Criminal – Plea – Rule 11

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Where a defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of carjacking and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, the defendant’s substantial rights were not affected by a mistake during the change of plea hearing about the duration of the supervised release term for the firearm charge.

Affirmed.

“Edgar Joel Morales-Ortiz pleaded guilty to two counts of carjacking and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Consistent with his plea agreement, Morales and the government requested a prison term for each count within the range recommended by the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Citing the seriousness of the offenses and Morales’s other conduct, the district court imposed higher sentences than the parties had requested on all three counts, including an upwardly variant sentence on the firearm count.

“Morales now appeals his conviction and sentence. He contends that he should be able to withdraw his guilty plea because he was misinformed as to both the total offense level for the carjacking counts and the supervised release term for the firearm count, all in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11. He also argues that his sentence for the firearm count is procedurally unreasonable. We conclude that the law and the record do not support Morales’s arguments and, thus, affirm. …

“Morales argues that we should vacate his conviction and sentence. He contends initially that the district court accepted his guilty plea despite clear violations of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11. Next, he asserts that the 84-month sentence for the firearm count was procedurally unreasonable. …

“Because Morales failed to object or seek to withdraw his guilty plea in the district court, we review his Rule 11 claims for plain error. …

“As we explain, we conclude that Morales has identified only one Rule 11 error — the mistake during the change of plea hearing about the duration of the supervised release term for the firearm charge — and ultimately we reject all of his Rule 11 claims under the plain error standard. …

“We begin with Morales’s claim that he was not informed of the correct maximum supervised release term for the firearm charge, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i), during the change of plea hearing. Under Rule 11, the district court ‘must inform the defendant of … any maximum possible penalty, including imprisonment, fine, and term of supervised release’ before accepting the defendant’s guilty plea. Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(b)(1)(H). The government concedes that Morales was misinformed as to the maximum supervised release term for the firearm charge at the change of plea hearing and that this mistake amounted to a ‘clear and obvious’ error, satisfying the first two prongs of the plain error test.

“With the first two prongs of plain error established, we turn to the third prong, which requires Morales to establish that the error affected his substantial rights. …

“… Morales has failed to point to any evidence in the record that the mistake about the supervised release term for the firearm count played a role in his decision to enter a guilty plea. …

“… To recap, (1) the plea agreement set out the correct statutory maximum prison sentence for the relevant offenses and Morales was informed of that statutory maximum at his change of plea hearing; (2) the PSR included the correct supervised release term for the firearm count; (3) in response to the district court’s questioning at the sentencing hearing, Morales and his counsel each confirmed that they had reviewed the PSR together in advance of the hearing and that Morales had no objections to the PSR; and (4) after the district court imposed a five-year term of supervised release on the firearm charge, Morales did not object. On this record, Morales has not demonstrated a reasonable probability that, but for the misstatement of the supervised release term for the firearm charge, he would not have entered a guilty plea. …

“We turn next to Morales’s argument that he was misinformed about his TOL for the carjacking counts. …

“Morales has not shown that a Rule 11 error occurred at all as to the Sentencing Guidelines calculation for the carjacking counts. …

“Finally, we reject Morales’s argument that the district court committed a Rule 11(d)(2)(B) error by failing to ‘confirm whether Morales still wanted to plead guilty’ after it became apparent during the sentencing hearing that the plea agreement included an incorrect TOL. …

“Rule 11(d)(2)(B) imposes no obligation on the district court to sua sponte inquire whether a defendant would like to withdraw a guilty plea. The plain language of the rule puts the onus of withdrawing a guilty plea on the defendant. … Morales did not seek to withdraw his plea, let alone argue to the district court that he had a fair and just reason for doing so, and the district court had no obligation to pose any additional questions to Morales at the sentencing hearing, at least not on the facts here. … For these reasons, there was no Rule 11 error. …

“We now turn to Morales’s challenges to his sentence, as opposed to his guilty plea. Morales argues that his sentence should be set aside because the district court’s upward variance on the firearm count was not supported by the record. According to Morales, the district court sentenced him for the wrong crime: brandishing a firearm under 18 U.S.C. §924(c)(1)(A)(ii) instead of the lesser-included offense of possessing a firearm, under 18 U.S.C. §924(c)(1)(A)(i), to which he pleaded guilty. …

“We begin with Morales’s claim that the district court, effectively, punished him for brandishing rather than possessing a firearm, the charge to which he had pleaded guilty. …

“Because Morales concedes that the district court’s statement that he pleaded guilty to the ‘modality of brandishing’ was merely a slip of the tongue, we see no basis for his argument that the court procedurally erred in imposing an 84-month sentence for the firearm count simply because such a sentence was ‘effectively’ a sentence for brandishing a weapon. …

“Indeed, the record demonstrates that the district court imposed an upwardly variant sentence for the firearm count based on the totality of Morales’s conduct that fateful night. In doing so, the court permissibly relied on Morales’s own admissions and undisputed facts in the PSR. …”

United States v. Morales-Ortiz (Lawyers Weekly No. 01-175-25) (29 pages) (Rikelman, J.) Appealed from the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico (Docket No. 22-1669) (Aug. 19, 2025).

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