United States v. Richard Williams

PER CURIAM. Richard Williams appeals after the district court 1 sentenced him to 77 months in prison and two years of supervised release upon his guilty plea to a felon-in-possession charge. Williams’s counsel has moved to withdraw, and argues in a brief filed under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967), that the district court plainly erred in accepting the plea agreement, because the decision in' Johnson v. United States, — U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015), affected Williams’s advisory Guidelines range. In pro se supplemental filings, Williams also relies upon Johnson to challenge his sentence. These arguments fail, because the sentence was imposed pursuant to a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure ' 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement, under which Williams and the government specifically agreed to a sentence of 77 months. In fact, at the time the district court accepted the plea agreement, the parties and the court had discussed Johnson at some length, and the parties still wished to proceed with the Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreement. See United States v. Kling, 516 F.3d 702, 704-05 (8th Cir.2008) (defendant waived Eighth Amendment challenge to sentence imposed under Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreement, which upon acceptance became binding on government, defendant, and district court). Having independently reviewed the record in accordance with Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75, 80, 109 S.Ct. 346,102 L.Ed.2d 300 (1988), we find no nonfrivolous issues. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment, and we grant counsel’s motion to withdraw. Footnotes [1] The Honorable James E. Gritzner, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa.