United States v. Guardado, No. 16-2258 (8th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's 293 month sentence after he pleaded guilty to several federal criminal charges, including conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. The court held that the government did not breach the plea agreement when it argued at sentencing that defendant was responsible for more than 149.93 grams of actual methamphetamine. In this case, defendant's agreement reserved to both parties the right to present at sentencing any evidence and argument on issues not explicitly agreed to or decided in the document. Furthermore, for a plea to be voluntary, a defendant need not understand precisely how the sentencing guidelines will apply to his case
Court Description: Colloton, Author, with Benton, Circuit Judge, and Gerrard, District Judge] Criminal case - Criminal law. Defendant's plea agreement did not specify the quantity of drugs that would be used to calculate his guidelines range and preserved each party's right to present evidence on the issue; as a a result, the government did not breach the plea agreement by arguing defendant was responsible for a greater quantity of drugs; argument that the plea was not voluntary rejected.
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