United States v. Spaeth

United States v. Spaeth, 69 F.4th 1190 (10th Cir. 2023) (to win on collateral constitutional challenges to a plea agreement based on ineffectiveness of counsel, defendant must show that counsel’s ineffectiveness produced an involuntary and unknowing plea). In 2016, Mr. Spaeth pled guilty in an 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. In exchange for the guilty plea, the government agreed to dismiss numerous other charges and to recommend a binding sentence of 180 months imprisonment. Mr. Spaeth stated in the agreement and at his plea colloquy that he freely, voluntarily, and knowingly entered into the plea. His plea agreement also included a broad waiver of appellate rights, with carve-outs for a sentence outside the agreed upon sentence and for a collateral attack based on ineffective assistance of counsel. After Mr. Spaeth was sentenced, the federal government began an investigation into a drug smuggling operation at the facility where Mr. Spaeth had been housed while his case was pending. The government subpoenaed recordings of phone calls outgoing from the prison, including attorney-client communications. In 2018, the Kansas FPD office was appointed to represent over 100 defendants with potential Sixth Amendment claims based on the government’s listening to attorney-client calls. The district court imposed an inference against the government that it was privy to communications between the petitioners and counsel. The AUSA on Mr. Spaeth’s case denied listening to any of his calls by affidavit. Mr. Spaeth filed a § 2255 motion to vacate based on the Sixth Amendment violation. In a nut-shell, the district court found that the problem with Mr. Spaeth’s claim was that it did not even so much as allege that ineffective assistance of counsel resulted in an unknowing and involuntary plea, which the district court ruled was the only way he could qualify for relief given that he pled guilty. Though the court invited him to provide supplemental briefing on the question whether his plea was knowing and voluntary, he instead sought a COA from the Tenth Circuit and the district court dismissed his § 2255 motion. Before getting into a discussion on the merits, the Tenth Circuit set forth a summary of the state of the applicable law, the main point of which was this: collateral attacks on guilty pleas based on pre-plea constitutional defects, even if the defects were unknown (or unknowable!) at the time, only qualify a defendant § 2255 relief where the error meant that his plea was not knowing and voluntary. Where the challenge involves a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, that ineffective assistance must have caused the plea to be unknowing or involuntary. “In other words, counseled guilty pleas occasioned by antecedent constitutional violations require, at a minimum, that habeas challengers attack the plea advice they received.” In this way, a defendant convicted by a guilty plea is treated differently than a defendant convicted after trial in the habeas world. “The focus of federal habaes inquiry is the nature of the advice and the voluntariness of the plea, not the existence as such of an antecedent constitutional infirmity.” Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258 (1973). The court noted that there are four “narrow” exceptions to this rule, none of which applied here. Mr. Spaeth argued that the carve-out provisions in his plea agreement, particularly the ineffective assistance one, meant that this standard for plea agreements did not apply to his arguments within the carve-out. Specifically, he argued that the government had itself waived the Tollett standard by agreeing to the carve-out. The Tenth Circuit dispensed with this idea quickly. In response to the question “what effect, if any, the carve-out provision . . . has on the rule of Tollett,” the Tenth Circuit stated: “the short answer is none.” The Tenth Circuit balked at the idea that the government could ever waive the Tollett standard. Next, Mr. Spaeth argued that the Tollett standard should not apply when the government intrudes upon attorney-client privilege. The Tenth Circuit pointed out that most of the authority he pointed to still circulates around the question whether the pleas were knowing and voluntary, so those cases were at least “overlapping” with Tollett. The only other case arose in the context of trial, where a constitutional error has more magnitude and there is an easier path to habeas relief. The Tenth Circuit thus decided that it didn’t have to accept Spaeth’s argument because there was no support requiring that conclusion, but also didn’t really address any substantive reason for rejecting it. There are a lot of words spent here on describing ineffectiveness of counsel in general. Finally, Mr. Spaeth argued that the pre-plea constitutional violations also infected sentencing. The Tenth Circuit summarily rejected this, too, affirming dismissal of the claim.