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Sobering § 2255 Lessons – Update for September 10, 2020

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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.

A COUPLE OF CAUTIONARY 2255 DECISIONS

A pair of Circuit decisions on 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motions last week did not deliver a lot of hope to petitioners.

bribeB160627In one 6th Circuit decision, former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora got a number of bribery-related convictions vacated because of the intervening 2016 Supreme Court decision in McDonnell v. United States. The decision is instructive for public officials and employees caught up in so-called pay-to-play cases, where they are accused of trading official favors for profit. But the cautionary note for the rest of § 2255 movants relates to cumulative error.

Jimmy, like many § 2255 movants, argued that even if no single error he cited justified reversal, the cumulative effect of the many errors he cited was to violate his due process rights. “Cumulative error” is a favorite catch-all issue, added to the end of a § 2255 motion to give it sufficient heft.

Thehe cumulative error doctrine provides that an aggregation of errors that are in and of themselves insufficient to require a reversal can nevertheless yield a denial of a defendant’s 5th Amendment right to a fair trial, and thus – by the sheer weight of the pile of mistakes, require a mistrial.

As a circuit court of appeals observed in a case almost 30 years ago, “the possibility of cumulative error is often acknowledged but practically never found persuasive.” The doctrine justifies reversal only in the unusual case in which synergistic or repetitive error violates the defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial.

The 6th Circuit poured additional cold water on the doctrine last week. The Circuit doubts that “cumulative error” has any place in a § 2255 motion: “We note, however, that we are uncertain whether this theory of prejudice is available to § 2255 petitioners… And we are especially uncertain that it is available where one of two claimed errors is an evidentiary error… But we leave these questions for the district court to consider on remand after it assesses the harmlessness of the instructional error independent of any cumulative effect.”

shootemup161122Meanwhile, in the 5th Circuit, Lauro Valdez used a convenient handgun to shoot a man Lauro said was trying to break in. His self-defense claim might have worked, except that after Lauro shot him once, he walked over to the prostrate victim and pumped more three rounds into him.

An old lawyer I knew used to say, “Two bullets or two bodies, and you’ve got a problem.” That was Lauro’s predicament. He could explain the one shot at an intruder. The other three a minute later – not so easy.

Lauro was charged with being a felon-in-possession of a gun in violation of 18 USC § 922(g). His lawyer told him that he faced a 24-36 month Guidelines range if he were convicted. That was wrong, because USSG § 2K2.1(c)(1) has a cross-reference for murder – which clearly applied here – that would raise Lauro’s Guidelines to at least 324 months. That meant Lauro would undoubtedly get 10 years, the maximum sentence for felons-in-possession allowed by statute.

Being advised wrongly by his lawyer, Lauro figured he would use the “justification” defense at trial, arguing he had just grabbed a gun to protect himself from an imminent threat. This might have worked for him, too, except that on the eve of trial, he learned that his wife would testify the gun had been on Lauro’s nightstand a week before the shooting, way too long ago to let him argue a sudden need to possess a gun against an imminent threat.

Lauro decided to plead guilty. At the change-of-plea hearing, the judge explained that § 922(g) carried a 120-month statutory maximum, and that regardless of what his lawyer might have said about a possible sentence, “it’s not a guarantee and it’s not binding on this Court.”

Lauro, of course, agreed. Defendants in those hearings usually are able to process nothing the judge says, and Lauro was no exception.

At sentencing, the judge gave Lauro the full 10 years, using the Guidelines cross reference for murder. Lauro later claimed in his § 2255 motion that his lawyer had predicted only 36 months, and had said nothing about a murder cross-reference to the Guidelines.if he had known about the Guidelines’ murder cross-reference, Lauro wrote in his motion, he would not have waived his right to a jury trial. His lawyer admitted in an affidavit that he had completely missed the murder cross-reference when he advised Lauro.

lawyer15170317The issue when a defendant alleges his counsel’s errors led him to take a plea rather than go to trial is not whether the defendant could have won the trial, but instead only whether a rational defendant would have chosen to go to trial. Here, the 5th Circuit held Lauro’s lawyer’s performance was not deficient, because both he and the court told Juan about the 10-year statutory maximum. The Circuit so much as said that a competent lawyer can’t figure out the Guidelines, so misadvising his or her client was not deficient representation.

What’s more, the 5th said, Lauro suffered no prejudice, because it was clear that “rather than risking conviction by the jury (with no sentencing benefits whatsoever), Lauro hoped to parlay a late guilty plea into a credit for acceptance of responsibility and additional benefit from cooperating or rendering substantial assistance. In other words, knowing that wifey was going to blow up his defense, the Circuit said, Lauro did what any rational defendant would do.

One judge dissented, as he should have, from this terrible decision. Any rational defendant – being told that if he pled, he would get 120 months and if he went to trial, he would get 120 months – would take his chances with a jury.

Dimora v. United States, Case No. 18-4260, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 27675 (6th Cir Aug 31, 2020)

United States v. Valdez, Case No. 18-40495, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 27909 (5th Cir. Sep 1, 2020)

– Thomas L. Root

Winning the Appointed Counsel Lottery – Update for December 2, 2019

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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.

