Tag Archives: ineffective assistance

Guidelines Career Offenders Out of Luck on 2255s – Update for September 9, 2019

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6th CIRCUIT SAYS GUIDELINES CAREER OFFENDERS WANTING HAVIS OR DAVIS ADJUSTMENTS ARE OUT OF LUCK

toughluck180419Dwight Bullard pleaded guilty to distributing heroin and being a felon in possession of a firearm. At sentencing, the district court determined that he qualified as a career offender under the Sentencing Guidelines, a provision that sets sentencing ranges stratospherically high for people convicted of two prior drug crimes or crimes of violence.

One of Dwight’s prior drug offenses was for attempted to sell drugs. After the 6th Circuit’s decision in United States v. Havis, which held that attempted drug crimes did not qualify a predicate offense for Guidelines career offender status, Ballard challenged his own Guidelines career offender status in a post-conviction motion under 28 USC § 2255.

The difference between being a career offender and not being a career offender is huge, sometimes the difference between under five years and nearly 20 years in prison. The sentencing ranges are advisory, of course – courts are not obligated to follow them, but do over half of the time – but nevertheless the sentencing ranges are very influential.

The district court denied his 2255 motion, so Dwight appealed.

On appeal, the government admitted that Dwight was right, because Havis held the Guidelines definition of a controlled substance offense does not include attempt crimes. The 6th Circuit agreed that if Dwight received his sentence today, he would not be a Guidelines career offender.

lawyermistake170227But a non-constitutional challenge to an advisory guidelines range may not be raised in a post-conviction motion such as a 2255. Ballard tried to get around that problem by claiming that his trial and appeals attorneys were ineffective, because they did not raise the argument that ultimately won in Havis. Ineffective of counsel is a Sixth Amendment claim, and thus a constitutional issue.

Nevertheless, the 6th Circuit upheld dismissal of Dwight’s 2255. While his claim was cognizable under 2255, the Court said, Dwight could not show that his attorneys were ineffective for not raising the issue, and even if they had been, he had suffered no prejudice.

lovelawyerB170811Before Havis, there was no case precedent in the Circuit that would have held Dwight’s Arizona prior not to be a controlled substance offense. That being the case, the Circuit held, it was entirely reasonable for Dwight’s trial counsel not to object that the prior was used to make Dwight a career offender. As it is, his trial attorney argued at sentencing that Dwight was not “an authentic career offender,” and thus got him sentenced 152 months under his minimum Guidelines.

Even if Dwight’s lawyer should have raised the same argument that later won in Havis, the 6th Circuit held, the district court outcome would not have been different. This is because under the case law at the time, the district court would have counted the Arizona conviction toward career offender status even if Dwight’s lawyer had objected.

In so many words, the 6th Circuit says people who received career offender sentences because of what courts now recognize as a mistake, people who would never qualify for such a status today because of Havis or Davis, are simply out of luck.

Bullard v. United States, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 26643 (6th Cir. Sept. 4, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root

‘Bang’ Goes the Jury: Lawyer Ineffective For Not Protesting Judicial Arm-twisting – Update for February 1, 2019

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BLOWING UP THE JURY

juryduty180226Simon Brewster was on trial in state court for bank robbery. The jury went out, but reported to the judge a few hours later that it was hopelessly deadlocked 9-3 for conviction. The judge gave the jury the Allen charge, known colloquially as the “dynamite charge,” which pressures the jurors to reach a decision by continued deliberation by appealing, essentially, to their desire not to have wasted their and the court’s time.

The jury remained deadlocked, and the judge gave another Allen charge, two additional admonitions that the jurors must continue deliberating, and finally, another long charge that included instructions to keep on deliberating. That lengthy charge emphasized that the jurors had taken an oath to follow the law, which meant they must deliberate more. The judge ended his instructions with the challenge that he had taken his oath seriously and hoped they would do the same.

