64
Opinion of the Court
441 U. S. 780 (1979), that a defendant cannot overturn a guilty plea on collateral review absent a showing that the Rule 11 proceeding was " 'inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of fair procedure' " or constituted a " 'complete miscarriage of justice,' " id., at 783 (quoting Hill v. United States, 368 U. S. 424, 428 (1962)). The concession is prudent, for the Advisory Committee Notes explaining the adoption of Rule 11(h) speak to a clear intent to leave Timmreck undisturbed,6 and there is no question of Timmreck's validity in the aftermath of the 1983 amendments.
Whatever may be the significance of the text of Rule 11(h) for our issue, then, it cannot be as simple as the face of the provision itself. Indeed, the closest Vonn gets to a persuasive argument that Rule 11 excuses a silent defendant from the burdens of plain-error review is his invocation of the common interpretive canon for dealing with a salient omission from statutory text. He claims that the specification of harmless-error review in 11(h) shows an intent to exclude the standard with which harmless error is paired in Rule 52, the plain-error standard with its burdens on silent defendants. The congressional choice to express the one standard of review without its customary companion does not, however, speak with any clarity in Vonn's favor.
6 In the absence of a clear legislative mandate, the Advisory Committee Notes provide a reliable source of insight into the meaning of a rule, especially when, as here, the rule was enacted precisely as the Advisory Committee proposed. See Beech Aircraft Corp. v. Rainey, 488 U. S. 153, 165- 166, n. 9 (1988) (where "Congress did not amend the Advisory Committee's draft in any way . . . the Committee's commentary is particularly relevant in determining the meaning of the document Congress enacted"). Although the Notes are the product of the Advisory Committee, and not Congress, they are transmitted to Congress before the rule is enacted into law. See Amendments to Rules of Criminal Procedure, H. R. Doc. No. 98-55 (1983) (submitting to Congress amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, including the addition of Rule 11(h), accompanied by the report of the Judicial Conference containing the Advisory Committee Notes to the amendment).
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