United States v. Cottingham ( 2022 )

Appellate Case: 22-5004 Document: 010110716803 Date Filed: 07/27/2022 Page: 1
FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT July 27, 2022
_________________________________
Christopher M. Wolpert
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 22-5004
(D.C. No. 4:20-CR-00209-GKF-1)
TERRANCE LUCAS COTTINGHAM, (N.D. Okla.)
Defendant - Appellant.
_________________________________
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
_________________________________
Before HOLMES, BACHARACH, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.
_________________________________
Terrance Cottingham seeks to appeal his conviction for Robbery in Indian
Country. Trying to prevent the appeal, the government moves to enforce the appeal
waiver in Mr. Cottingham’s plea agreement. Mr. Cottingham responds that we may
not enforce the waiver because he did not enter into the plea agreement knowingly.
That is so, he says, because he incorrectly thought that he would receive roughly six
years of credit against his sentence and that he would have a meaningful opportunity
to appeal if the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) denied him that credit. These arguments
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines
of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for
its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
Appellate Case: 22-5004 Document: 010110716803 Date Filed: 07/27/2022 Page: 2
fail to show that he did not enter his plea knowingly. So we grant the government’s
motion and dismiss the appeal.
Background
The robbery underlying this case occurred in 2015. Oklahoma originally
prosecuted Mr. Cottingham for it, and he received a twenty-five-year prison sentence.
He soon accumulated concurrent sentences from other state cases. He served roughly
806 days in custody for only the robbery before starting the other state sentences,
then spent several years serving concurrent sentences for the robbery and other state
offenses. In 2021, however, a state court vacated the robbery conviction after the
Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, 140 S. Ct. 2452 (2020).
The federal government prosecuted Mr. Cottingham in this case for the same
2015 robbery. The parties reached a plea agreement stipulating to a ten-year
sentence that “should run concurrent with time [Mr. Cottingham] is already serving
in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for offenses unrelated to the instant
offense.” R. vol. 1 at 97. The plea agreement required Mr. Cottingham to waive “the
right to directly appeal the conviction and sentence.” Id. at 87.
Mr. Cottingham now claims to have misunderstood the plea agreement in two
ways. First, he says he thought he would receive credit against his federal sentence
for all the time he spent confined for his state robbery prosecution (roughly six
years), even time he spent concurrently confined for other offenses; he now
understands he will receive credit only for time he spent confined for the state
robbery and no other offense (roughly 806 days). Second, he says he thought that if
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the BOP awarded less credit than he thought due, then he would have a meaningful
opportunity to appeal; he now says no such opportunity exists.
These topics came up during the plea colloquy:
THE COURT: And do you understand that by entering into the plea
agreement and entering a plea of guilty, you will be deemed to have given
up your rights to appeal and otherwise collaterally challenge your
conviction and sentence?
THE DEFENDANT: Your Honor, will I waive—because I understand that
credit for time served is within the exclusive authority of the Bureau of
Prisons, and so when the—whenever they calculate the credit for my time
served, if they do not credit what I believe should be what I should receive
on a credit for time served, will I not be able to appeal or to try to seek any
kind of remedy for this?
THE COURT: I don’t know the answer to that question, sir. [Plea
counsel], you’re acting like you have an answer or response.
[PLEA COUNSEL]: I do. May I have a moment?
Id. at 127–28. Plea counsel then apparently spoke with Mr. Cottingham off the
record before the plea colloquy resumed:
THE COURT: . . . I do believe you are waiving the right to appeal on that
basis.
[Plea counsel], do you have some different—some different opinion
of this?
[PLEA COUNSEL]: I do, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
[PLEA COUNSEL]: And I’ve gone through with my client before on how
that would be addressed.
THE COURT: All right.
[PLEA COUNSEL]: But the district court does not order credit for time
served, that is purely for the Bureau of Prisons, and so credit for time
served is not an issue with the district court.
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THE COURT: Right. And so his question is, is he waiving the right to
appeal if the issue is decided in a way that he does not agree with by the
Bureau of Prisons?
[PLEA COUNSEL]: And I’ve explained to him how that would be
handled.
Id. at 128–29.
After the court went over the appeal waiver with Mr. Cottingham, he requested
and received time to speak with plea counsel. Following a discussion, he told the court
that he understood that, by entering his plea, he would waive his right to appeal “as set
forth” in the plea agreement. Id. at 131. The court completed the plea colloquy, and
Mr. Cottingham pleaded guilty.
Just ten days after entering his plea, however, Mr. Cottingham asked to
withdraw it. He stated that plea counsel had assured him the law required the BOP to
award him nearly six years of credit against his sentence, an assurance he later
learned to be false. He added that plea counsel told him he could appeal an adverse
credit decision by the BOP because time credits are not part of the court’s sentence.
This advice too, he said, was incorrect.
The court appointed different counsel to represent Mr. Cottingham and
eventually held a hearing on his motion to withdraw his plea. Mr. Cottingham
repeated his claim that plea counsel had told him that the BOP would award him
nearly six years of credit and that, if it did not, he “could still appeal.” Id. at 216.
Plea counsel testified to different events, however, saying that she explained to
Mr. Cottingham that he would get credit for time “he had only served on the robbery
case.” Id. at 227. She denied that when Mr. Cottingham entered his plea, “he
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expected that he would get credit for all of the time he had served” for the state
robbery, nearly six years. Id. at 241–42. She instead understood that he expected to
receive credit for “the time he had exclusively served on the robbery that he hadn’t
gotten credit for on any other case.” Id. at 241. The court found that Mr. Cottingham
entered his plea knowingly and voluntarily, and it denied his motion to withdraw his
plea. After sentencing, Mr. Cottingham filed this appeal.
