RALEIGH —Law-enforcement officers often attempt to have the most dangerous criminal defendants be prosecuted on the most serious charges possible. Often this means a prosecution is undertaken in federal, instead of state, court. A new ruling by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals changes the ground rules in these federal prosecutions by limiting the issues that defendants in North Carolina and several surrounding states may appeal while still pleading guilty.
Federal law requires that the owners of certain types of firearms register them in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. Federal agents observed Stephen Bundy on a firing range with one such weapon, an AR-15 rifle. When Bundy’s name didn’t appear in the registry, the agents obtained a warrant and searched Bundy’s house. Based upon evidence obtained during the search, Bundy was charged with three counts of possessing an unregistered firearm and one count of possessing a stolen firearm.
Court rules require that certain sorts of issues be brought before the judge through motions that are argued and decided on before the actual trial begins. A judge’s decision on these pretrial matters generally cannot be appealed until after trial and, if the defendant is found guilty, sentencing. Federal sentencing regulations also provide for shorter sentences for defendants who plead guilty, thereby sparing the government the cost of conducting a trial. By pleading guilty, defendants ordinarily waive their right to appeal, including the ability to appeal a judge’s pretrial rulings.
An exceptions exists, however, if the defendant enters into a plea bargain with the government that specifically allows for an appeal of specifically stated issues. Such agreements are enforced like contracts. This is exactly what Bundy did. Under the terms of the deal he struck, he pled guilty to one count of possessing an unregistered firearm and was to be allowed to appeal the judge’s ruling on the three pretrial motions he had made. The other counts were dismissed. Bundy received a 37-month sentence.
The 4th Circuit, however, refused to consider Bundy’s appeal.
“…We conclude that a valid conditional guilty plea preserves for appellate review only case-dispositive pretrial issues,” Judge Shedd wrote for the court.
“Judicial economy is not well served when a defendant pleads guilty in exchange for the right to appeal non-case-dispositive pretrial issues. Such conditional pleas forecast additional proceedings in the district court, resulting in needless delays in criminal adjudications. If the defendant prevails on appeal, then he is entitled under the Rule to withdraw his guilty plea.”
One of Bundy’s pretrial motions had sought that the government provide any information it had that might show that the firearms registry was incomplete or inaccurate. The trial judge turned down the motion. The 4th Circuit found that this was exactly the sort of non-case-dispositive issue that should not be the subject of a conditional guilty plea, because it may or may not have an impact on the case but would have required additional court time to resolve. As a result, it refused to consider Bundy’s appeal of the issue.
Significantly, the court held that because of this it was also without authority to even consider the other two, clearly case-dispositive issues — a constitutional challenge to two of the original charges and whether the agent’s search had gone too far — allowed by the conditional guilty plea.
“We conclude that the presence of one non-case-dispositive issue in this conditional plea renders the entire plea invalid. Bundy’s guilty plea was conditioned on our affirming all three pretrial orders, and we could not rule on some but not all of those orders without undermining the bargain that Bundy struck with the Government… Because we cannot rewrite Bundy’s plea agreement to excise the reference to the non-case-dispositive discovery order, we conclude that the plea on which the judgment was based is not a valid conditional plea.”
The Court of Appeals ordered that the case again go before a federal district court judge, with Bundy having the choice of accepting a plea bargain without a right of appeal on the third non-case-dispositive issue or going to trial.
The case is United States vs Bundy, (CR-03-4599).