Background
Ryan Stevens approached two men who were displaying bundles of cash on a crowded nightlife street in Austin, Texas. He brandished a firearm, took their cash, and pointed the firearm at one man’s head when the man protested. Stevens later kicked an officer while police detained him.
Stevens pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). His plea agreement waived his right to appeal his sentence except for claims involving prosecutorial misconduct or ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court imposed an above-guideline sentence of 168 months’ imprisonment, and Stevens appealed.
The Court’s Holding
Stevens argued for the first time on appeal that the district court had incorrectly calculated his criminal history score. The government responded that his appellate waiver barred the argument. Stevens contended that the alleged error produced a sentence based on materially untrue facts and therefore qualified as a miscarriage of justice outside the waiver.
The Fifth Circuit rejected that contention. It characterized Stevens’s claim as a “run-of-the-mill challenge” to the district court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines, not a miscarriage of justice. The court therefore enforced the appellate waiver and dismissed the appeal without deciding whether the criminal history calculation was erroneous.
Key Takeaways
- A plea agreement’s sentencing-appeal waiver barred Stevens’s challenge to his criminal history score.
- An ordinary Guidelines-calculation claim does not become a miscarriage-of-justice claim merely because it is framed as reliance on materially untrue facts.
- The Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal without reaching the merits of the alleged calculation error.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the Fifth Circuit’s enforcement of appellate waivers against routine Sentencing Guidelines challenges. Defendants cannot avoid an otherwise applicable waiver simply by recasting an alleged Guidelines error as a due-process violation or miscarriage of justice.