Shortly thereafter, when told that the one juror who wouldn’t vote to convict was doing crossword puzzles, the judge ordered all the reading materials taken out of the jury room. That tactic turned out to be effective. The jury convicted 20 minutes later.

dynamitejury190201Last week, the 11th Circuit granted Simon’s habeas corpus motion, holding that his lawyer was asleep at the switch for not objecting to the court’s strong-arming the jury. The 11th decided that even if Simon could not prove that judge would have granted a mistrial if he had been asked to do so, Simon was prejudiced. “An assessment of the likelihood of a result more favorable to a defendant must exclude the possibility of arbitrariness, whimsy, caprice, nullification, and the like,” the Circuit said. “It does not matter for prejudice purposes whether the judge at a defendant’s trial would have sustained an objection; what counts is whether the judge would have been required to do so under the applicable law and, if so, whether doing so would have resulted in a reasonable probability of a different result.”

Brewster v. Hetzel, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 1931 (11th Cir. Jan. 22)
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– Thomas L. Root

6th Circuit Make Showing Prejudice on Botched Plea Deals Easier – Update for October 11, 2018

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6TH CIRCUIT EASES PREJUDICE SHOWING REQUIRED FOR INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL ON PLEA AGREEMENT

plea161116One of the biggest hurdles facing an inmate filing a post-conviction motion under 28 USC 2255 who argues his lawyer gave bad advice on taking a plea deal is proving that he would have gone to trial but for the bad advice. That is the old Hill v. Lockhart prejudice standard for ineffective plea advice. The problem is that often, there is no way the defendant would have gone to trial under any circumstances, but he would have tried to negotiate a different plea deal or even entered a blind “straight-up” guilty plea without a plea deal at all.

Until recently, unless you could show you would have gone to trial but for the bad advice, you could not win a 2255 ineffective plea claim. Last week, the 6th Circuit has joined five other circuits in holding that a 2255 defendant may demonstrate prejudice if he can show that, had he been properly advised, he would have bargained for a more favorable plea.

Daynel Rodriguez-Penton argued in a 28 USC 2255 motion that his lawyer failed to warn him that pleading guilty would get him deported. The district court denied his motion, relying on the Hill v. Lockhart prejudice standard.

The 6th Circuit reversed, holding that “the legal landscape for such claims has changed in material ways since Hill.” In Missouri v. Frye, the Supreme Court explained that “Hill applies in the context in which it arose. Hill does not, however, provide the sole means for demonstrating prejudice arising from the deficient performance of counsel during plea negotiations.” The Frye court ruled that petitioners who allege ineffective assistance of counsel during the plea process may satisfy the prejudice prong even without a showing that they would have gone to trial were it not for counsel’s deficient performance.

prejudice181011The Circuit said last week that such a prejudice showing may be made in different ways, such as by identifying similar plea agreements reached by others charged with similar crimes, by showing that the petitioner would have gone to trial, or by proving his decision-making process would somehow have been different. What is necessary, the Court said, is that, “no matter the route he takes, [the defendant] must still end up at the same place: he must present evidence sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the plea-negotiation process.”

Daynel will now get a chance to prove he could have cut a plea agreement that would have kept him in the US.

Rodriguez-Penton v. United States, Case No. 15-6306 (6th Cir. Oct. 2, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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The Error Wasn’t Plain… But Your Lawyer Was Plainly in Error – Update for August 7, 2018

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GOVERNMENT PLEA BREACH NOT PLAIN ERROR, BUT DEFENSE COUNSEL WAS PROBABLY INEFFECTIVE
A defendant is supposed to get what he reasonably believed he negotiated in a plea deal
A defendant is supposed to get what he reasonably believed he negotiated in a plea deal

Marquette Murray had a couple of problems, a federal drug conspiracy indictment and a couple of misdemeanors in D.C. Superior Court. His lawyer negotiated a favorable plea deal in which the government agreed Marquette was looking at Criminal History I and a sentencing range of 24-30 months.

After the deal was made, however, Marquette got sentenced in D.C. Superior Court before his federal sentencing. The presentence report used the misdemeanor convictions and made Marquette a Crim History II. His sentencing range rose to 27-33 months, and the government recommended a 33-month sentence.

