United States v. Brizan

Criminal Procedure: A waiver of appeal in a plea agreement will be upheld as long the district court conducts a thorough Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 colloquy and the sentence does not contradict any plea agreement or exceed a statutory limit.

After retaining new counsel, Francheska Brizan moved to withdraw a previously entered into plea agreement and dismiss the information as defective. The district court denied her motion, and she was subsequently sentenced. Brizan argued that her motion to withdraw the plea agreement should have been granted because the misprision charge violated her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and the plea was factually deficient. The Ninth Circuit found that none of the exceptions to a general waiver of appeal applied and the district court complied with Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 since the sentence did not violate the plea agreement or statutory limits. The panel reaffirmed its previous holding that misprision charges are unconstitutional only if they require the defendant to report her own conduct to authorities; however, this was not the case here. The panel concluded that because Brizan waived her Fifth Amendment rights in the plea agreement and that waiver was knowing and voluntary, the appeal must be dismissed. DISMISSED.