United States v. Patrick J. Doherty

17 F.3d 1056, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 3684, 1994 WL 61039
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedMarch 2, 1994
Docket93-1929
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 17 F.3d 1056 (United States v. Patrick J. Doherty) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Patrick J. Doherty, 17 F.3d 1056, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 3684, 1994 WL 61039 (7th Cir. 1994).

Opinion

FRIEDMAN, Circuit Judge:

In the prior appeal in this case, we affirmed the appellant Doherty’s conviction for bank fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344 (1988), based upon his conditional guilty plea, and remanded the case for resentencing. United States v. Doherty, 969 F.2d 425 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 607, 121 L.Ed.2d 542 (1992). On the remand, Doherty moved to withdraw his guilty plea. He contended that our decision in the prior appeal rendered the indictment duplicitous. The district court denied his motion to with *1057 draw the plea. We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in so doing, and therefore affirm.

I

The pertinent facts of the underlying bank fraud case were set forth in our prior opinion. Doherty engaged in a check kiting scheme involving two banks, in each of which he had an account. He drew a check against the account in one bank that did not have sufficient funds to cover it, deposited that check in the account in the second bank, and then drew a check on the second account (which also did not have sufficient funds to cover it) and deposited it in the first account to cover the cheek previously drawn on that account. He continued this practice for about a month and wrote almost forty bad checks. When the scheme finally was exposed, one of the banks lost approximately $96,721.

Doherty was indicted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin on three counts of bank fraud. He moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that it “fails as a matter of law to contain allegations which constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344 and is therefore jurisdictionally defective.” He contended that § 1344 does not cover bank fraud committed by check kiting. Doherty relied primarily on Williams v. United States, 458 U.S. 279, 102 S.Ct. 3088, 73 L.Ed.2d 767 (1982), where the Supreme Court held that check kiting itself did not constitute the making of a “false statement or report” to a financial institution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014.

The district court denied Doherty’s motion. It pointed out that 18 U.S.C. § 1344, which was enacted after Williams and under which Doherty was indicted, prohibits a scheme or device “(1) to defraud a financial institution” or (2) to obtain property from a financial institution by false representations. The court stated that subparagraph (1) of the statute specifies, as one way to commit the crime of bank fraud, a scheme “to defraud a financial institution. There is no requirement that the fraud be in the form of a statement or report, as there is in § 1014.”

Doherty then entered into a written plea agreement with the government under which he agreed to plead guilty to Count I and the government agreed to move to dismiss Counts II and III. The guilty plea was to be conditional in that the plea agreement stated that Doherty “specifically reserves his right to appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit the pretrial decision of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, denying his motion to dismiss the indictment, as entered on June 17,1991, and that the defendant does not waive his right to appeal that decision by entering into this conditional plea, entered into pursuant to Rule 11(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.” The plea agreement also stated that Doherty “acknowledges that he has read and fully understands the charges contained in the Indictment and fully understands the nature and elements of the crimes with which he has been charged and further that those charges and the several terms and conditions of this plea agreement have been fully explained to him by his attorney,” and that Doherty “is, in fact, guilty of the criminal offense described in” Count I.

In sentencing Doherty following his guilty plea, the district court rejected the government’s recommendation that Doherty’s sentence should be enhanced by two levels for “more than minimal planning” under § 2Fl.l(b)(2)(A), cross referencing § 1B1.1, application note 1(f) (definition), of the Sentencing Guidelines.

Doherty appealed the district court’s refusal to dismiss the indictment, and the government appealed the district court’s refusal to enhance the sentence. We stated our disposition of the appeal as follows: “We affirm Doherty’s conviction, vacate his sentence, and remand to the district court for resen-tencing.” 969 F.2d at 427. We stated that § 1344, “which reads in the disjunctive, establishes two distinct, albeit closely related, offenses: (1) schemes to defraud financial institutions; and (2) schemes to obtain money, etc., from financial institutions by false pretenses, representations or promises.” Id. Noting the government’s concession that *1058 “Doherty did not violate § 1344(2), a wise concession given Williams v. United States, 458 U.S. 279, 102 S.Ct. 3088, 73 L.Ed.2d 767 (1982),” we held that “§ 1344(1) unambiguously encompasses bare check kiting schemes.” Id. at 427, 429-430.

We further held that “[t]he district court committed clear error by declining to consider the applicability of this prong of the ‘more than minimal planning* enhancement. We vacate Doherty’s sentence and remand for resentencing to give the court an opportunity to do so.” Id. at 430.

Following remand, Doherty moved to withdraw his guilty plea. The district court denied the motion and resentenced Doherty. In this appeal Doherty challenges only the district court’s denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

II

A defendant has no “absolute right to withdraw his guilty plea.” United States v. Caban, 962 F.2d 646, 649 (7th Cir.1992). The decision “whether to permit a plea withdrawal rests within the district court’s sound discretion, and we will reverse only upon a showing of abuse.” United States v. Groll, 992 F.2d 755, 757-58 (7th Cir.1993).

Doherty claims, however, that this principle is inapplicable here because his guilty plea was conditional. According to Doherty, he “expressly preserved his objections to the sufficiency of the indictment in his conditional plea agreement,” and he therefore may now assert that the indictment is defective because it is duplicitous.

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Bluebook (online)
17 F.3d 1056, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 3684, 1994 WL 61039, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-patrick-j-doherty-ca7-1994.