676
Opinion of the Court
Thus, if the court rejects the agreement, the defendant can "then" withdraw his plea for any reason and does not have to comply with Rule 32(e)'s "fair and just reason" requirement. This provision implements the commonsense notion that a defendant can no longer be bound by an agreement that the court has refused to sanction.
Under the Court of Appeals' holding, however, the defendant can withdraw his plea "for any reason or for no reason" even if the district court does not reject the plea agreement, but merely defers decision on it. Thus, for the Court of Appeals, the rejection of the plea agreement has no significance: Before rejection, the defendant is free to withdraw his plea; after rejection, the same is true. But the text of Rule 11(e)(4) gives the rejection of the agreement a great deal of significance. Only "then" is the defendant granted "the opportunity" to withdraw his plea. The necessary implication of this provision is that if the court has neither rejected nor accepted the agreement, the defendant is not granted "the opportunity to then withdraw" his plea. The Court of Appeals' holding contradicts this implication, and thus strips subdivision (e)(4) of any meaning.
Not only is the Court of Appeals' holding contradicted by the very language of the Rules, it also debases the judicial proceeding at which a defendant pleads and the court accepts his plea. After the defendant has sworn in open court that he actually committed the crimes, after he has stated that he is pleading guilty because he is guilty, after the court has found a factual basis for the plea, and after the court has explicitly announced that it accepts the plea, the Court of Appeals would allow the defendant to withdraw his guilty plea simply on a lark. The Advisory Committee, in adding the "fair and just reason" standard to Rule 32(e) in 1983, explained why this cannot be so:
"Given the great care with which pleas are taken under [the] revised Rule 11, there is no reason to view pleas so taken as merely 'tentative,' subject to withdrawal be-
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