Cite as: 535 U. S. 55 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
about facts relevant to the charge. The court denied this motion, and on June 22, 1998, sentenced Vonn to 97 months in prison.
On appeal, Vonn sought to set aside not only the firearm conviction but the other two as well, for the first time making an issue of the District Judge's failure to advise him of his right to counsel at trial, as required by the Rule. The Court of Appeals agreed there had been error, and held that Vonn's failure to object before the District Court to its Rule 11 omission was of no import, since Rule 11(h) "supersedes the normal waiver rule," and subjects all Rule 11 violations to harmless-error review, 224 F. 3d 1152, 1155 (CA9 2000) (citing United States v. Odedo, 154 F. 3d 937 (CA9 1998)). The consequence was to put the Government to the burden of showing no effect on substantial rights.3 The court declined to "go beyond the plea proceeding in considering whether the defendant was aware of his rights," and did not accept the record of Vonn's plea colloquies as evidence that Vonn was aware of his continuing right to counsel at trial. 224 F. 3d, at 1155. It held the Government had failed to shoulder its burden to show the error harmless and vacated Vonn's convictions.
We granted certiorari, 531 U. S. 1189 (2001), to resolve conflicts among the Circuits on the legitimacy of (1) placing the burden of plain error on a defendant appealing on the basis of Rule 11 error raised for the first time on appeal,4 and (2) looking beyond the plea colloquy to other parts of the
3 As already noted, n. 1, supra, the Government in this case did not specifically argue that the plain-error rule, Rule 52(b), governs this case; that was its position in Odedo, 154 F. 3d, at 939, on which the Court of Appeals relied for authority here. Hence, the Court of Appeals in this case went no further than to reject the Government's waiver argument.
4 Compare, e. g., 224 F. 3d, at 1155 (case below); United States v. Lyons, 53 F. 3d 1321, 1322, n. 1 (CADC 1995), with United States v. GandiaMaysonet, 227 F. 3d 1, 5-6 (CA1 2000); United States v. Bashara, 27 F. 3d 1174, 1178 (CA6 1994); United States v. Cross, 57 F. 3d 588, 590 (CA7 1995); and United States v. Quinones, 97 F. 3d 473, 475 (CA11 1996).
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