U.S. v. Adame-Hernandez

Dist. Ct. erred in finding that defendant had breached his plea agreement on drug charge by failing to agree to amount of cocaine attributed to him in presentence report, and in finding that that it would not accept 204-month sentence provided in plea agreement, where Dist. Ct.’s action allowed govt. to subsequently file superseding indictment on essentially same charge that ultimately resulted in imposition of 300-month sentence after defendant entered second guilty plea. Defendant essentially suffered double jeopardy violation when Dist. Ct. withdrew defendant's first guilty plea through its improper application of Rule 11, and when he entered into second guilty plea on essentially same charge. Moreover, Dist. Ct. lacked authority to withdraw defendant’s first guilty plea even if he had breached some material term of plea agreement, and instead should have given defendant choice of either withdrawing guilty plea or, if defendant still wished to plead guilty, to proceed on plea with knowledge that his sentence would be greater than 204 months.