By: Derek Hawkins//January 10, 2018//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Cory L. Williams v. United States of America
Case No.: 16-3715
Officials: EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Violation – Rule 11
Cory Williams was charged with two counts of Hobbs Act robbery, 18 U.S.C. § 1952(a); one count of bank robbery, id. § 2113(a), (d); and three counts of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of those crimes, id. § 924(c). On the § 924(c) counts alone, he faced a statutory minimum of 57 years in prison, the equivalent of a mandatory life sentence. The government offered a favorable plea deal that promised to reduce his sentencing exposure by more than 39 years. After sending the terms to Williams’s attorney, the prosecutor emailed the proposal to Judge McCuskey pursuant to the judge’s standard practice. The judge replied by email, telling the parties that the deal was “exceedingly fair” and “[o]nly a fool would refuse [it].” Williams took the deal and pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 18 years in prison in accordance with the agreement.
A year later Williams moved to set aside his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. As relevant here, he claimed that the judge impermissibly participated in plea negotiations in violation of Rule 11(c)(1) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Due Process Clause. He also alleged a deprivation of his Sixth Amendment right to effective representation based on his lawyer’s failure to raise the Rule 11(c)(1) violation and request the judge’s recusal. A newly assigned judge denied the motion without a hearing.
We affirm. Rule 11(c)(1) flatly forbids any judicial participation in plea negotiations, but the violation in this case was harmless. Williams insists that he would not have taken the plea deal but for the judge’s email, but that claim is not remotely plausible. The government’s case was rock solid, and the plea deal removed the risk of a mandatory life sentence and otherwise substantially reduced Williams’s prison exposure. His attorney’s failure to raise the Rule 11(c)(1) violation and request the judge’s recusal was likewise harmless.
Affirmed