Date: Apr 2, 2026

Appeal Waivers Bar Contempt Appeals (and Related Rule 35(a) Challenges) When “Jurisdictional” Claims Target the Underlying Civil Case, Not the Contempt Judgment

1. Introduction

In re: Contempt Proceedings Against Daniel E. Carpenter (10th Cir. Mar. 27, 2026) arises from criminal contempt proceedings initiated after Daniel E. Carpenter allegedly violated a district-court order prohibiting interference with specified assets connected to civil litigation. Carpenter pleaded guilty to criminal contempt under 18 U.S.C. § 401(3) pursuant to a plea agreement containing a broad appellate waiver.

The district court imposed zero months’ imprisonment, five years of supervised release, and a $100,000 fine. Carpenter later filed a motion to correct the sentence under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a), which the district court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Carpenter appealed both his conviction/sentence and the dismissal of the Rule 35(a) motion. The government moved to enforce the appellate waiver.

The central issues were (i) whether Carpenter could avoid the waiver by styling arguments as “jurisdictional,” (ii) whether the waiver was knowing and voluntary given the fine and supervised release imposed, and (iii) whether enforcement would cause a miscarriage of justice under Tenth Circuit waiver doctrine.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Tenth Circuit granted the government’s motion to enforce the appeal waiver and dismissed both consolidated appeals. Applying United States v. Hahn, the court concluded that:

Carpenter did not establish any breach of the plea agreement by the government (his complaints targeted the court’s sentencing choices, and the district court is not a party to the agreement).
His “jurisdictional” arguments attacked jurisdiction over the underlying civil case, not the district court’s authority to enter a criminal-contempt judgment; therefore, the waiver remained enforceable.
The waiver was knowing and voluntary, supported by the waiver’s text and an extensive Rule 11 plea colloquy expressly covering fines and supervised release.
No miscarriage-of-justice exception applied: § 401 has no statutory maximum punishment, the supervised-release term fit within statutory limits, and Carpenter’s remaining arguments challenged the conviction/sentence rather than the lawfulness of the waiver itself.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

United States v. Hahn, 359 F.3d 1315 (10th Cir. 2004)

Hahn supplies the governing three-part test for enforcing appellate waivers: (1) scope, (2) knowing and voluntary, and (3) miscarriage of justice. It also defines the four exclusive miscarriage-of-justice categories: reliance on an impermissible factor (e.g., race), ineffective assistance in negotiating the waiver, a sentence exceeding the statutory maximum, or a waiver that is otherwise unlawful.

Here, the panel treated Hahn as the controlling framework and resolved the case principally under the second and third prongs, noting Carpenter did not dispute scope.

United States v. Porter, 405 F.3d 1136 (10th Cir. 2005)

Cited for the proposition that when a defendant does not dispute a Hahn factor (here, scope), the court need not address it. This streamlined the analysis and focused the decision on voluntariness and miscarriage of justice.

United States v. Luna-Acosta, 715 F.3d 860 (10th Cir. 2013)

Luna-Acosta stands for the important limitation that an appellate waiver cannot bar an appeal from a judgment entered without jurisdiction. Carpenter invoked this principle, but the panel narrowed it: the relevant “jurisdiction” must concern the challenged judgment itself (the criminal contempt), not collateral complaints about a separate matter (the underlying civil case).

United States v. Straub, 508 F.3d 1003 (11th Cir. 2007)

The Tenth Circuit relied on Straub to underscore a structural separation: adjudicating criminal contempt does not require adjudicating the legal merits (or jurisdictional viability) of the underlying controversy. This citation did the key conceptual work to reject Carpenter’s attempt to use alleged defects in the civil case to escape the criminal-contempt waiver.

United States v. Tanner, 721 F.3d 1231 (10th Cir. 2013)

Tanner places the burden on the defendant to show the waiver was not knowing and voluntary. The panel used this burden allocation to treat Carpenter’s assertions as insufficient when he did not meaningfully grapple with the plea agreement’s express waiver language and the detailed plea colloquy.

United States v. Sandoval, 477 F.3d 1204 (10th Cir. 2007)

Sandoval rejects the idea that a defendant must know the specific consequences (e.g., the exact fine amount) for a waiver to be knowing and voluntary; it is enough that the defendant understands the nature of the right and the general application of relinquishing it. The panel used Sandoval to dispose of Carpenter’s claim that he could not have knowingly waived appeal of a $100,000 fine or five years’ supervised release.

Sandoval also draws a critical distinction for the miscarriage-of-justice inquiry: the court evaluates whether the waiver is unlawful, not whether the sentence is unlawful—an idea later reinforced by Smith.

United States v. Green, 405 F.3d 1180 (10th Cir. 2005)

Green defines “statutory maximum” in the Hahn miscarriage-of-justice analysis as the maximum punishment Congress has specified for the statute of conviction. This was central to rejecting Carpenter’s argument that his sentence exceeded the statutory maximum.

United States v. Bowers, 847 F.3d 1280 (10th Cir. 2017)

Bowers establishes that 18 U.S.C. § 401 “carries no statutorily authorized maximum punishment.” That proposition effectively foreclosed Carpenter’s “statutory maximum” argument as to imprisonment/fine limits, while leaving the court to separately assess statutory limits on supervised release (which arise from other provisions).

