Cite as: 516 U. S. 29 (1995)
Stevens, J., dissenting
assets pursuant to 21 U. S. C. § 853 and (2) that the record in this case does establish a factual basis for forfeiting the assets described in Count 6 of the indictment, I believe it important to emphasize the underlying proposition that the law—rather than any agreement between the parties— defines the limits on the district court's authority to forfeit a defendant's property. Moreover, entirely apart from Rule 11(f), the district court has a legal obligation to determine that there is a factual basis for the judgment entered upon a guilty plea. For that reason, the Court of Appeals was plainly wrong in holding that simply because the defendant unequivocally agreed to " 'forfeit all property,' " the law authorized the forfeiture of all of his assets. 38 F. 3d 523, 526 (CA10 1994).
The facts of this case well illustrate the particular need for the district court to determine independently that a factual basis supports forfeiture judgments that it enters pursuant to plea agreements. As the Court correctly notes, this defendant received a favorable plea agreement. The record demonstrates that the facts would have supported a much longer term of imprisonment than was actually imposed. In such circumstance, it is not unthinkable that a wealthy defendant might bargain for a light sentence by voluntarily "forfeiting" property to which the government had no statutory entitlement. This, of course, is not the law. No matter what a defendant may be willing to pay for a favorable sentence, the law defines the outer boundaries of a permissible forfeiture. A court is not free to exceed those boundaries solely because a defendant has agreed to permit it to do so. As Judge Cudahy aptly put it, "[t]he mere fact that the defendant has agreed that an item is forfeitable, in a plea agreement, does not make it so." United States v. Roberts, 749 F. 2d 404, 409 (CA7 1984).
The proposition that the law alone defines the limits of a
court's power to enter a judgment can be traced to this Court's early precedents. In Bigelow v. Forrest, 9 Wall. 339
55
Page: Index Previous 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007