United States v. Smith

67 Citing cases

  1. Bachner v. United States

    517 F.2d 589 (7th Cir. 1975)   Cited 73 times
    In Bachner, we held that the failure to inform a defendant of a mandatory parole term was not an error of constitutional magnitude where the sentence imposed did not exceed the maximum sentence the defendant was informed he would receive.

    Bowen was an opinion by Chief Justice Hughes holding habeas corpus available to test the jurisdiction of the court in which the petitioner was convicted. Before Davis, a majority of the circuits, including ours (United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521 (7th Cir. 1971)), granted section 2255 relief to petitioners who were not informed of their ineligibility for parole when they pleaded guilty. Gates v. United States, supra, 515 F.2d at 79, n. 7. These cases, while viewing the error as affecting the defendant's understanding of the consequences of the plea and hence voluntariness, generally relied on Rule 11, as pointed out in Gates, and did not reach the constitutional question. This rule has been extended by two courts to failure to advise of a mandatory special parole term (United States v. Richardson, 483 F.2d 516 (8th Cir. 1973); Roberts v. United States, 491 F.2d 1236 (3rd Cir. 1974)), and by one to advice of a greater maximum sentence than the statute actually provides (Kelsey v. United States, 484 F.2d 1198 (3rd Cir. 1973)).

  2. Gates v. United States

    515 F.2d 73 (7th Cir. 1975)   Cited 34 times
    In Gates the Seventh Circuit applied the Davis standard to another Rule 11 violation, failure to advise of parole ineligibility, and did find that the error warranted relief. Citing the presence of "compound" errors the court concluded that the case presented the requisite "exceptional circumstances."

    Petitioners in their briefs argue that they are entitled to have their guilty pleas automatically vacated because they were accepted in violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Rule 11 requires that before the court accept a plea of guilty it must address the defendant personally and determine "that the plea is made voluntarily with understanding of the nature of the charge and the consequences of the plea." Our court has held that ineligibility for parole is a consequence of a plea of guilty about which a defendant must be informed in order to satisfy Rule 11. United States v. Smith, 7 Cir., 440 F.2d 521, 526 (1971). The United States Supreme Court held on a direct appeal that "a defendant is entitled to plead anew if a United States district court accepts his guilty plea without fully adhering to the procedure provided for in Rule 11."

  3. Moody v. United States

    469 F.2d 705 (8th Cir. 1972)   Cited 19 times
    In Moody v. United States, 469 F.2d 705 (8th Cir. 1972), this Court held that ineligibility for parole was a direct consequence of a guilty plea.

    The bar to parole eligibility has now been removed by the adoption of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, Pub.L. No. 91-513, 84 Stat. 1236. See United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521 (7th Cir. 1971). Our attention has not been called to any decision which applies this repeal of § 7237(d) retroactively to a case similar to Moody's in which the sentence antedated the effective date of the new law.

  4. United States ex Rel. Robinson v. Israel

    581 F.2d 1276 (7th Cir. 1978)   Cited 3 times
    In United States ex rel. Robinson v. Israel, (7th Cir. 1978) 581 F.2d 1276, the same court held that there must be no significant difference between the sentence promised and the one imposed.

    Put another way, the argument is that petitioner only need be told of the range of punishment and not his actual sentence. See Ruiz v. United States, 494 F.2d 1 (5th Cir. 1974), certiorari denied, 419 U.S. 899, 95 S.Ct. 181, 42 L.Ed.2d 144; United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521, 533 (7th Cir. 1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting). As a practical matter, however, the state's argument ignores the fact that in Illinois the minimum sentence term was an accepted determinant of parole eligibility.

  5. Gusow v. State

    6 So. 3d 699 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2009)   Cited 17 times
    In Gusow v. State, 6 So. 3d 699, 702, n. 4 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009), the court wrote that "where a defendant testifies about bad attorney advice... and the attorney does not remember the transaction with the defendant, but testifies to his standard practice which is to correctly advise defendants... the trial court is entitled to disbelieve the defendant's testimony."

    Additionally, the driving motivation for the defendant to accept the plea was that he received probation for 47 felonies, not the potential maximum sentence if he violated his probation. If we were not constrained by the Leroux framework and were writing on a blank slate, we would adopt the analysis of Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent in United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521, 528-29 (7th Cir. 1971), written when the justice was on the seventh circuit. The dissent argued that a guilty plea should not be subject to collateral attack unless the error is constitutional or jurisdictional in nature.

  6. Hill v. Lockhart

    474 U.S. 52 (1985)   Cited 20,438 times   34 Legal Analyses
    Holding that a Strickland claim can be brought to challenge a guilty plea, but rejecting the claim at issue

    Moreover, the concern that unfair procedures may have resulted in the conviction of an innocent defendant is only rarely raised by a petition to set aside a guilty plea.'" Id., at 784 (quoting United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521, 528-529 (CA7 1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting)). We hold, therefore, that the two-part Strickland v. Washington test applies to challenges to guilty pleas based on ineffective assistance of counsel.

  7. United States v. Timmreck

    441 U.S. 780 (1979)   Cited 1,332 times   2 Legal Analyses
    Holding that Rule 11 error without more is not cognizable on collateral review

    Moreover, the concern that unfair procedures may have resulted in the conviction of an innocent defendant is only rarely raised by a petition to set aside a guilty plea." United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521, 528-529 (Stevens, J., dissenting). As in Hill, we find it unnecessary to consider whether § 2255 relief would be available if a violation of Rule 11 occurred in the context of other aggravating circumstances.

  8. Beckington v. Am. Airlines, Inc.

    926 F.3d 595 (9th Cir. 2019)   Cited 19 times
    Holding that "collusion" cannot be the basis for an employer's liability in the union's breach of its duty of fair representation

    With respect, we are "convinced the parade is marching in the wrong direction." United States v. Smith , 440 F.2d 521, 527 (7th Cir. 1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting). The core proposition in United —that, apart from any breach of contract, an employer is liable for a union’s breach of duty "if it acts in collusion with the union," 756 F.2d at 1283 —is unmoored from the RLA.

  9. United States v. Pena

    742 F.3d 508 (1st Cir. 2014)   Cited 9 times
    Noting that “the question of guilt is often bifurcated from the question of criminal forfeiture”

    The impact is greatest when new grounds for setting aside guilty pleas are approved because the vast majority of criminal convictions result from such pleas.Id. at 784, 99 S.Ct. 2085 (quoting United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521, 528–29 (7th Cir.1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting)) (internal quotation mark omitted). The prosecution tries to avoid our conclusion by saying both parties and the court contemplated there would be follow-on proceedings and its hands are now being unfairly tied.

  10. United States v. Fugit

    703 F.3d 248 (4th Cir. 2012)   Cited 445 times
    Holding that defendant's claim was procedurally defaulted because he had failed to make the statutory argument during initial plea proceedings that he now raised on collateral review

    The impact is greatest when new grounds for setting aside guilty pleas are approved because the vast majority of criminal convictions result from such pleas.Id. (quoting United States v. Smith, 440 F.2d 521, 528–29 (7th Cir.1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting)). In addition to emphasizing the sheer volume of guilty pleas, the Supreme Court has located independent value in the fact that such a plea “usually rest[s] ... on a defendant's profession of guilt in open court,” United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 82–83, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004), and allows him to demonstrate “that he is ready and willing to admit his crime and to enter the correctional system in a frame of mind that affords hope for success in rehabilitation over a shorter period of time than might otherwise be necessary,” Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 753, 90 S.Ct. 1463, 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970).