United States v. David Williams , 478 F. App'x 364 ( 2012 )


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  •                                                                               FILED
    NOT FOR PUBLICATION                                APR 25 2012
    MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                          U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                        No. 10-50577
    Plaintiff - Appellant,             D.C. No. 3:02-cr-03171-IEG-1
    v.
    MEMORANDUM*
    DAVID DWIGHT WILLIAMS,
    Defendant - Appellee.
    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                        No. 10-50578
    Plaintiff - Appellee,              D.C. No. 3:02-cr-03171-IEG-1
    v.
    DAVID DWIGHT WILLIAMS,
    Defendant - Appellant.
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Southern District of California
    Irma E. Gonzalez, Chief District Judge, Presiding
    Argued and Submitted April 11, 2012
    Pasadena, California
    *
    This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
    except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
    -2-
    Before: FERNANDEZ and SILVERMAN, Circuit Judges, and BLOCK, Senior
    District Judge.**
    Defendant David Williams was charged with, inter alia, conspiracy to
    possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine in violation of
    
    21 U.S.C. § 841
    (a)(1) and 
    21 U.S.C. § 846
    . He requested a jury instruction on
    sentencing entrapment, but the district court declined to give his requested
    instruction, holding that sentencing entrapment was a question for the sentencing
    judge, not the jury. Williams then entered a conditional guilty plea in which, inter
    alia, Williams: (1) pled guilty to a drug trafficking conspiracy involving one
    hundred kilograms of cocaine; (2) reserved his right to present his sentencing
    entrapment defense to the district court at sentencing; and (3) reserved his right to
    appeal the denial of his requested jury instruction. At sentencing, the district court
    found that Williams had been the victim of sentencing entrapment, justifying a
    sentence below the ten-year statutory mandatory minimum for a § 841 violation
    involving five kilograms or more of cocaine. See 
    21 U.S.C. § 841
    (b)(1)(A)(ii).
    The district court sentenced Williams to five years on the § 841 count, for a total
    sentence of ten years. The government now appeals Williams’s sentence which
    **
    The Honorable Frederic Block, Senior United States District Judge for
    the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
    -3-
    was below the mandatory minimum, and Williams conditionally cross-appeals the
    refusal to give a jury instruction on sentencing entrapment.
    We affirm. In his written plea agreement and in the plea colloquy, Williams
    reserved his right to assert sentencing entrapment at sentencing. We see no reason
    why the parties could not agree that Williams’s guilty plea would be contingent on
    his ability to raise sentencing entrapment at sentencing. The district court accepted
    the agreement with that reservation and, ultimately, acted upon it. Moreover, the
    government’s agreements should be enforced. See Santobello v. New York, 
    404 U.S. 257
    , 262 (1971); United States v. Franco-Lopez, 
    312 F.3d 984
    , 989 (9th Cir.
    2002); cf. United States v. Briggs, 
    623 F.3d 724
    , 727, 730 (9th Cir. 2010).
    We cannot now disregard that principle and declare that for purposes of his
    plea Williams agreed to the one hundred kilograms of cocaine, if he could argue at
    sentencing that it was due to sentencing entrapment, but he is bound to the first
    part of the agreement and is not entitled to enforce the second part. That result
    would be anoetic.
    The government also challenges the district court’s finding that Williams
    was in fact subjected to sentencing entrapment. We disagree. The district court
    did not clearly err in finding that the government structured the sting operation in
    such a way as to maximize the sentence imposed upon Williams without regard for
    -4-
    his culpability or ability to commit the crime on his own. See United States
    Schafer, 
    625 F.3d 629
    , 639–640 (9th Cir. 2010).
    Because we affirm Williams’s sentence in the government’s appeal, we need
    not, and do not, reach Williams’s conditional cross appeal.
    AFFIRMED.
    FILED
    USA v Willams 10-50577+                                                       APR 25 2012
    MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
    SILVERMAN, Circuit Judge, dissenting:                                      U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
    As I see it, Williams’s guilty plea — in which he specifically admitted that
    his crime involved more than five kilograms of cocaine — triggered the ten-year
    statutory mandatory minimum without further ado. See 
    21 U.S.C. § 841
    (b)(1)(A)(ii). Since such a sentence is, indeed, mandatory, the parties could
    not legally stipulate to a procedure allowing the sentencing judge to go below the
    mandatory minimum. See United States v. Haynes, 
    216 F.3d 789
    , 799 & n.8 (9th
    Cir. 2000). If Williams wanted to preserve his argument that he had been
    entrapped as far as the quantity of drugs was concerned, he should not have pled
    guilty to the drug quantity charged in the indictment. Once he did so, his goose
    was cooked. See United States v. Briggs, 
    623 F.3d 724
    , 730 (9th Cir. 2010).
    If Williams was misled to enter his plea under the mistaken impression that
    he could both plead guilty to a crime involving one hundred kilograms of cocaine
    and also claim sentencing entrapment before the sentencing judge, his remedy
    would be to withdraw his plea. But that’s not what he seeks to do.
    Turning to Williams’s conditional cross appeal of the denial of his requested
    -2-
    jury instruction, we have held that drug types and quantities triggering higher
    statutory maximum sentences under 
    21 U.S.C. § 841
    (b) are jury questions under
    Apprendi v. New Jersey, 
    530 U.S. 466
     (2000). See United States v. Buckland, 
    289 F.3d 558
    , 568 (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc). So too are defenses to those drug types
    and quantities. See United States v. Escobar de Bright, 
    742 F.2d 1196
    , 1201–02
    (9th Cir. 1984); Jacobson v. United States, 
    503 U.S. 540
    , 548–49 (1992). Thus,
    the district court erred in holding that Williams could not try to a jury his defense
    that he was entrapped as to the drug quantity.
    I would reverse Williams’s conviction and sentence and remand the case for
    trial.