Williams v. United States

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 04-11704 January 24, 2005
Non-Argument Calendar THOMAS K. KAHN
________________________ CLERK

D.C. Docket Nos. 02-01097-CV-ORL-28
& 01-00088-CR-ORL

DARRELL WILLIAMS,

Petitioner-Appellant,

versus

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Respondent-Appellee.

__________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Middle District of Florida
_________________________

(January 24, 2005)

Before BLACK, MARCUS and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

Darrell Williams, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the denial of his

28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence, in which he
asserted that the sentence-appeal waiver in his plea agreement did not preclude him

from contesting his counsel’s effectiveness relating to his sentencing. The district

court held that the waiver precluded Williams from raising an ineffective-assistance

claim relating to his sentence.1 After reviewing the district court’s legal conclusions

de novo and its findings of fact for clear error, we agree and, accordingly, affirm.

See McCarthy v. United States, 320 F.3d 1230, 1231-32 (11th Cir. 2003) (reviewing

district court’s legal conclusions in a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 proceeding de novo and its

findings of fact for clear error).

The relevant facts are these. After Williams was charged with bank fraud,

money laundering, and possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of

cocaine hydrochloride, he entered a written plea agreement in which he agreed to

plead guilty to all charges. Notably, for purposes of this appeal, pursuant to the

following standard plea-agreement provision, Williams agreed:

that this Court has jurisdiction and authority to impose any sentence up
to the statutory maximum set forth for the offense and pursuant to the
sentencing guidelines and expressly waives the right to appeal [his]
sentence, directly or collaterally, on any ground, [except for three types
of sentences not involved in this appeal]; provided, however, that if the
government exercises its right to appeal the sentence imposed, as

1
Williams also argues that the waiver was not knowing and voluntary and that his sentence-
appeal waiver was invalidated by Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___, 124 S. Ct. 2531, 159 L. Ed.
2d 403 (2004). Because these arguments are outside the scope of the COA, we will not consider
them on appeal. See Murray v. United States, 145 F.3d 1249, 1250-51 (11th Cir. 1998).

2
authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 3742(b), the defendant is released from this
waiver and may appeal the sentence as authorized by 18 U.S.C. §
3742(a).

(emphasis added). At the plea colloquy, the district court specifically reviewed the

foregoing appeal-waiver provision in the written plea agreement with Williams,

apprising him that he was waiving his right to challenge his sentence “directly or

collaterally,” and Williams indicated his understanding of the provision. Williams

also informed the court that he was entering the plea agreement knowingly and

voluntarily.

On September 27, 2001, the district court accepted Williams’s guilty plea and

sentenced him to three concurrent 135-month terms of imprisonment, followed by a

4-year term of supervised release. Williams did not appeal his conviction or sentence.

Instead, over two years later, on September 2, 2003, Williams filed this pro se § 2255

petition alleging that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing.

It is well-settled that sentence-appeal waivers are valid if made knowingly and

voluntarily. See United States v. Bushert, 997 F.2d 1343, 1350-51 (11th Cir. 1993).

In the context of a direct appeal, we have held that for a sentence-appeal waiver to be

enforceable, “[t]he government must show that either (1) the district court specifically

questioned the defendant concerning the sentence appeal waiver during the [plea]

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colloquy, or (2) it is manifestly clear from the record that the defendant otherwise

understood the full significance of the waiver.” Id. at 1351.

While we have not addressed whether a sentence-appeal waiver includes the

waiver of the right to challenge the sentence collaterally in the context of a § 2255

petition asserting ineffective assistance of counsel, every Circuit to have addressed

the issue has held that a valid sentence-appeal waiver, entered into voluntarily and

knowingly, pursuant to a plea agreement, precludes the defendant from attempting to

attack, in a collateral proceeding, the sentence through a claim of ineffective

assistance of counsel during sentencing. See United States v. White, 307 F.3d 336,

341-44 (5th Cir. 2002); Garcia-Santos v. United States, 273 F.3d 506, 508-09

(2d Cir. 2001); Davila v. United States, 258 F.3d 448, 451-52 (6th Cir. 2001); United

States v. Cockerham, 237 F.3d 1179, 1183-87 (10th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 534 U.S.

1085, 122 S. Ct. 821, 151 L. Ed. 2d 703 (2002); Mason v. United States, 211 F.3d

1065, 1069-70 (7th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1175, 121 S. Ct. 1148, 148 L.

Ed. 2d 1010 (2001).2 We are persuaded by the foregoing consistent line of authority

2
Of course, there may be a distinction between a § 2255 claim of ineffective assistance in
entering or negotiating the plea versus a claim of ineffectiveness at sentencing or a claim challenging
the validity of the plea or agreement. See, e.g., United States v. Pruitt, 32 F.3d 431, 433 (9th Cir.
1994) (determining that because defendant’s ineffectiveness claim under § 2255 did not relate to the
plea or plea agreement but related only to the alleged mishandling of sentencing, the court did not
need to decide whether a defendant could in fact waive a claim of ineffective assistance); see also
White, 307 F.3d at 343 (“[A]n ineffective assistance of counsel argument survives a waiver of appeal
only when the claimed assistance directly affected the validity of that waiver or the plea itself.”);

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from our sister Circuits on this issue, particularly since a contrary result would permit

a defendant to circumvent the terms of the sentence-appeal waiver simply by

recasting a challenge to his sentence as a claim of ineffective assistance, thus

rendering the waiver meaningless.

Here, at the plea colloquy, the court specifically questioned Williams

concerning the specifics of the sentence-appeal waiver and determined that he had

entered into the written plea agreement, which included the appeal waiver, knowingly

and voluntarily. See Bushert 997 F.2d at 1351. The plain language of the agreement

informed Williams that he was waiving a collateral attack on his sentence. Under

these circumstances, the sentence-appeal waiver precludes a § 2255 claims based on

ineffective assistance at sentencing. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial

of collateral relief on this basis.

AFFIRMED.

Cockerham, 237 F.3d at 1191 (holding that ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim survives express
waiver of right to bring collateral attack on sentence “where it challenges the validity of the plea or
waiver”). Because Williams’s claims assert ineffectiveness at sentencing and do not concern
representation relating to the validity of the plea or waiver, we need not, and do not, reach the other
situation.