Franklin Ray v. United States

After this Court re-interpreted the Aggravated Identity Theft statute in Dubin v. United States, 599 U.S. 110, 132 (2023), Petitioner was factually innocent even though he had pled guilty before Dubin was decided. But the Second Circuit barred Petitioner from appealing the invalid plea, relying on a waiver entered by Petitioner’s lawyer without Petitioner’s knowledge. The Second Circuit opined that waiving the right to challenge guilt under a reinterpreted statute is a strategic and tactical matter within counsel’s discretion. The first question is whether permitting lawyers to decide for their clients whether to challenge pleas under reinterpreted law contravenes their clients’ due process and Sixth Amendment rights to decide for themselves whether to plead guilty. The Second Circuit split with the Fourth Circuit, which refuses to enforce appeal waivers if there is a colorable claim of actual innocence, applying the principle that it avoids complete miscarriages of justice. The second question is whether an appeal waiver is enforceable where a defendant did not make a knowing and voluntary choice to plead guilty and where enforcing it will leave someone in jail for a crime that they did not commit.