Carnine v. U.S.
| Decision Date | 24 July 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-1978,91-1978 |
| Citation | 974 F.2d 924 |
| Parties | Larry Joe CARNINE, Sr., Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Larry J. Carnine, Sr., pro se.
Linda S. Chapman, Asst. U.S. Atty., Steven D. Debrota, Indianapolis, Ind., for respondent-appellee.
Before CUMMINGS, POSNER, and MANION, Circuit Judges.
The government and Larry Carnine, Sr. entered into a guilty plea agreement that appears to be missing a part: the start date of his sentence. Contending that his plea is constitutionally defective, Carnine brought an action to vacate, set aside, or correct the sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The district court denied the motion, dismissing it for lack of jurisdiction as to any claim concerning the computation of Carnine's term and finding the substance of his challenge to be without merit. Were Carnine's claim in fact a call for recalculating his sentence, the district court would have been correct in concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the motion. But since his motion in essence concerns the validity of the plea agreement itself, the district court had jurisdiction to entertain the claim. Because we find Carnine's assertions sufficient to require an evidentiary hearing, we reverse the district court's order and remand for further proceedings.
At the time that he entered into the plea agreement, Carnine was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institute in Ashland, Kentucky, where he was serving a forty-six-month sentence on four federal counts involving auto theft. That sentence (hereinafter, "the Ohio sentence") ran from the day of his arrest on October 18, 1988.
While serving the Ohio sentence, Carnine was indicted in Indiana on twenty-two counts charging him with violating federal laws also related to stolen motor vehicles. 1 At a hearing on the day scheduled for Carnine's trial, the court determined that he was mentally competent to stand trial, the government presented various plea options it had offered Carnine, and the parties conferred about the terms of a possible agreement, both on the record and off. Assistant United States Attorneys Linda S. Chapman and R. Stanley Powell appeared on behalf of the government. Carnine, who was represented by S. Frank Mattox and Robert W. Hammerle, entered his guilty plea to seventeen of the counts. The court read aloud the final agreement between Carnine and the government, which states in relevant part:
It is understood that should the Court accept this plea agreement that the sentence to be imposed is a term of imprisonment of sixty (60) months to be served concurrently with the defendant's previously imposed sentence in the Southern District of Ohio on October 18, 1988, pursuant to Rule 11(e)(1)(C).
Plea Agreement, filed Oct. 23, 1989, at p 2 (emphasis added).
On December 8, 1989--fourteen months into the forty-six-month Ohio sentence--the district court sentenced Carnine to a sixty-month term of imprisonment (hereinafter, "the Indiana sentence"). 2 At the sentencing hearing, the judge stated that
the defendant is hereby committed to the custody of the attorney general or his authorized representative for imprisonment for a term of sixty months on each count, to be served concurrently with each other, and with the term of imprisonment that the defendant is currently serving in cause number CR-87-096-01, imposed in the U.S. District Court, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Transcript of Sentencing Hearing, Dec. 8, 1989, at 12; Appellee's Appendix (hereinafter "App.") at 72 (emphasis added). Carnine did not file a direct appeal.
After learning in August of 1990 that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was calculating the Indiana sentence with a start date of December 8, 1989, he filed a § 2255 motion contending that the government is refusing to abide by the terms of the agreement. Alternatively, he claimed on one ground that if the government is correct in its interpretation, then the agreement is invalid because the U.S. Attorney induced him to plead guilty by promising that the Indiana sentence would run from the commencement date of the Ohio sentence. On another ground, he claimed ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney allowed him to sign the agreement under the erroneous belief that the Indiana sentence would commence retroactively.
On appeal, Carnine makes three arguments: that the court had jurisdiction to hear his claim; that the court did not fully consider the matter and should not have dismissed his § 2255 motion without an evidentiary hearing; and that it abused its discretion by issuing a "blanket denial" foreclosing any future relief on related issues. The crux of the dispute is whether the Indiana sentence began to run on December 8, 1989, as the government contends, or on October 18, 1988 (the same date the Ohio sentence commenced), as Carnine argues.