On appeal with a different lawyer, Marquette claimed the government had breached the plea agreement, because in D.C., the government runs prosecutions in federal court and superior court. Because the government had the power, Marquette said, it should have delayed Superior Court sentencing so Marquette would have remained a Crim History I for federal sentencing purposes. To add insult to injury, the government demandedMarquette get 33 months, and thus breached its promise to recommend a within-range guidelines sentence.

ausalies171207What did in the government was that it agreed in the plea agreement that based on the information it knew, Marquette had a criminal history of I and a sentencing range of 24-30 months. Last week, the Court of Appeals agreed with Marquette that the government had welshed on the deal, but it denied Marquette relief… even while dangling a post-conviction carrot in front of him.

Sure, the Court ruled, the government breached the plea agreement. But because Marquette’s trial attorney did not object, the appeals court could only grant relief for FRCrimP 52(b) plain error. “And to find plain error,” the Court said, “it is not enough to base our reading on the parties’ ‘reasonable understanding’ and on ‘construing any ambiguities’ against the government. Rather, we must find that the breach was clear or obvious.”

While reasonable defendants could have understood the agreement the way Marquette did, the agreement did not expressly address whether the not-yet-entered pleas would affect his final criminal history category and Guidelines range, and the agreement does not expressly address the expected timing of those pleas. “In sum, we conclude that the government breached its plea agreement with appellant [Marquette]. But [Marquette] did not object to the breaches in the district court, and we therefore cannot provide him with relief because the breaches were not plain. Although his interpretation of the agreement’s ambiguous language is the best one, we cannot say that the breaches should “have been obvious to the trial court.”

However, the Court said in an unmistakable hint to Marquette, it seemed pretty clear his trial counsel was ineffective in not seeking a continuance in Superior Court and in not objecting to the government asking for more than 30 months.

lawyerjoke180807And because “in most cases the Guidelines range will affect the sentence,” the prospect that effective performance would have put [Marquette’s] 33-month sentence above the Guidelines range is sufficient to establish a reasonable probability of prejudice.

The Court strongly implied that Marquette might get the deal he was entitled to on post-conviction review, and it hinted to Marquette that he should be sure to file a 2255 motion, which he will no doubt be doing soon.

United States v. Murray, Case No. 17-3006 (D.C. Cir., July 31, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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Law Books and Ouija Boards – Update for Wednesday, March 14, 2018

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2255 FILERS: “IAC” IS NOT “INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF CLAIRVOYANT”

ouija180315One of the most common arguments made in a post-conviction motion under 28 USC 2255 – which is the federal prisoner’s stand-in for a writ of habeas corpus attacking the conviction or sentence – is that the defendant’s trial attorney rendered ineffective assistance. The Supreme Court has held that the 6th Amendment guarantees the right to counsel in felony cases, as every schoolchild knows, but the Court has gone beyond that, holding that the right to counsel is meaningless without the right to effective counsel, that is, an attorney who does not screw things up by committing what amounts to malpractice.

Unsurprisingly, to a prisoner employing hindsight, the end justifies the means (in a way). We once had a guy call us up to say, “I got convicted. My lawyer was ineffective.” We asked what his lawyer had done that constituted ineffective assistance, to which the inmate impatiently replied, “You don’t get it. My lawyer was ineffective. I got convicted.” We again asked how the lawyer had been ineffective, before it dawned on us that the inmate was saying that the fact of his conviction was proof of his lawyer’s ineffectiveness.

dumblawyer180108It really doesn’t work that way, as defendant Tyrone Kirklin learned last week. Ty was convicted of a string of robberies in which the jury found he had sent accomplices into banks with handguns. The jury did not find that the accomplices brandished the guns, which would have made Ty’s 18 USC 924(c) mandatory consecutive sentence at least seven years instead of five. However, at sentencing the judge found that Ty’s sidekicks had indeed brandished the weapons, and that Ty had convinced them to do so. He raised Ty’s mandatory consecutive sentence to seven years.

