Legal News

9th Circuit rejects government's bid to renege on plea deals

By Jason Siegel

Federal prosecutors in San Diego regretted accepting unconditional guilty pleas from three undocumented aliens charged with illegal return to the United States because the trio were also convicted felons, which could have subjected them to 20 years in prison, rather than the two-year maximum under their plea deals.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected the government's effort to renege on the deals, saying that the U.S. attorney's oversight may have allowed the aliens to avoid stiffer sentences, but "so be it."

Federal prosecutions had argued in each of the three cases that the pleas had to be rejected because the magistrate judges' plea instructions were defective and violated the defendants' rights.

The cases "show again why the ten most terrifying words in the English language may be, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help you,' " wrote Chief Judge Alex Kozinski on Wednesday in, Garcia-Aguilar v. U.S. District Court.

Kozinski said the government argued that the magistrate judges, in accepting the pleas, did not warn the defendants of the maximum sentence possible.

But Kozinski said the individual defendants were warned.

The colloquies with magistrate judges at the time of the plea are to benefit the defendant. The government's offer of help "seems quite noble at first," but "this generosity comes at a steep price," he said. Three superceding indictments were filed that allowed punishment up to 20 years in prison, rather than the two-year maximum under the plea bargain, he noted.

Kozinski wrote that an allegation of prior convictions had to be spelled out in the indictment and either proven to a jury or admitted during a plea, under the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark sentencing ruling in Apprendi v. New Jersey.

But even if the prosecution misunderstood Apprendi, the 9th Circuit made it clear in an Aug. 31, 2006 decision that Apprendi applied to cases involving prior felonies by illegal aliens who illegally re-enter the United States after deportation. U.S. v. Covian-Sandoval, 462 F.3d 1090 (2006).

All three defendants pleaded guilty in September and October of 2006, after the Covian-Sandoval ruling, according to David Zugman, a partner at Burcham & Zugman in San Diego and attorney for one of the three, Guillermo Garcia-Aguilar. The ruling "is important because it means when a person gives a guilty plea to a magistrate, it is not a meaningless act," Zugman said. "The government argued that until a U.S. district judge accepted the plea it was not official. The appeals court rejects that."

Chief of the appellate section Bruce Castetter could not be reached for comment on the ruling.

Zugman said he has other plea bargain cases in the Southern District of California with the same charging and plea issue pending, perhaps a total of five cases in all.

-- Pamela MacLean

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on August 07, 2008 (boomark / email).