements are contracts, and must be interpreted accordingly. United
States v. Rubbo, 396 F.3d 1330, 1334 (11th Cir. 2005). We must apply an
objective standard to determine the meaning of any disputed terms in a plea
agreement and must decide whether the Government’s actions are inconsistent
with what the defendant reasonably understood when he entered his guilty plea.
United States v. Copeland, 381 F.3d 1101, 1105 (11th Cir. 2004). “In interpreting
a plea agreement, we do not accept a hyper-technical reading of the written
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agreement or a rigidly literal approach in the construction of the language.” Id.
(quotation omitted). When an agreement is ambiguous, we must construe its
meaning against the Government. Id. at 1105-06. However, plea agreements must
be interpreted as a whole. Rubbo, 396 F.3d at 1335.
Linares and the Government stipulated to “the following applications of the
Sentencing Guidelines: (a) The applicable offense guideline is Section
2D1.1(c)(1); and (2) The criminal activity . . . involved at least 1.5 kilograms of
methamphetamine (actual) . . . .” The Government also agreed to recommend
Linares receive a reduction for acceptance of responsibility. Both parties agreed
to recommend an additional one-level variance for Linares’s timely guilty plea.
The Government agreed to recommend that Linares be sentenced at the low end of
the adjusted guideline range. Finally, Linares and the Government agreed,
“[e]xcept as expressly stated elsewhere in this plea agreement, [to allow] the
Government . . . to make recommendations regarding application of the
Sentencing Guidelines.”
Linares contends that because the Government drafted the agreement, any
sentencing enhancement not included in the agreement must be excluded from the
Government’s recommendation. See United States v. Hill, 643 F.3d 807, 876
(11th Cir. 2011) (interpreting an immunity agreement). Thus, the Government
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was forbidden from advocating for an enhancement not explicitly listed in the plea
agreement, including the § 2D1.1(b)(4) and § 3B1.1(c) enhancements.
When we read the plea agreement as a whole, the fallacy of Linares’s
argument becomes clear. See Rubbo, 396 F.3d at 1335. Nothing in the agreement
indicates that the parties intended to set forth an exhaustive list of the potentially
applicable Guideline provisions. Instead, the parties stipulated and agreed to
certain provisions, and the Government reserved its right to recommend provisions
not expressly stated in the plea agreement. We refuse to read the plea agreement
in the tortured manner Linares suggests. See Copeland, 381 F.3d at 1105-06.
The Government did not breach the plea agreement. Accordingly, we affirm
Linares’s sentence.
AFFIRMED.
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