U.S. v. Guevara, 90-5840
| Decision Date | 12 August 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-5840,90-5840 |
| Citation | 941 F.2d 1299 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Carmen GUEVARA, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Geoffrey Robert Brigham, Crim. Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., argued (Henry E. Hudson, U.S. Atty., William G. Otis, Sr. Litigation Counsel, Christine Wright, Asst. U.S. Atty., Alexandria, Va., on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Gregory Bruce English, English & Smith, Alexandria, Va., for defendant-appellee.
Before RUSSELL and WIDENER, Circuit Judges, and MICHAEL, District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
Carmen Guevara entered into a plea agreement with the government under which she agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, to commit mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341, and to conduct laundering of money instruments under 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(A)(i), all in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. She further agreed to forfeit her home and the $4,651.00 proceeds from the sale of her condominium. She pleaded guilty, an order of forfeiture was entered, and a deed of the house to the government was executed to give effect to the agreement. Guevara was then sentenced to 28 months of imprisonment to be followed by three years of supervised release. The severity of this sentence not to its liking, the government appealed.
The plea agreement contains a provision whereby "... defendant knowingly waives her right to appeal the sentence in exchange for the concessions made by the government in this agreement," and another provision that "... the defendant, knowing that he has a right of direct appeal of the sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) and the grounds listed therein, expressly waives the right to appeal her sentence on those grounds or on any ground." Similar provisions waiving a defendant's right to appeal have been upheld in United States v. Wiggins, 905 F.2d 51 (4th Cir.1990). In that case, we considered language indistinguishable from that which we have quoted above and gave as a reason for our decision that "[t]he government has added the waiver language to its standard plea precisely because it preserves the finality of judgments and sentences imposed pursuant to valid pleas of guilty." Wiggins, 905 F.2d at 54. The finality of judgments and sentences imposed is no...
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U.S. v. Blick
...5. To whatever extent appeal waivers can be considered "inequitable," we evened the playing field somewhat in United States v. Guevara, 941 F.2d 1299, 1299 (4th Cir.1991), where we held that when a defendant waives the right to appeal in a plea agreement, "such a provision against appeals m......
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U.S. v. Perez, Crim. 98-CR-10389-NG.
...one of the main reasons to push for appeal waivers, the desire for finality, to be disingenuous. As the court in United States v. Guevara, 941 F.2d 1299 (4th Cir.1991), said: "The finality of judgments and sentences is no more preserved by appeals by the government than by appeals by the de......
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U.S. v. Morace
...right to appeal in this circumstance, see United States v. Cohen, 459 F.3d 490, 495 n. 2 (4th Cir.2006); United States v. Guevara, 941 F.2d 1299, 1299-1300 (4th Cir.1991), Morace does not argue that the government should be precluded from pursuing this appeal, and we therefore need not deci......
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United States v. Hammond
...appeal, the Hammonds urge us to imply a waiver into the plea agreement. We have never before done so. But relying on United States v. Guevara, 941 F.2d 1299 (4th Cir.1991), the Hammonds argue that construing the government's silence as an implied waiver will promote fairness and finality. W......