U.S. v. Knowles, 93-1557

Decision Date10 August 1994
Docket NumberNo. 93-1557,93-1557
PartiesUNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Rodney Eugene KNOWLES, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Peter Fleury, Asst. Federal Public Defender, Ira R. Kirkendoll, Federal Public Defender, Fort Worth, TX, for appellant.

Paul E. Gartner, Asst. U.S. Atty., Richard H. Stephens, U.S. Atty., Ft. Worth, TX, for appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before GOLDBERG, KING and WIENER, Circuit Judges.

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge:

Fort Worth police officers arrested Rodney Eugene Knowles on the campus of Eastern Hills High School on April 15, 1992. Knowles, who had previously been convicted of a felony, was carrying a fully loaded handgun.

In a two count indictment, federal authorities charged Knowles with one count of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 922(g)(1) and one count of possession of a firearm in a school zone in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 922(q)(1)(A). Without entering into a plea agreement, Knowles pleaded guilty to both counts. The district court sentenced Knowles to a 63-month term of imprisonment on the possession of a firearm by a felon count and to an 18-month term of imprisonment on the possession of a firearm in a school zone count. The district judge ordered the 18-month sentence to be served consecutively to the 63-month sentence, resulting in a total term of imprisonment of 81 months.

On the same day that he was sentenced, June 11, 1993, Knowles's attorney filed a Notice of Appeal. In this notice, Knowles appealed "to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from the sentence entered in this matter." Three days later, on June 14, 1993, the district court entered the judgment in this case. 1 After the district court entered the judgment, but before any briefs in this appeal had been filed, this court delivered an opinion in United States v. Lopez, 2 F.3d 1342 (5th Cir.1993), cert. granted, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 1536, 128 L.Ed.2d 189 (1994). In that case, we found 18 U.S.C. Sec. 922(q) unconstitutional, stating that Congress had not properly invoked its power under the Commerce Clause when it enacted that statute. Id. at 1367-68. In his brief to this court Knowles took up this argument and asserted that Lopez requires reversal of his conviction and sentence on the possession of a firearm in a school zone count. Knowles also argued that the district court imposed the 18-month sentence on the possession of a firearm in a school zone count in violation of the federal sentencing guidelines. In its brief, the government did not question the adequacy of Knowles's Notice of Appeal. The government responded to both Knowles's Lopez argument and the contentions based on the sentencing guidelines.

Raising the matter sua sponte at oral argument, see United States v. Cronan, 937 F.2d 163, 164 (5th Cir.1991), we requested the parties to address whether Knowles's Notice of Appeal, which stated only that Knowles appealed from the "sentence entered in this matter," was sufficient to allow him to appeal his underlying convictions and challenge the constitutionality of section 922(q). The parties addressed this issue in supplemental briefs. Knowles argued that his Notice of Appeal was adequate to allow him to challenge his conviction on the possession of a firearm in a school zone count. Alternatively, Knowles moved for leave to correct or amend his Notice of Appeal. For its part, the government agreed that Knowles's Notice of Appeal was sufficient to allow a challenge to the constitutionality of the conviction based on section 922(q), but registered its opposition to Knowles's motion to correct or amend his Notice of Appeal. We will address the adequacy of Knowles's Notice of Appeal before turning to the other issues presented in this appeal.

I. Appellate Jurisdiction

Rule 3(c) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure instructs appellants to "designate the judgment, order or part thereof appealed from." We have consistently given a liberal interpretation to this requirement. See, e.g., United States v. Ramirez, 932 F.2d 374, 375 (5th Cir.1991); see also Smith v. Barry, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 678, 681, 116 L.Ed.2d 678 (1992) ("Courts will liberally construe the requirements of Rule 3."). For example, in United States v. Rochester, 898 F.2d 971 (5th Cir.1990), we wrote that a "[f]ailure to properly designate the order appealed from is not a jurisdictional defect, and may be cured by an indication of intent in the briefs or otherwise." Id. at 976 n. 1. Similarly, in Turnbull v. United States, 929 F.2d 173 (5th Cir.1991), we explained that "a mistake in designating a judgment appealed from should not bar an appeal as long as the intent to appeal a specific judgment can be fairly inferred and the appellee is not prejudiced or misled by the mistake." Id. at 177; see also S.E.C. v. Van Waeyenberghe, 990 F.2d 845, 847 n. 3 (5th Cir.1993); In Re Transamerican Natural Gas Corp., 978 F.2d 1409, 1414 (5th Cir.1992), cert. dismissed, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1892, 123 L.Ed.2d 646 (1993); Friou v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 948 F.2d 972, 974 (5th Cir.1991).

