No. 24-2022 United States v. Skyfield

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 9th day of December, two thousand twenty-five.

PRESENT: ROBERT D. SACK, MYRNA PÉREZ, Circuit Judges, VINCENT L. BRICCETTI, District Judge. * ________________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee, v. No. 24-2022

TYRIEK SKYFIELD,

Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________

* Judge Vincent L. Briccetti, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.

1 FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: MATTHEW M. ROBINSON, Robinson & Brandt, P.S.C., Covington, KY

FOR APPELLEE: ADAM Z. MARGULIES (Joseph H. Rosenberg, Michael D. Maimin, on the brief), Assistant United States Attorneys, for Jay Clayton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern

District of New York (Liman, J.).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,

AND DECREED that the judgment of the District Court is AFFIRMED.

Defendant-Appellant Tyriek Skyfield pled guilty to one count of possessing

ammunition after a felony conviction in violation of

(g)(1). The District

Court sentenced Skyfield to 136 months’ imprisonment to be followed by three years of

supervised release. Skyfield appealed the judgment. We assume the parties’ familiarity

with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal, which we reference

only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

I. Background

Prior to his guilty plea, Skyfield moved to dismiss his indictment and moved to

suppress certain evidence. The motions were denied. See United States v. Skyfield, No. 23-

cr-569,

, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2023). After the District Court denied

the motions, Skyfield requested a conditional plea pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2),

2 which would have preserved his ability to reassert the issues raised in his motions on

appeal. The Government refused to agree to a conditional plea, and Skyfield pled guilty

without a plea agreement.

II. Conviction

By pleading guilty, a defendant generally “waives all non-jurisdictional defects in

the prior proceedings.” United States v. Kukoyi,

, 815 n.6 (2d Cir. 2025)

(quoting United States v. Bastian,

(2d Cir. 2014)).

Because no exception to this general rule applies, this Court may not consider

Skyfield’s objections to the District Court’s ruling on his motions. Certainly, Rule 11(a)(2)

of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that, “[w]ith the consent of the court

and the government, a defendant may enter a conditional plea of guilty or nolo

contendere, reserving in writing the right to have an appellate court review an adverse

determination of a specified pretrial motion.” See also United States v. Coffin,

(2d Cir. 1996) (“[I]n order to reserve an issue for appeal after a guilty plea, a defendant

must obtain the approval of the court and the consent of the government, and he must

reserve the right to appeal in writing.”). But here, the Government refused to consent to

a conditional plea. Since Skyfield pled guilty without such an agreement, the exception

does not apply.

Nor is there reason to create a new exception pitched towards the circumstances

of this case. Skyfield baselessly asks that we ignore the lack of a Rule 11(a)(2) agreement

3 because, according to him, the Government’s refusal was motivated by its bad faith desire

to avoid judicial review. But Skyfield himself acknowledges that “circuit precedent does

not support his claim.” Reply Br. at 8. Indeed, it appears we have permitted appellate

review in these circumstances only when there is a suggestion of judicial bias infecting

the underlying proceedings. See United States v. Brinkworth,

(2d Cir. 1995)

(limiting its holding allowing appeal to “the circumstance of potential judicial bias”). No

such suggestion is present here. More fundamentally, Skyfield’s assertion that the

Government acted in bad faith is no more than surmise. Permitting review in this case

would create an exception that swallows the rule.

III. Sentence

Skyfield’s arguments that his sentence is procedurally and substantively

unreasonable are unpersuasive.

Overall, we review a sentence for abuse of discretion, which “incorporates de novo

review of questions of law (including interpretation of the [Sentencing] Guidelines) and

clear-error review of questions of fact.” United States v. Bonilla,

(2d Cir.

2010) (quoting United States v. Legros,

(2d Cir. 2008)).

First, the District Court did not clearly err in determining that a preponderance of

the evidence supported a finding that Skyfield possessed ammunition in connection with

a robbery. At sentencing, a district court makes findings of fact using the preponderance

of the evidence standard. See United States v. Bellomo,

, 595 (2d Cir. 1999).

