United States v. Benard, No. 11-4005 (10th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CaseDefendant Reshard Benard challenged the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained during a vehicle stop on January 16, 2009. Following the denial of his suppression motion, Defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty to conspiracy to manufacture cocaine base and possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. He was then sentenced to a twenty-year sentence, the mandatory minimum for his conspiracy charge. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the district court erred in failing to suppress Defendant’s post-arrest statements, particularly his statement that his girlfriend might have left a gun in his car. The district court concluded that, although Defendant was in custody at the time this statement was made, he was not subjected to interrogation. Having so held, the Court then considered whether the district court’s failure to suppress this evidence entitled Defendant to withdraw his conditional guilty plea under Rule 11(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The Court could not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant would still have agreed to waive his right to a jury trial as to the counts of conviction absent the district court’s error. Accordingly, the Court held that the district court’s suppression error required remand of both counts of conviction under Rule 11(a)(2).
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