Applying the rules articulated in these cases, we held in Turnbull that the appellant, who had only appealed from a district court order that denied a motion for a new trial, could raise arguments addressing the underlying judgment in that case. Turnbull, 929 F.2d at 178. We reached an identical result in United States v. Lopez-Escobar, 920 F.2d 1241 (5th Cir.1991) and in Osterberger v. Relocation Realty Serv. Corp., 921 F.2d 72 (5th Cir.1991).

Our opinion in Ramirez, supra, is particularly instructive in this case. In that case, the appellant prepared a typewritten notice of appeal stating that he appealed the judgment and his sentence. The appellant then drew a line through the word "sentence," leaving intact the portion of the notice of appeal that referred to the judgment. We granted the appellant's motion to correct or amend the notice of appeal and allowed him to challenge the sentence on appeal, despite the fact that he had originally crossed out the reference to "sentence" in the notice. Ramirez, 932 F.2d at 375. We explained that this action was consistent with our approach to other similar cases. Id. The appellant had addressed his challenge to the sentence in his brief and hence had fairly indicated his intent to appeal the sentence. We also found that allowing the defendant to challenge the sentence in that case did not prejudice the government. These factors satisfied our rule that "when the intent to appeal an unnamed or mislabeled ruling is apparent (from the briefs or otherwise) and no prejudice results to the adverse party, the appeal is not jurisdictionally defective." Id.; see also Turnbull, 929 F.2d at 177.

United States v. Winn, 948 F.2d 145 (5th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1599, 118 L.Ed.2d 313 (1992) is also illuminating. In that case, the defendant filed a notice of appeal after the jury returned its guilty verdict, but before the sentenced was imposed and the judgment was entered. We held that we had jurisdiction over an appeal of the defendant's sentence even though the notice of appeal mentioned only the jury verdict--not the sentence or the judgment that incorporated it--and even though the notice of appeal was filed before the sentence had been imposed. We first explained that the defendant's failure to specify expressly in his notice of appeal that he was appealing his sentence did not ipso facto bar an appeal of the sentence. Id. at 154. We then examined Ramirez and found that the defendant could appeal both the conviction and the sentence. Id. at 155. As in previous cases, the defendant had briefed the issues that related to his sentence and thereby fairly expressed his intent to appeal the sentence. Moreover, the government conceded that it was not misled or prejudiced. We thus held that the defendant could appeal his sentence.

Some of our cases have suggested that it is more acceptable to allow a defendant who has appealed only his or her conviction to contest the sentence than it is to allow a defendant who has only appealed the sentence to challenge his or her conviction. For instance, in Ramirez, 932 F.2d at 376, we wrote that "[a] criminal defendant who appeals his sentence but not his conviction is likely acknowledging his guilt and merely contesting his punishment. The converse is not necessarily so because a defendant ... who appeals his conviction is almost always appealing his sentence too." Although this statement may be accurate as an empirical matter, we do not believe that it is necessarily true. It seems equally plausible to us that there may be (1) defendants who only appeal their sentences who have challenges to their underlying convictions and (2) defendants who only appeal their convictions who do not have challenges to their sentences. Nevertheless, the point that we wish to make is a more narrow one. Distinctions between defendants who appeal their convictions and defendants who appeal their sentences should not be determinative when questions concerning potentially defective notices of appeal arise. The standard by which we determine whether a notice of appeal should be read to allow an appeal of an unnamed or mislabeled ruling should be what we have traditionally required: whether the appealing party has exhibited an intent to appeal the ruling and whether the opposing party was misled or prejudiced. Ramirez, 932 F.2d at 375; Turnbull, 929 F.2d at 177.

In the present case, Knowles specified only his sentence in his Notice of Appeal; he did not indicate that he was appealing his conviction on the possession of a firearm in a school zone count. However, the failure of Knowles's Notice of Appeal to refer to this conviction "does not per se preclude appealing" his...

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