United States v. Mary Floyd

Appellant Mary Floyd challenges the district court’s denial of her request for specific performance of her plea agreement which required the government to move for a downward departure if she complied with the agreement. We vacate her sentence and remand for further proceedings.

I.

FACTS AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

In December of 1989, undercover government agents met with Mary Floyd and her companion, Anthony Myers, to conduct negotiations for the sale of ephedrine, a precursor ingredient for methamphetamine. Floyd and Myers were acting as brokers for a customer that manufactured methamphetamine and were interested in purchasing ephedrine over a one or two year period. At this meeting, Floyd and Myers provided the agents with a twelve gram sample of methamphetamine produced by their customer. The agents reciprocally displayed a barrel of the ephedrine, which Myers taste-tested. The meeting ended with Floyd and Myers agreeing to contact the agents with information about the quantity and price desired by their customer.

On December 19, 1989, the undercover officers and their informant met with Floyd and Myers, as well as the customer and his aide, to consummate the sale. After the…

dissenting:

The majority holds that Floyd’s sentence must be vacated so that the district court may conduct a hearing pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 on whether to accept the “acknowledgment” as an effective amendment of the original plea agreement. If under the provisions of the original plea agreement the government was not obligated to move for a downward departure because Floyd had failed to live up to her end of the bargain, the majority’s holding would be nothing but a superfluity. Because there must be a purpose for the required hearing, this holding implies that the majority has concluded that if only the terms of the original plea agreement apply, the government stands in breach of the agreement. That requires me to dissent.

At the conclusion of an evidentiary hearing, the district court stated:

There are three findings embedded in the above-quoted language: (1) the plea agreement required that Floyd cooperate with the government beyond merely giving names; (2) Floyd never followed through, despite having promised to arrange three separate undercover operations; and (3) Floyd’s unaccounted-for absence constituted a breach of her promise to cooperate…

1 F.3d 867 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mary FLOYD, Defendant-Appellant. No. 92-50270. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted Feb. 4, 1993. Decided July 29, 1993. George W. Hunt, San Diego, CA, for defendant-appellant. Amalia Meza, Asst. U.S. Atty., San Diego, CA, for plaintiff-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Before: WALLACE, Chief Judge, SNEED and HALL, Circuit Judges. SNEED, Circuit Judge: 1 Appellant Mary Floyd challenges the district court's denial of her request for specific performance of her plea agreement which required the government to move for a downward departure if she complied with the agreement. We vacate her sentence and remand for further proceedings. I. FACTS AND PRIOR PROCEEDINGS 2 In December of 1989, undercover government agents met with Mary Floyd and her companion, Anthony Myers, to conduct negotiations for the sale of ephedrine, a precursor ingredient for methamphetamine. Floyd and Myers were acting as brokers for a customer that manufactured methamphetamine and were interested in purchasing ephedrine over a one or two year period. At this…