In United States v. Chavez-Diaz, --- F.3d ---, No. 18-50391 (9th Cir. 2020), the Court held the defendant "waived his right to appeal his
equal protection and due process claims by entering an
unconditional guilty plea." Thus, it dismissed his appeal.
The case arose out of the 1325 plea procedures in the S.D. Ca., where magistrate judges take misdemeanor illegal entry pleas from multiple defendants at the same time. The defendant objected to the procedure on equal protection and due process grounds, but then pleaded guilty.
On appeal, he argued his claims fell within the Menna-Blackledge exception—which allows
for constitutionally-based appeals, despite an unconditional
guilty plea, where the appeal, if successful, would mean that
the government cannot prosecute the defendant at all.
The Court disagreed, explaining: "Chavez-Diaz’s claims do not fall within
the narrow Menna-Blackledge exception. None of those
claims “would extinguish the government’s power to
constitutionally prosecute the defendant if the claim[s] were
successful.” Unlike the defendant
in Class, Chavez-Diaz does not argue that Congress lacked
the power to criminalize illegal entry into the United States
or that the government could not prosecute him for such a
violation. Indeed, Chavez-Diaz concedes that Congress has
“broad plenary power to draft laws (such as § 1325),” and he
does not “challenge the executive’s right to exercise
prosecutorial discretion in a manner it sees fit.” At oral argument, moreover, ChavezDiaz conceded, as he understandably must, that if his claims
were successful, the government could still retry him. That
inevitable concession necessarily removes Chavez-Diaz
from the limited ambit of the Menna-Blackledge exception,
because his challenges do not “amount[] to a claim that ‘the
State may not convict’ him.”"