United States v. Smith, 500 F.3d 1206 (10th Cir. 2007)

Smith is used to correct a common misconception: the “otherwise unlawful” miscarriage-of-justice category concerns whether the waiver itself is unlawful, not whether other parts of the proceeding contained legal error. The panel used Smith to reject Carpenter’s attempts to convert merits challenges (to the contempt conviction or sentence) into waiver-defeating arguments.

B. Legal Reasoning

No plea-agreement breach by the government. Carpenter framed the sentence (fine and supervised release) as a “breach,” but he identified no government conduct violating the agreement. The court’s key move was categorical: the district court is not a party to the plea agreement, so the court’s sentencing decision cannot constitute a “government breach.” Without a government breach, there was no basis to deny enforcement on that ground.
“Jurisdictional” arguments must concern the criminal-contempt judgment. The panel accepted the general principle (from Luna-Acosta) that waivers do not bar challenges to judgments entered without jurisdiction. But it confined the exception: Carpenter’s jurisdictional objections attacked the underlying civil suit, while the appealed judgment was for criminal contempt. Citing Straub, the court treated contempt authority as separate from jurisdiction over the civil merits, preventing Carpenter from using alleged civil-case infirmities to evade his criminal-case waiver.
The waiver was knowing and voluntary under the plea text and Rule 11 colloquy. Under Hahn, the court emphasized (i) the plea agreement’s express language waiving appeals of “any fines” and the “length and conditions of supervised release” (given a zero-month incarceration sentence), and (ii) the district court’s specific questioning during the plea hearing. The colloquy included Carpenter’s acknowledgment that there was “no statutory limit for a fine” and that supervised release could be imposed up to five years, plus an explicit walk-through of each waiver provision.

Using Sandoval, the panel rejected the notion that Carpenter needed to foresee the precise $100,000 figure to waive appeal.
No miscarriage of justice. The panel applied Hahn’s closed list of four miscarriage-of-justice scenarios. Carpenter primarily invoked two: “sentence exceeds statutory maximum” and “waiver otherwise unlawful.”
- No statutory-maximum problem. With Green and Bowers, the court reasoned that § 401 lacks a congressionally specified maximum punishment, undermining Carpenter’s claim as to the fine. As to supervised release, the court looked to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(b)(1) and held the five-year term fit the authorized cap for a Class A felony.
- “Otherwise unlawful” targets the waiver, not the sentence. Under Smith and Sandoval, Carpenter’s arguments were misdirected because they attacked the conviction/sentence rather than identifying a defect that made the waiver itself unlawful.

C. Impact

Limits on “jurisdiction” as a waiver escape hatch in contempt contexts. The decision reinforces that a jurisdictional argument avoids a waiver only when it goes to the court’s authority to enter the specific criminal judgment under review. Alleged jurisdictional defects in a related civil matter will not necessarily reopen appellate rights after a criminal-contempt guilty plea.
Reinforcement of waiver breadth over sentencing components. The panel’s reliance on explicit waiver text (covering “any fines” and supervised release terms/conditions) highlights best practices in plea drafting and signals that defendants face a steep uphill climb when the district court has carefully reviewed waiver provisions in a Rule 11 colloquy.
§ 401 contempt and the “statutory maximum” inquiry. By invoking Bowers, the court underscores that § 401’s lack of a maximum punishment makes “sentence exceeds statutory maximum” arguments harder to sustain in contempt cases—though supervised release remains constrained by separate statutory provisions (as the opinion illustrates through § 3583(b)(1)).
Collateral or post-sentencing motions do not necessarily bypass a waiver. Because the appeals included the dismissal of a Rule 35(a) motion, the decision signals that appellate waivers can reach not only the original conviction/sentence appeal but also attempts to relitigate sentencing through related procedural vehicles, when the waiver’s scope and enforcement criteria are met.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Criminal contempt (18 U.S.C. § 401(3)): A federal court’s power to punish willful disobedience of its lawful orders. It is a separate criminal judgment, even if it arises out of civil litigation.
Appeal waiver: A plea-agreement provision where the defendant gives up (waives) the right to appeal certain issues. Courts enforce these if the waiver covers the appeal, is knowing/voluntary, and enforcement would not create a miscarriage of justice.
Rule 11 colloquy: The judge’s in-court questioning during the plea hearing designed to ensure the plea (and waiver) is knowing and voluntary, including an explanation of rights being surrendered and potential penalties.
Miscarriage of justice (under United States v. Hahn): A narrow set of situations where a court will refuse to enforce an appellate waiver. It is not a general “fairness” review; it is limited to four categories identified in Hahn.
“Statutory maximum” (under United States v. Green): The highest punishment Congress has specified for the offense of conviction. In § 401 contempt, the Tenth Circuit has recognized there is no statutorily specified maximum punishment.
Jurisdictional challenge: An argument that the court lacked legal authority to enter the judgment. This opinion distinguishes between jurisdiction over an underlying civil case and authority to enter a separate criminal-contempt judgment.

5. Conclusion

The Tenth Circuit’s decision applies established waiver doctrine to a contempt conviction to deliver three practical rules: (1) sentencing outcomes imposed by the court are not, without more, a “government breach” of a plea agreement; (2) jurisdiction-based attempts to evade an appellate waiver must target the jurisdiction to enter the criminal judgment being appealed, not alleged defects in a related civil proceeding; and (3) under Hahn, “miscarriage of justice” remains a narrow gateway—particularly in § 401 contempt cases where there is no statutorily authorized maximum punishment, while supervised release remains bounded by separate statutory caps.