Plea agreement waiver of defendant’s right to appeal a within or below Guidelines sentence; United States v Morrison; Effect of the fact the sentence was imposed after a probation revocation hearing

The court dismissed defendant-Appleton’s appeal of her sentence where her plea agreement waived her right to appeal it, holding that the fact her sentence was imposed after a probation revocation hearing provided no reason to treat her waiver differently. She pled guilty to possessing controlled substances with intent to distribute and possessing stolen ammunition. The district court sentenced her to five years’ probation rather than the 41 to 51 months recommended under the Guidelines. Her plea contained an appeal waiver under which she “waived her right to appeal any sentence for her offense of conviction within or below the Guidelines range[.]” She was later arrested for possessing an unprescribed drug, thus violating her probation and resulting in the district court’s imposition of a 44-month sentence. She appealed, challenging her sentence’s procedural and substantive reasonableness. Appleton argued that the plea agreement waiver did not apply where “the district court sentenced her to imprisonment only after revoking her initial sentence of probation.” However, the court reviewed the plea agreement, and noted that the 44-month sentence “safely fell” within the Guidelines range for her initial offense. It held that, contrary “to Appleton’s suggestion, ‘revocation sentences are part and parcel of the sentence underlying the original conviction,’ not a freestanding, unrelated sentence.” The revocation took her “back to where she started, from a sentencing standpoint, including being subjected to her negotiated appeal waiver.”