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637 F.2d 1194

Docket No. 80-1702.

United States v. Moore

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals

Submitted Jan. 13, 1981.

Decided Jan. 21, 1981.

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1981-01-21

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“a district court is under no duty to consider a negotiated plea agreement”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including People v. Grove, State v. Montiel

“(e) Plea Agreement Procedure. (1) In General. — The attorney for the state and the attorney for the defendant or the defendant when acting pro se may engage in discussions with a view toward reaching an agreement that, upon the entering of a plea of guilty or nolo con-tendere to a charged offense or to a lesser or related offense, the attorney for the state will do any of the following: (A) Move for dismissal of other charges; or (B) Make a recommendation or agree not to oppose the defendant’s request, for a particular sentence, with the understanding that such recommendation or request shall not be binding upon the court; or (C) Agree that a specific sentence is the appropriate disposition of the case; or (D) Agree not to seek additional indictments or information for other known offenses arising out of past transactions. The court shall not participate in any such discussions. (4) Rejection of a Plea Agreement. — If the court rejects the plea agreement, the court shall, on the record, inform the parties of this fact, advise the defendant personally in open court or, on a showing of good cause, in camera, that the court is not bound by the plea agreement, afford the defendant the opportunity to then withdraw his plea, and advise the defendant that if he persists in his guilty plea, or plea of nolo contendere, the disposition of the case may be less favorable to the defendant than that contemplated by the plea agreement.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 173 W. Va. 290 - State v. Guthrie

Applies 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 843 (§ 403 of the Controlled Substances Act)

Relies on Hamling v. United States · United States v. Ammidown · United States v. Edwards

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1981-01-21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently December 2017 · most notably United States v. Miller (1983), United States v. Foy (1994)

15 federal appellate · 9 state decisions

1401981199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*1195Storment, Stegmeyer & Read, Dennis Moore, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant; Paul M. Storment, Jr., St. Louis, Mo., of counsel.

¶2Robert D. Kingsland, U. S. Atty., Edward L. Dowd, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.

¶3Before BRIGHT, STEPHENSON and McMILLIAN, Circuit Judges.

¶4PER CURIAM.

¶5Dennis Moore appeals from a judgment entered in the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri1 upon a jury verdict finding him guilty of distribution of cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and conspiracy to distribute cocaine, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846. Appellant was sentenced to six years imprisonment on each count, to be served concurrently. For reversal appellant argues the district court erred in (1) refusing to delineate its reasons for rejecting the. plea agreement, and (2) failing to grant appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy count. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

¶6On May 21, 1980, Dennis Moore was charged in a two-count indictment with (1) knowingly and intentionally distributing co*1196caine and (2) conspiring to distribute cocaine. Pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 11, defense counsel and the assistant U.S. attorney met before trial and entered into an agreement whereby appellant would plead guilty to a charge of unlawful use of communications (telephone) in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b) in exchange for dismissal of the original indictment. The district court refused to accept the guilty plea and gave no reasons on the record for refusal. The district court also did not conduct a voir dire of appellant before or after rejecting the agreement.

¶7Under Fed.R.Crim.P. 11,2 the district court need not accept every guilty plea; a district court is under no duty to consider a negotiated plea agreement. In re Yielding, 599 F.2d 251 (8th Cir. 1979). Rule 11 does not require district courts to either accept a guilty plea or delineate its reasons for rejecting it.3 Furthermore, although voir dire would not have been unreasonable,4 Rule 11 does not mandate such a procedure when the guilty plea has been rejected.

¶8In sum, it is held that the district court’s rejection of the proposed guilty plea was not beyond the scope of its broad discretion.

¶9Next, appellant argues that the district court erred in denying his motion for the judgment of acquittal on the grounds that insufficient evidence existed in the record to sustain a jury verdict of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Irizarry v. United States, 508 F.2d 960 (2d Cir. 1974). The prosecution argues that the existence of a conspiracy rests in the purview of the jury as a finding of fact. See Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974).

¶10After carefully reviewing the record, we find that the evidence clearly establishes the existence of a conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt. Appellant was present at the scene of the crime and admitted that he delivered the contraband as requested in furtherance of the transaction. Appellant discussed the transaction with his co-defendants prior to the distribution and admitted at trial that he “assumed that the substance he delivered was cocaine.” Willfulness, intent and guilty knowledge may be proved by circumstantial evidence and frequently cannot be proved in any other manner. United States v. Wisdom, 534 F.2d 1306 (8th Cir. 1976); see also United *1197States v. Edwards, 488 F.2d 1154 (5th Cir. 1974).

¶11Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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