At sentencing, Ty’s lawyer did not argue that the jury – not the judge – had to make the “brandishing” finding, and that the finding had to be made beyond a reasonable doubt. But during Ty’s appeal, the Supreme Court handed down Alleyne v. United States, reversing its 2002 holding in Harris v. United States and holding that facts that set or raised a mandatory minimum sentence – like facts that raised a maximum sentence – had to be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ty’s Court of Appeals considered Ty’s appeal in light of the new Alleyne holding, but said that because Ty had not raised the issue in the district court, the seven-year minimum sentence could be reviewed for “plain error.”  Doing so, the Circuit affirmed his sentence because the court’s error did not affect the “fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the proceedings… The evidence that the accomplices brandished the firearms and that Ty was responsible for their having done so was overwhelming. It seemed ‘highly unlikely’ that the jury would have found him guilty of aiding and abetting the use or carrying of the firearms without finding him equally responsible for the brandishing.”

So Ty filed a 2255 motion, arguing his lawyer was constitutionally ineffective for not raising the Alleyne issue at sentencing. Last week, the 7th Circuit turned him down. After all, the Circuit said, Harris was the law when Ty was sentenced. It was not until three months after sentencing that the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Alleyne, which first “signaled that the Supreme Court would consider whether to overrule Harris.”

crystal180315Ty argued his attorney’s performance was objectively unreasonable because the lawyer should have anticipated the possible overruling of Harris, and thus should have objected that the district court made the brandishing finding instead of the jury (to preserve the objection in case something later happened at SCOTUS). Ty said a competent lawyer would have realized that the Alleyne decision overruling Harris was imminent.

The 7th said Ty’s “claim of ineffective assistance depends on hindsight, which Strickland v. Washington warns against… With the benefit of hindsight, the overruling of Harris can too easily seem almost inevitable. But it was not inevitable to Justice Scalia, who concurred in both Apprendi and Harris and dissented in Alleyne. Nor was it inevitable or appropriate in the view of the other Justices who dissented in Alleyne. We have said repeatedly that the guarantee of effective assistance of counsel does not require an attorney to anticipate every eventual change in the law.”

Kirklin v. United States, Case No. 17-1056 (7th Cir.  Mar. 5, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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Counsel Should Be Smart Enough to Know the Court is Wrong – Update for January 8, 2018

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IF ERROR WAS NOT PLAIN, WAS COUNSEL STILL INEFFECTIVE?

It has happened often enough before: A Circuit decision was plainly against a sentencing position the defendant wanted to take, and so counsel did not fight the issue. Then, after the defendant’s conviction is final, the law changes. Was counsel ineffective for not raising the issue?

violence151213Jolol Carthorne was sentenced as a Guidelines career offender in part because he had a Virginia prior for assaulting a police officer. Circuit precedent at the time held the crime to be a crime of violence, and his lawyer did not fight it, despite the fact that Virginia law held that the slightest touching was enough for conviction.

On appeal, Jolol argued that the assault should not count for career offender status. The problem, of course, was that Jolol did not raise the issue at sentencing, so he could only win the issue if the district court committed plain error. The Circuit agreed that his assault on the cop was not a crime of violence, but said that because its prior decisions (all of which had since discredited by Johnson and Mathis and other Supreme Court cases) were binding on the district court when Jolol was sentenced, the sentencing error was not FRCrimP 52(b) “plain error.” Jolol had noting coming.

assault180108Jolol then filed a 2255 motion complaining that his lawyer should have argued that a Virginia conviction for assaulting a cop was no longer a crime of violence. His lawyer admitted he was not even aware of the analysis required by the recent Supreme Court cases application offenses, such as Johnson v. United States, Mathis v. United States, and  Descamps v. United States, for purposes of the career offender enhancement. But the district court said that since there was no plain error in sentencing Jolol as a career offender, there was no ineffective assistance of counsel standard in not raising it.

On the Thursday before Christmas, the 4th Circuit ruled for Jolol. It said that the plain error standard and ineffective assistance of counsel are not the same thing. “The ineffective assistance inquiry focuses on a factor that is not considered in a plain error analysis, namely, the objective reasonableness of counsel’s performance. In addition, plain error review requires that there be settled precedent before a defendant may be granted relief, while the ineffective assistance standard may require that counsel raise material issues even in the absence of decisive precedent… Claims of ineffective assistance are evaluated in light of the available authority at the time of counsel’s allegedly deficient performance. But the plain error inquiry applies precedential authority existing at the time of appellate review.”

dumblawyer180108Defense counsel must demonstrate a basic level of competence regarding the proper legal analysis governing each stage of a case. Therefore, he or she may be constitutionally required to object when there is relevant authority strongly suggesting that a sentencing enhancement is not proper. The Circuit said that was the case here, where newer cases made clear that Virginia assault and battery did not categorically present serious risks of physical injury. Defense counsel should have known to make the argument, even though the district court probably would have rejected it because of circuit precedent.

