U.S. v. Redmond

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant's request to withdraw his guilty plea to drug charge, even though defendant claimed that withdrawal was appropriate where: (1) Dist. Ct. attributed amount of drugs that was more than amount involved in charged offense; and (2) Dist. Ct. had found defendant to be career offender without proper notice being given to defendant. Record showed that defendant entered plea without having secured any plea agreement, and thus had no guarantee as to amount of relevant conduct that could be attributed to defendant. Also, defendant's status as career offender made instant relevant conduct determination by Dist. Ct. irrelevant. Moreover, defendant could not base plea withdrawal on claim that he was under belief that career offender status would not be imposed due to fact that section 851 notice given by govt. contained only one prior conviction where: (1) notice requirements under section 851 do not apply when govt. seeks career status, and thus govt. was not required to give defendant notice of additional convictions that might trigger career offender status; and (2) defendant had other qualifying convictions to support career offender status finding and had discussed with his counsel possibility of being sentenced as career offender.