Friday, February 08, 2019

Government Could Enforce Appellate Waiver in Appeal of Denial of 2255 Motion

United States v. Lopez-Aguilar, 912 F.3d 1327 (10th Cir. 2019) (NM): When Lopez appealed the denial of his Johnson II based 28 U.S.C. § 2255 petition to correct his sentence, the government moved to enforce his plea agreement’s appellate waiver. The panel disagreed with Lopez that the government had waived this argument by not making it in the district court. In § 2255 proceedings, a district court can either summarily dismiss the motion or order a response. Here, the district court did not order the government to respond, so it could raise the waiver for the first time on appeal.