United States v. Villodas-Rosario, No. 15-1981 (1st Cir. 2018)
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After addressing the proper standard for evaluating the enforceability of an appellate waiver the First Circuit dismissed Appellant’s appeal challenging the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence, holding that Appellant’s waiver of appeal must be enforced.
Appellant pleaded guilty pursuant to a plea agreement to knowingly possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. The district court sentenced Appellant to a term of imprisonment within the plea agreement’s appellate waiver range. On appeal, Appellant argued that his plea agreement’s appellate waiver was unenforceable under the tripartite framework of United States v. Teeter, 257 F.3d 14, (1st Cir. 2001), and that his sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable. The government urged the First Circuit to dismiss the appeal based on the plain-error analysis set forth in United States v. Borrero-Acevedo, 533 F.3d 11 (1st Cir. 2008). The First Circuit dismissed the appeal, holding (1) any inconsistency between Teeter and Borrero-Acevedo need not be reconciled in this case; and (2) even under the more defendant-friendly Teeter approach, Defendant’s waiver of appeal was enforceable.
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