United States v. Carthorne, Case No. 16-5613 (4th Cir., Dec. 21, 2017)

– Thomas L. Root

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Court Doesn’t Care About What Might Have Been – Update for January 3, 2018

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IF YOUR LAWYER SAYS HE SCREWED UP, THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH

addiction180103Barely an adult, Frank Hernandez committed a couple of horrific murders. The jury heard about how he was drunk during the crimes, but never heard about his severe mental illness with “psychiatric illness of psychotic proportions,” including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, seizure disorder, and depression, in addition to an “extraordinary degree of chemical dependency.” What’s more, they never heard about his childhood with a succession of depraved parents and foster parents, which one expert later described as “a daily hell.”

Frank brought a state habeas corpus claim, claiming his lawyer was ineffective for not arguing “diminished capacity,” which was a valid state defense to murder. Usually when lawyers are accused of being ineffective, they try to justify their sloth as being some kind of strategy. To his credit, Frank’s lawyer did not. Instead, he admitted that he would have investigated and advanced the diminished capacity defense based on mental impairment had he realized that he could have done so.

game180103Game, set, match, right? Wrong. The state argued that the lawyer’s “subjective state of mind is irrelevant” as long as the state can conjure up some hypothetical reason why a reasonable defense attorney might have not raised the diminished capacity issue. After Frank brought a federal court action under 28 USC § 2254 and lost, he appealed to the 9th Circuit.

Last week, the Circuit slapped down the prosecutor, saying what might have been did not matter as long as the record showed what really was.

lawyerguilty160901“Where counsel has provided the reason for his conduct, and we have no reason to doubt the validity of that explanation, the relevant inquiry is whether the stated reason was objectively unreasonable,” the Circuit said. “Courts are not to indulge ‘post hoc rationalization’ for counsel’s decision-making that contradicts the available evidence of counsel’s actions.” Only where the defense counsel’s conduct is not explained in the record or the explanation contradicts the record, should a district court “entertain the range of possible reasons counsel may have had for proceeding as he did.”

Because “an attorney’s ignorance of a point of law that is fundamental to his case combined with his failure to perform basic research on that point is a quintessential example of unreasonable performance under Strickland,” the Court said, defense counsel’s omission was ineffective assistance.

Hernandez v. Chappell, Case No. 11-99013 (9th Cir., Dec. 29, 2017)

– Thomas L. Root

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Clueless Defense Counsel Gets Defendant a Hearing – Update for September 29, 2017

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HE WAS BLINDED BY SCIENCE

yacht170928We would give writing this blog and soak up tropical rays aboard our 300-foot long yacht if we had a nickel for every time a defendant has told us that his attorney didn’t listen to what had really happened. Occasionally, an opinion comes along to remind us that this is often the case.

Jim Griffith was a science guy. Unfortunately for him, he used his chemistry knowhow to manufacture methamphetamine from pseudoephedrine. There are a lot of things you probably do not need to know about meth homebrew, but one thing you ought to know: the amount of meth you end up with will never weigh more than the pseudoephedrine you start with. In fact, even high-yield processes yield a lot less, something like 3 units of meth for every 4 units of “suzy.”

science170928Jim’s lawyer was no science guy. That was too bad. As every student of the drug war knows, Section 2D1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines is driven by drug weight. The more a defendant’s drugs weighed, the higher the sentence.

At Jim’s trial, a forensic chemist explained that all of the liquids the cops seized when Jim’s lab was raided either contained meth or pseudoephedrine. All of the various liquids containing meth was 150.2 grams, and the combined weight of liquids containing the pseudoephedrine was 124.9 grams. The jury found Jim responsible for 150.2 grams of meth.