4 Skyfield takes issue with the finding because it resulted in a higher sentence based on the

application of the robbery guidelines. 1 But the District Court relied on several persuasive

pieces of the record including surveillance footage, Skyfield’s admission that he

possessed a shell casing on the day and location of the robbery, cell site location data, and

evidence from Skyfield’s phone.

Second, the District Court did not err in applying the bodily injury enhancement

under U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(3)(A). “Bodily injury” is defined as “any significant injury; e.g.,

an injury that is painful and obvious, or is of a type for which medical attention ordinarily

would be sought.” U.S. Sent’g Guidelines Manual § 1B1.1, cmt. n.1(B) (U.S. Sent’g

Comm’n 2024). Here, as the District Court noted, the victim of the robbery was grazed

by a bullet on his foot. Emergency medical personnel advised the victim to receive care

at a hospital. Such an injury is, undoubtedly, the “type for which medical attention

ordinarily would be sought.” Id.; see also United States v. Markle,

(2d Cir.

2010) (“[I]njuries warranting medical attention generally are deemed ‘significant.’”). 2

1 U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1 is the applicable guidelines section for the charged offense. But § 2K2.1(c)(1) instructs the sentencing court to apply the guideline for a different offense if “the defendant used or possessed any firearm or ammunition cited in the offense of conviction in connection with the commission or attempted commission of another offense.” Id. Thus, after finding that the ammunition at issue here was possessed in connection with a robbery, the District Court applied § 2K2.1(c)(1) and calculated the guidelines range based on the robbery guideline, § 2B3.1. 2 That the victim initially resisted going to the hospital does not alter our analysis. Whether the specific victim here wanted medical attention is tangential to whether an “ordinar[y]” victim would. U.S. Sent’g Guidelines Manual § 1B1.1, cmt. n.1(B) (U.S. Sent’g Comm’n 2024). Nor is the analysis changed by the fact that certain treatment providers described the injury as minor. Relying on a medical professional’s description of an injury, alone, would usurp the guidelines’ instruction to assess an injury along the specific parameters of pain, obviousness, and whether it would ordinarily lead a victim to seek medical attention. And finally, despite Skyfield’s argument to the contrary, the record demonstrates that the District Court

5 Finally, we discern no substantive unreasonableness because, after “tak[ing] into

account the totality of the circumstances, giving due deference to the sentencing judge’s

exercise of discretion, and bearing in mind the institutional advantages of district courts,”

we determine that Skyfield’s sentence is “within the range of permissible decisions.”

United States v. Cavera,

, 190–91 (2d Cir. 2008). “[I]n the overwhelming

majority of cases, a Guidelines sentence will fall comfortably within the broad range of

sentences that would be reasonable in the particular circumstances.” United States v. Betts,

(2d Cir. 2018) (quoting United States v. Fernandez,

(2d Cir.

2006)). This is one such case. 3

IV. Conclusion

We have considered Skyfield’s remaining arguments and find them to be without

merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the District Court.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

focused squarely on the nature of the injury, adhering to our holding in United States v. Spinelli,

(2d Cir. 2003). 3 That Probation recommended a lower sentence, and that the Government’s initial estimate of the applicable range was also lower than what the District Court ultimately determined the range to be, does not warrant a finding of substantive unreasonableness. Neither were binding on the District Court, and they have, at most, a limited role in assessing a sentence for substantive reasonableness. See United States v. Messina,

(2d Cir. 2015) (rejecting the argument that a sentence was substantively unreasonable because it was “nearly double what the government thought was appropriate”); United States v. Rivera,

(2d Cir. 1996) (“[T]he defendant has no justifiable expectation that the [Probation Office's] recommendation will be followed[.]”); United States v. Eberhard,

(2d Cir. 2008) (finding a sentence was substantively reasonable despite being sixty-four months longer than the Probation Office's recommendation).

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