David Anthony Gordon v. United States
Privacy JusticiabilityDoctri
Whether the Eleventh Circuit erroneously dismissed portions of the appeal based on an invalid plea agreement waiver
Questions Presented Whether, in reaching the decision to affirm in part and to dismiss in part, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has so far departed from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings and sanctions such a departure by the district court, as to call for the exercise of this Court’s supervisory powers in that: (1) The Eleventh Circuit erroneously dismissed portions of the appeal based upon the appeal waiver in Gordon’s plea agreement, even though the waiver was invalid and unenforceable because Gordon did not knowingly and voluntarily enter into the plea agreement? (2) The Eleventh Circuit erroneously affirmed even though the Government breached the terms of the plea agreement including refusing to apply the “safety valve,” and refusing to allow a three-point reduction for acceptance of responsibility, rendering the entire plea agreement including the appeal waiver, null and void, and rendering the mandatory minimum sentence that was imposed, an unreasonable sentence? (3)The Eleventh Circuit erroneously affirmed the district court’s abuse of discretion in granting the Government ’s motion to transfer the sentencing of David Gordon from the judge to whom this matter was randomly assigned by the Clerk of Court, to the judge who presided over the co-defendant’s trial? i (4) The Eleventh Circuit erroneously affirmed even though the non-assigned district judge abused her discretion and reversibly erred when she sentenced Gordon to prison for a minimum mandatory term of ten years for Count One, where the plea agreement provided that Gordon would receive sentencing benefits for entering a plea that would have resulted in application of the “safety valve,” releasing him from the minimum mandatory, and warranting the imposition of a reasonable, lower sentence within the advisory guidelines range? ii