During the trial, Jim repeatedly explained to his lawyer that no one was looking at the meth issue correctly. He said most of the liquids counted against him were mostly “toxic waste materials” that were “unusable.” He complained he started with only 2.4 grams of pseudoephedrine and said that “it is impossible to turn 2.4 grams of pseudoephedrine into more than 2.4 grams of methamphetamine.” He told counsel “on numerous occasions that the liquids seized by the police were unusable in their current form and were mostly nothing more than the waste materials from the one multi-step process that I was conducting to make a small amount of methamphetamine for my own personal use.”

His lawyer didn’t get it. He thoughstupidoil170928t that “unusable” liquids were just meth mixtures too weak to get users high. Something like ditch weed is to pot. He told Jim it didn’t matter, because all of the weight of the liquid mixtures had to be included in the sentence calculation.

Jim got 20 years.

He then filed a post-conviction motion under 28 USC 2255, complaining that his attorney was ineffective for failing to conduct an adequate investigation, to hire an expert witness to testify as to the amount of usable methamphetamine that could be produced from the liquids; to object to jury instructions addressing whether he manufactured a “mixture or substance” containing methamphetamine; and to challenge the jury instructions and presentence report. Jim fully explained the three-step process he used to manufacture methamphetamine, and that starting with 2.4 grams of pseudoephedrine, it is impossible to end up with more than 2.4 grams of meth. He asserted that he repeatedly told counsel those facts “from the very beginning,” but counsel failed to argue that the liquids were not a usable “mixture or substance.”

lab170928Jim’s lawyer admitted that he did not know what Jim had meant by “usable.” As to whether the substances amounted to “mixtures,” he explained that, after he had talked “with both probation and the Government on that issue,” he concluded that the substances were “mixtures” so he was “satisfied that the calculations were correct.”

The district court concluded Jim was not entitled to a hearing on his 2255 motion. But earlier this week, the 11th Circuit agreed with Jim, and ordered that the district court give him the evidentiary hearing he sought. The Circuit pointed out that precedent clearly held that waste product, even if trace amounts of the drug were present, “which is unusable and not ready for retail or wholesale distribution” should not be counted in the weight of the drugs attributed to a defendant. The Circuit said that “if a petitioner alleges facts that, if true, would entitle him to relief, then the district court should order an evidentiary hearing and rule on the merits of his claim… A petitioner need only allege — not prove — reasonably specific, non-conclusory facts that, if true, would entitle him to relief. If the allegations are not affirmatively contradicted by the record and the claims are not patently frivolous, the district court is required to hold an evidentiary hearing.”

atty170928The Circuit observed that If Jim “proves the factual allegations he has made, he will have shown that counsel’s failure to render reasonably effective assistance not only resulted in an erroneously higher guidelines range but it also caused the sentencing court to apply an inapplicable statutory mandatory minimum for Count 1. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the combined force of those two errors did not affect his sentence. To the contrary, the fact that the district court sentenced Griffith to the bottom of the guidelines range on the grouped counts, even though the government argued for a sentence above the guidelines range, is evidence of a reasonable probability of a different result.”

United States v. Griffith, Case No. 15-11877 (11th Cir., Sept. 26, 2017)

– Thomas L. Root

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EDNY Judge Blasts Veteran Defense Attorney for ‘Inexcusably’ Abandoning Client – Update for August 15, 2017

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HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS…

hats170816Federal criminal cases generally move along at a brisk clip (“brisk” here being a relative term in the judicial system). For instance, the Speedy Trial Act requires that trials begin 70 days after indictment (although the statute has more holes than a Swiss cheese factory). Courts are usually parsimonious with continuances. Federal criminal subpoenas are sufficient to haul in witnesses from anywhere Old Glory flies, and motion deadlines are abbreviated.

When final judgment is rendered and the sentence imposed, a criminal defendant has a mere 14 days to file a notice of appeal, if he wants to challenge the conviction or sentence in the court of appeals. In the more casual federal civil world, parties wishing to appeal have 30 days, and if the party is part of the government (where nothing is done quickly), it has 60 days.