Discussion
We will enforce an appeal waiver if (1) the appeal falls within the waiver’s
scope, (2) the defendant waived the right to appeal knowingly and voluntarily, and
(3) enforcing the waiver would not “result in a miscarriage of justice.” United States
v. Hahn, 359 F.3d 1315, 1325 (10th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (per curiam).
Mr. Cottingham does not contend that this appeal falls outside his waiver’s scope or
that enforcing the waiver would cause a miscarriage of justice, so we need not
address those issues. See United States v. Porter, 405 F.3d 1136, 1143 (10th Cir.
2005). We focus on Mr. Cottingham’s claim that he did not enter into the plea
agreement knowingly. After all, if he did not enter the agreement knowingly, “the
appellate waiver subsumed in the agreement also cannot stand.” United States v.
Rollings, 751 F.3d 1183, 1189 (10th Cir. 2014). “Whether a guilty plea was entered
knowingly and voluntarily is generally a question of law we review de novo.”
Id. at 1191. Mr. Cottingham has the burden to prove he did not enter his plea
knowingly. See United States v. Jim, 786 F.3d 802, 810 (10th Cir. 2015).
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To assess whether a waiver was knowing and voluntary, we typically focus on
two factors: “whether the language of the plea agreement states that the defendant
entered the agreement knowingly and voluntarily” and whether the district court
conducted “an adequate Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 colloquy.” Hahn,
359 F.3d at 1325. These factors weigh decidedly against Mr. Cottingham. He
expressly asserted in his plea agreement that he understood his appellate rights and
that he knowingly and voluntarily waived them. He further asserted that he
understood the agreement and voluntarily agreed to it. And after conducting a
thorough plea colloquy, the court found that he entered his plea knowingly and
voluntarily.
In the face of the plea agreement and the plea colloquy, Mr. Cottingham’s
arguments fail to show that he did not enter his plea knowingly. Take first the claim
that he (incorrectly) thought he would receive almost six years of credit against his
sentence.1 For one thing, plea counsel testified that she told him he would get credit
only for time he had served on the robbery and no other offense.2 And for another,
1
We do not decide here how much credit Mr. Cottingham should receive
against his sentence. We will assume, without deciding, that he is correct when he
says the BOP may not give him credit for the entire period he spent confined for the
state robbery prosecution. Even if that is true, he has not shown that he did not enter
his plea knowingly.
2
Mr. Cottingham characterizes plea counsel’s testimony on this point as
“seemingly contradictory.” Resp. at 9. We do not see her testimony that way. True
enough, she said that when Mr. Cottingham came up with the proposed plea
agreement, he expected “to get credit for all the time that he had served on the
robbery.” R. vol. 1 at 241. But the court then immediately asked what plea counsel
understood at the time of the plea hearing. In response, plea counsel denied that
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Mr. Cottingham expressly said in the plea agreement that no promises or
inducements had been made to him except those in the agreement itself, a statement
that contradicts his later claim that he “only pled guilty because” his lawyer assured
him that the BOP would have to give him nearly six years of credit. R. vol. 1 at 105.
Seeking to tie his argument to the plea agreement, Mr. Cottingham points to
the provision saying that his sentence “should run concurrent with time he is already
serving in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for offenses unrelated to the
instant offense.” Id. at 97. But this provision says nothing about credit against the
sentence, so it does not support Mr. Cottingham’s claim about how much credit he
expected.
Nor does the record show that Mr. Cottingham misunderstood the scope of his
appeal waiver. He argues that he thought the “plea agreement provided him effective
recourse” if the BOP denied him the nearly six years of credit. Resp. at 11. But he
does not explain—and the record does not show—what recourse he thought would be
available. One thing is clear: He could not have expected recourse through a direct
appeal of the district court’s sentence, for he himself acknowledged during the plea
colloquy that the BOP, not the court, would determine how much credit he received.
And the plea agreement leaves no room for the idea that Mr. Cottingham could
appeal his sentence if he did not receive the credit he expected.
Mr. Cottingham expected to receive credit for nearly six years. She instead
understood him to expect credit for “the time he had exclusively served on the
robbery that he hadn’t gotten credit for on any other case.” Id. at 242. In its full
context, counsel’s testimony is clear.
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Besides, Mr. Cottingham does not argue that his plea agreement restricted his
ability to seek review of the BOP’s credit decision. In fact, he recognizes that he
may seek administrative and judicial review of the BOP’s credit decision. See United
States v. Wilson, 503 U.S. 329, 335–36 (1992). But this review, he says, is “not the
type of immediate, direct, and counseled appeal that [he] likely had in mind when he
asked if he was preserving his right to appeal.”3 Resp. at 12. Such speculation
cannot overcome the statements Mr. Cottingham made in his plea agreement and in
court showing that he understood his appeal waiver. See Blackledge v. Allison,
431 U.S. 63, 74 (1977) (“Solemn declarations in open court carry a strong
presumption of verity.”).
Conclusion
Mr. Cottingham has not shown that he did not enter his plea knowingly. We
grant the government’s motion to enforce his appeal waiver and dismiss this appeal.
Entered for the Court
Per Curiam
3
Mr. Cottingham also says it would be futile for him to seek review of an
adverse BOP decision because “federal law prohibits the BOP from granting” more
than 806 days of credit against his sentence. Resp. at 13. At its core, this argument
targets not the adequacy of the available review but instead plea counsel’s advice
about how much credit Mr. Cottingham could receive under the law. And we have
already rejected his claim that a mistaken belief about the credit he would receive
prevented him from entering his plea knowingly.
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