The following excerpt is from Garcia-Aguilar v. U.S. Court for S.D.Cal., 535 F.3d 1021 (9th Cir. 2008):
But Rule 11(b)(1)(h) doesn't require judges to predict the precise maximum penalty at sentencing. See United States v. Barrios-Gutierrez, 255 F.3d 1024, 1027-28 (9th Cir.2001) (en banc) ("Whether [a sentencing] enhancement applies as a matter of fact, as a matter of law, or whether its application is merely a possibility are distinctions without significance at a Rule 11 hearing. . . . Rule 11 does not require that the district court announce authoritatively the actual maximum sentence at the plea-taking stage."). Instead, the court need only tell defendants the maximum sentence that they could possibly face.
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