Adding to the tight appeal deadline is the fact that the defendant is often otherwise occupied, being in jail awaiting the bus ride to his or her final prison destination. It really falls to the defendant’s lawyer to get the notice of appeal – which, after all, is all of a paragraph long – on file.

deadline170816If a defendant misses the 14-day deadline, he or she has one final shot, a 30-day period after that during which the district court may extend the filing deadline for “excusable neglect or good cause.” An Eastern District of New York defendant successfully made that showing the other day – a rare occurrence – and in so doing drawing an unusual scorching for his lawyer from the court.

David Gotterup, who was convicted of mail, wire and bank fraud, was sentenced to 135 months on June 1 of this year. Although he had two lawyers representing him, he had to get his brother – who was not an attorney – to drop off his notice of appeal at the court. His brother, being a busy guy, got it there one day late, on June 16 instead of June 15. Dave promptly filed for permission to file one day late.

Eastern District of New York Judge Nicholas Garaufis held a hearing on Dave’s motion just a week ago. It found that Dave had told Joseph Conway, one of his lawyers, right after sentencing that he wanted to appeal. Dave said so. Lawyer Conway said so, but he also explained that Dave’s plea agreement contained an appeal waiver.

Dave pointed that even under the waiver, he was allowed to appeal on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds. Lawyer Conway said he told Dave that “he could file an appeal and ask for new counsel” if he wanted to. Conway even helped Dave’s brother complete the notice of appeal form and gave him filing instructions.

Dave, on the other hand, claimed he “was always under the impression that Mr. Conway was filing the appeal and that the appeal was in motion.” He thought the “only delay” was the filing fee that his brother “went and paid.” In fact, right up to the August 1 hearing, Dave “didn’t actually know that [he] was filing a motion… to be completely honest, I thought I was being represented by Mr. Conway in my appeal.”

ignore170816The District Court found excusable neglect justifying Dave’s late filing “due to the fact that Defendant reasonably believed that Trial Counsel was handling the filing of his notice of appeal.” Dave had promptly told his Conway he wanted to appeal, and because he was locked up, he had to rely on Conway to get the job done.

Judge Garaufis found that Conway’s later attempts to shift responsibility for the filing to Dave “understandably confused Defendant,” and clearly was skeptical about the lawyer’s story:

Mr. Conway represents that after the Amended Judgment was docketed, he told Defendant that he would need to file his notice of appeal pro se. Defendant avers that Mr. Conway ‘never said anything about a pro se representation.’ Even assuming that Mr. Conway’s version of the facts is true, Mr. Conway’s actions thereafter proved to be inconsistent with his directive that Defendant should proceed pro se. First, by Mr. Conway’s own account, Mr. Conway invited Defendant’s brother to his law office to help him fill out the notice of appeal form. It is not as though Mr. Conway extricated himself from the filing entirely. As such, Defendant’s belief that his brother ‘wasn’t filing a notice of appeal’ and was merely ‘picking up paperwork from Mr. Conway to drop off at the court,’ was entirely reasonable.

conway170816Second, after the Amended Judgment was entered, Mr. Conway continued to represent Defendant with respect to the restitution portion of his case. At the Hearing, Mr. Conway appeared to argue that his representation ended when the Amended Judgment was docketed on June 1, 2017; however, the Government represents that, as late as June 23, 2017, Mr. Conway was still acting as counsel for Defendant.

Judge Garaufis felt lied to, and made that clear, saying that “Conway misled the court by stating that once the Amended Judgment was filed, his ‘services to [Defendant] were over’… This splitting of hairs understandably confused Defendant. It is entirely reasonable for a defendant to think that an attorney handling one aspect of the case is handling the case in its entirety.

Conway argued that his retainer agreement did not contemplate appellate work, and that Dave’s plan to claim lawyer ineffectiveness precluded Conway – the presumed target of that claim – from filing the notice of appeal. The District Court noted that Conway was not just an experienced defense attorney but a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for 15 years who headed E.D.N.Y.’s criminal division. “As such,” the Court said, “he is quite obviously aware of trial counsel’s obligation to protect the appellate rights of a criminal defendant by timely filing a notice of appeal.”

interrupt1700816Judge Garaufis wrote that Conway “abandoned his client and left the task of filing a notice of appeal to his incarcerated client and Defendant’s brother who, importantly, is not an attorney… Based on Mr. Conway’s conduct, Defendant has a plausible claim of malpractice against his attorney. The court said Conway’s refusal to file the notice of appeal was “inexcusable as a matter of ethics and professionalism. As such, the court intends to refer this matter to the Committee on Grievances…”

Conway told New York Law Journal last Friday “I wholeheartedly disagree with the decision and look forward to an opportunity to present my case.” He apparently overlooked that he had a chance to present his case in front of U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis a couple weeks ago. And that did not turn out so well.

