United States v. Benitez
Benitez was arrested for conspiring to possess and distribute methamphetamine, a charge that carries a minimum 10-year sentence. Benitez signed a guilty plea agreement that recommended a reduced sentence, provided he had no prior convictions. The agreement also stated that Benitez could not withdraw his guilty plea even if the court did not accept the plea agreement. However, at his plea hearing, the court failed to warn Benitez orally of the irreversibility of his plea, as required by Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 11. When the court discovered that Benitez had prior convictions under another name, it rejected the plea agreement and imposed a 10-year sentence. Benitez appealed, claiming that the court’s violation of Rule 11 was reversible error. The Ninth Circuit agreed, holding that the court’s failure to warn was plain error looking at the record as a whole, even though the warning was included in the written agreement.
Question Presented:
Whether, in order to show that a violation of Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 11 constitutes reversible plain error, a defendant must demonstrate that he would not have pleaded guilty if the
violation had not occurred.
