Kline

MEMORANDUM **

Pursuant to a plea agreement, Scott Kline pleaded guilty in district court to Possession with Intent to Distribute Marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841 (a)(1) and (b)(1)(D). The plea agreement provided, inter alia:

During the plea colloquy, the following exchange took place:

(emphasis supplied). The court sentenced Kline to twenty months in prison, three months less than the maximum permitted under the plea agreement, to be followed by thirty-six months of supervised release. After Kline had served his time of incarceration, and while he was on supervised release, he violated the terms of that release. The court then sentenced him to twelve months in prison, to be followed by twenty-four months of supervised release.

Kline contends that, under the plea agreement, the court could not sentence him to more than the remaining three months under the twenty-three months agreed to in that agreement. In Kline’s view, the “original maximum,” mentioned in the plea colloquy above, referred to the range agreed to in the plea agreement— “14-23 months.” The district court disagreed, finding that “original maximum” referred to the statutory maximum sentence — in this case,…