United States v. Gotterup, Case No. 15-CR -498 (E.D.N.Y., August 14, 2017)

– Thomas L. Root

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You Can Love Your Lawyer Too Much – Update for August 9, 2017

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

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CLUCKING DEFIANCE

defiance170811There’s an old legal joke about the difference between an attorney and a rooster. The punch line goes something like “A rooster clucks defiance.”

Putting some meat on those bones is New York attorney Harvey Slovis. Harv represented Oksana Romalis, a school teacher caught up in a multi-defendant scam to rip off the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The Conference is a not-for-profit organization that supervises and administers several funds that make reparation payments to victims of Nazi Germany, distributing hundreds of millions of dollars annually in direct payments to tens of thousands of victims in 80 countries and territories. The government alleged that Oksana and others recruited people who lived at about the right time to be victims, and engineered phony applications for compensation. The head of one of the Conference funds would then approve the bogus claims in exchange for a cut of the payment. The decade-long fraud stung the Conference for over $57 million.

Only three of the 31 defendants went to trial. Oksana was one of them. In a post-conviction petition she filed under 28 USC 2255, Oksana claimed that her lawyer was ineffective for not telling her that she could get the 46-month sentence she ended up with, which was her reason for rejecting a government offer of a 21-27 month sentencing range.

Last week, the district court rejected Oksana’s ineffective assistance claim, holding that a lawyer’s failure to accurately predict that her sentencing range might start 10 months above the sentencing range offered by the government was not a big enough difference to show that she was prejudiced by counsel’s overly-rosy predictions that she could win at trial.

lovelawyerB170811But the more interesting allegation Oksana made, rejected by the court, was that she and “and Slovis were involved in a relationship, ‘frequently went on dates together, and became intimate’.” The court noted that “in text messages between the two, Slovis and Romalis expressed affection for each other and often used terms of endearment. Romalis says that her decision to reject the Government’s plea offer was based on her intimate relationship with Slovis. Romalis also speculates that “Slovis was motivated by romance and money,” and “was stringing her along in order to prolong their relationship.”

The district court was unimpressed. To be sure, a defendant’s 6th Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel includes the right to representation by conflict-free counsel. But conflict-free counsel does not necessarily mean that the 6th Amendment enforces the canons of legal ethics. The court said, “the existence of an intimate relationship between a defendant and counsel may not always amount to a conflict of interest, even if it violates the code of professional ethics.”

lawyerlove170811Here, Oksana was obligated to prove that her affair with Harvey either adversely affected his performance or otherwise prejudiced her interests. Oksana speculates that Harvey improperly advised her in conjunction with the plea offers because he wanted to continue their relationship as long as possible. However, the district court held, Oksana had to “provide more than that to demonstrate that Slovis’s performance was adversely affected by his relationship with her.” At sentencing, Oksana tried to convince the court she had only gone to trial instead of pleading guilty because she knew that if she was convicted, she would lose her teaching license. That assertion came back to bite her. The court didn’t buy her 2255 claims that Harv had advised her wrong on plea offers because she was his “squeeze.” Instead, the court held Oksana to her prior claim she had rejected the offers because she hoped to win at trial and keep her teaching certificate.

Sec. 2255 directs a district court judge to consider a defendant’s claims in light of the entire record of the trial and post-conviction proceeding. That’s what the judge did here, much to Oksana’s chagrin.

Harv is probably not out of the woods. Most jurisdictions have rules of professional conduct that prohibit a lawyer sleeping with a client, which is enshrined in American Bar Association Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.8(j). We at least hope that Harvey didn’t bill Oksana for the time they spent horizontally. It’s happened before.

Romalis v. United States, Case No. 1:11-cr-00120 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 4, 2017)

– Thomas L. Root

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