Background
Devin Chaney pleaded guilty to Hobbs Act robbery and armed bank robbery. His plea agreement waived his right to appeal except for a sentence above the statutory maximum or a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, and the government dismissed the remaining nine counts of an eleven-count indictment.
Chaney nevertheless challenged his designation as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. The Fifth Circuit initially enforced the waiver and dismissed the appeal, but the Supreme Court vacated that judgment and remanded after holding in Hunter v. United States that an appeal waiver is unenforceable when enforcing it would leave in place an egregious error amounting to a miscarriage of justice.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit again enforced Chaney’s appeal waiver and dismissed the appeal. It held that any error in treating Chaney’s 2019 Louisiana drug-distribution conviction as a career-offender predicate was, at most, an ordinary Guidelines error—not the extreme, obvious, and egregious error required by Hunter’s narrow miscarriage-of-justice exception.
The court emphasized that the unpublished Fifth Circuit decisions on which Chaney relied postdated his sentencing, were not binding, and applied plain-error principles rather than Hunter’s more demanding waiver standard. Controlling Fifth Circuit precedent had not resolved whether § 4B1.2(b)’s definition of a controlled-substance offense incorporates the federal drug schedules, and other circuits were divided on the issue.
The court also rejected Chaney’s procedural argument. Because he had an opportunity to object and explain his position before the district court rejected it, the proceeding did not lack the minimum civilized procedure contemplated by Hunter, even if the ruling was summary or incorrect.
Key Takeaways
- Hunter’s miscarriage-of-justice exception to an appeal waiver is a narrow safety valve reserved for extreme, obvious, and egregious errors.
- An ordinary or debatable mistake in calculating a Sentencing Guidelines range generally does not invalidate an otherwise enforceable appeal waiver.
- A district court’s prompt rejection of a sentencing objection does not amount to a miscarriage of justice when the defendant had an opportunity to present the objection.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that, in the Fifth Circuit, Hunter does not broadly reopen sentencing challenges foreclosed by appeal waivers. Defendants must show substantially more than a potentially meritorious Guidelines argument or an error that might satisfy part of the plain-error test.
The opinion also leaves unresolved the underlying question whether a state drug conviction qualifies under § 4B1.2(b) when the state’s controlled-substance definition is broader than federal law. The court held only that the disputed and unsettled issue did not meet Hunter’s demanding miscarriage-of-justice standard.