The panel determined that Eric Rudolph forfeited his right to appeal when he entered a guilty plea approximately twenty years ago for offenses related to four bombings.
In a unanimous decision on Monday, the 11th Circuit panel ruled that Eric Robert Rudolph, responsible for two fatalities and numerous injuries in bombings in Atlanta and Birmingham during the late 1990s, is bound by the terms of his guilty plea and cannot contest his multiple life sentences.
The appellate waiver included in Rudolph’s 2005 guilty plea, encompassing charges from the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics bombing, prevents him from challenging his sentence, according to U.S. Circuit Judge Britt Grant.
Despite Rudolph’s argument that his arson crimes no longer qualify as violent offenses following a 2019 Supreme Court ruling, the panel upheld the waiver, emphasizing that Rudolph agreed to forgo post-conviction challenges to his sentences in exchange for avoiding the death penalty.
Rudolph’s attacks, which resulted in fatalities and injuries, spanned various locations including the Olympic games in Atlanta, abortion clinics in Georgia and Alabama, and a lesbian bar in Atlanta. His guilty plea in 2005 involved charges of arson and the use of destructive devices in connection with violent crimes.
Following unsuccessful attempts to modify his sentences through habeas corpus petitions in 2020, Rudolph’s motions were dismissed by federal courts in Alabama and Georgia. The Eleventh Circuit panel, comprising Judges Grant, Brasher, and Wilson, reaffirmed Rudolph’s obligation under the plea agreement, rejecting his claims of innocence and challenges to the categorization of his offenses as violent crimes.
Despite Rudolph’s contentions, the panel maintained that the waiver explicitly prohibited collateral attacks on his sentences, underscoring the binding nature of his plea agreement.