Background
Monique Merrival pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Her plea agreement waived all non-jurisdictional appeal rights, with exceptions for upward departures under the Sentencing Guidelines and substantive reasonableness of sentences following upward departures or variances. At sentencing, the district court applied two guideline adjustments over her objection but varied downward to a term of two hundred twenty-four months.
The court’s reasoning
The court concluded that Merrival’s appeal fell within the scope of her waiver. The agreement preserved rights only for upward departures or variances, but the district court varied downward. The court rejected Merrival’s argument that an error in calculating the guideline range transformed the sentence into an upward variance. The court further held that the miscarriage-of-justice exception did not apply because the alleged errors were standard misapplications of sentencing law, not extreme cases undermining the justice system’s integrity.
What it means going forward
Defendants who sign plea agreements with broad appeal waivers must carefully review the scope of exceptions, as courts will enforce waivers even when the defendant claims the sentence was higher than it should have been under a corrected guideline calculation.