Section 2255 is the proper vehicle for collaterally attacking the validity of a conviction and sentence. Judicial review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241, in contrast, provides the appropriate mechanism in a claim concerning the computation of a sentence. Atehortua v. Kindt, 951 F.2d 126, 129 (7th Cir.1991); United States v. Miller, 871 F.2d 488, 490 (4th Cir.1989); United States v. Ford, 627 F.2d 807, 813 (7th Cir.1980), certiorari denied, 449 U.S. 923, 101 S.Ct. 324, 66 L.Ed.2d 151. Such review is obtainable, however, only after a prisoner exhausts administrative remedies. United States v. Brumbaugh, 909 F.2d 289 (7th Cir.1990).
Carnine undoubtedly seeks a particular execution of the Indiana sentence that supports his understanding of the plea agreement. But the thrust of his complaint concerns the constitutionality of the agreement. The district court incorrectly characterized Carnine's claim as one that "solely concerns the question of the computation of his sentence." App. at 2. In fact, "the appropriate remedy is under § 2255, not 28 U.S.C. § 2241, since the alleged errors occurred at or prior to sentencing." United States v. Flores, 616 F.2d 840, 842 (5th Cir.1980). Therefore, the district court erred in dismissing Carnine's motion for lack of jurisdiction.
Although § 2255 furnishes an appropriate basis of relief in the instant case, "a district court cannot reach the merits of an appealable issue in a § 2255 proceeding unless that issue has been raised in a procedurally appropriate manner." Theodorou v. United States, 887 F.2d 1336, 1339 (7th Cir.1989). The failure to raise constitutional challenges to a conviction on direct appeal bars a petitioner from raising the same issues in a § 2255 proceeding without showing both (1) good cause for the failure to pursue a direct appeal and (2) actual prejudice resulting from the alleged constitutional violation. Id. at 1440.
In maintaining that Carnine waived his arguments when he failed to raise them on direct appeal, the government is grasping at straws. Carnine had good cause because he did not become aware of the effective commencement date of the Indiana sentence until he obtained a report from the BOP, well after the deadline for direct appeal had elapsed. Actual prejudice possibly resulted either from the government's alleged refusal to abide by the terms it agreed to, from alleged promises made by the prosecutor in order to induce Carnine to plead guilty, or from his receiving ineffective assistance of counsel. 3 E.g., Meagher v. Dugger, 861 F.2d 1242, 1247 (11th Cir.1988).
We review evidence and draw all reasonable inferences from it in a light most favorable to the government when an appellant seeks post-conviction relief under § 2255. Messinger v. United States, 872 F.2d 217, 219 (7th Cir.1989); United States v. Cosentino, 869 F.2d 301, 302 (7th Cir.1989), certiorari denied, 492 U.S. 908, 109 S.Ct. 3220, 106 L.Ed.2d 570. We disagree with the district court's view that Carnine neither alleges any invalidity in his sentence nor expresses discontent with the plea agreement itself. Carnine advances precisely these claims.
This circuit regards plea agreements as contracts conferring all of the attendant rights and obligations governed by ordinary principles of contract law. See United States v. Osborne, 931 F.2d 1139, 1162 (7th Cir.1991); United States v. Sophie, 900 F.2d 1064, 1071 (7th Cir.1990), certiorari denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 124, 112 L.Ed.2d 92. Plea agreements, though, are unique contracts "in which special due process concerns for fairness and the adequacy of procedural safeguards obtain." United States v. Ataya, 864 F.2d 1324, 1329 (7th Cir.1988) (citations omitted). When presented with questions concerning the interpretation and enforcement of ambiguous plea agreements, "this court has developed a consistent set of principles ...", United States v. Fields, 766 F.2d 1161, 1167 (7th Cir.1985), one of which holds that "the essence of the particular agreement and the Government's conduct relating to its obligations in that case" are determinative. United States v. Mooney, 654 F.2d 482, 486 (7th Cir.1981). With these principles in mind, we turn to the language of the contract and various discussions about it.
Our cases firmly establish an expectation that the government draft plea agreements with particular care and precision to avoid exactly the type of definitional pitfalls we encounter here. Fields, 766 F.2d at 1169 (); United States v. DeMichael, 692 F.2d 1059, 1062-63 (7th Cir.1982) (...
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