3RD CIRCUIT ISSUES REMARKABLE INEFFECTIVE-ASSISTANCE DECISION

When prisoners file post-conviction motions, such as the motion under 28 USC § 2255, they are not entitled to appointed counsel under the Sixth Amendment. However, if their claims seem on their face to be sufficiently meritorious, the courts often appoint lawyers to help them in an evidentiary hearing or on appeal.

lottery191202How the courts select counsel to appoint varies from district to district and circuit to circuit. What does not vary is the relatively small amount of compensation paid for the lawyers’ work.

This is where the appointed counsel lottery comes in.

Usually, a solo practitioner or small firm is appointed, and the amount of time those appointed attorneys can devote is limited by the pedestrian need to make a living. If the hours you bill are what will put food on next month’s table, you are motivated to spend no more time on the appointment than fees available for compensation. It’s a fact of life.

A few times in my career, I have seen the occasional prisoner have appointed to him or her a lawyer at one of the “big law” firms – law partnerships with hundreds of lawyers and a culture of providing every client with a quarter-million dollar defense, regardless of whether the client is Megacorp International or Peter Pauper. I recall one defendant in Indiana calling me to report the court had appointed some lawyer from Washington, D.C. to represent him, at a firm named Jones Day or something like that.

“My friend,” I said, “you just won the lottery.”

(For the uninitiated, I note that Jones, Day, with over 2,500 lawyers and offices around the world, is one of the top grossing firms on the planet. Wikipedia describes it as “one of the most elite law firms in the world”).

And what a difference unlimited resources made for the Indiana defendant.

Just as big a win is when a top-ranked law school has a driven law prof and a gaggle of smart law students working in a practicum. Law students are allowed to provide representation in some cases, under guidance of a licensed attorney-professor. I know a vigorous pro se inmate with a complex legal question to whom a Georgetown University professor and her students were assigned by the D.C. Circuit. The representation he got could not have been purchased for $300,000.

Today, we consider lottery winner Peter Sepling. Pete pled guilty to importing gamma butyrolactone (GBL), a schedule I analogue drug. His lawyer cut a good deal, one that would let him get sentenced without application of a Guidelines career offender enhancement.

But while on bond, Pete got busted for conspiracy to import methylone, another Schedule I drug.

methylone191202Pete cut a deal on the new charge where he would not be prosecuted for the methylone, but instead, it would be factored into the sentence he would get in the GBL case. This is where the fun started.

The Guidelines do not contain any offense level for methylone. Pete’s presentence report compared methylone to methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), commonly known as ecstasy. The Guidelines holds ecstasy to be pretty bad stuff, equating a unit of that drug to 500 units of marijuana. Consequently, the District Court started its sentencing determination using this 500:1 ratio. In Pete’s case, this converted to 5,000 kilos of pot. The net result was that his Guidelines sentencing range of 27-33 months soared to 188-235 months.

Pete’s lawyer did not object to the methylone-ecstasy comparison, or to the sentencing range. Nor did he file a sentencing memorandum. At sentencing, defense counsel admitted to the court that he had “never heard of methylone… until Sepling got rearrested,” and that he had attempted to learn about the drug from the government. Counsel further explained that the government “tried to educate me… as Mr. Sepling tried to educate me. My understanding of the drug, which is very little, is that drug is – Spellman will explain to the Court – it’s like a watered down ecstasy.”

For its part, the Government also knew next to nothing about methylone.

At his attorney’s request, Pete told the Court methylone is “like ecstasy. If ecstasy is a ten… this stuff is six and lasts about an hour and a half.”

mdma191202The Court admitted it did not know anything about methylone, either, but observed that “in any event, it’s a controlled substance. It’s mind altering. It affects people’s behavior. It’s not a good thing. So I will consider that.” The Court varied downward from the Guidelines, but still gave Pete 102 months, telling him “you’ve committed a serious crime here, and it’s — in particular the methylone and that you put people in harm’s way.”

Pete filed a post-conviction motion under 28 USC § 2255, complaining that his lawyer failed to investigate methylone, and if he had, he would have found that the comparison to ecstasy was way overblown. The district court turned him down, finding that counsel’s performance was not ineffective because, “although sentencing counsel acknowledged that he knew little about methylone, he appropriately likened the drug to a ‘watered down ecstasy’” and “counsel’s characterization of the drug was consistent with Petitioner’s statements at sentencing.”

duke191202Then, Pete’s fortunes changed. On appeal the 3rd Circuit assigned a Duke University law school professor and three Duke law students working in the school’s appellate advocacy clinic to represent Pete. The Blue Devil counselors-in-training pulled out all the stops. Last week, they bulldozed the 3rd Circuit – in a remarkable decision – into reversing the district court, finding that Pete’s lawyer was ineffective, and holding that Pete was prejudiced by it.

The Circuit initially noted that Pete’s lawyer made the first question – whether his representation fell below the standards required of attorneys – an easy one to answer. At sentencing, the attorney admitted he knew nothing about methylone, and he made it clear that he had done nothing to educate himself, despite having a clear duty to do so. The decision cites several scientific studies and court decisions that were available to him, all of which found that methylone is much less serious that ecstasy. The 3rd said that “properly prepared counsel could have made a strong argument, grounded in readily available research, that methylone is significantly less serious than MDMA.”

In other words, the 3rd Circuit said that Pete’s lawyer was ineffective for not arguing that the Guidelines’ 500:1 ratio was flawed, and should be ignored by the sentencing court. Ineffectiveness for failing to attack the Guidelines for being wrong is a holding without precedent.

The district court denied Pete’s § 2255 motion in part because defense counsel’s description of methylone was good enough, and that Pete himself testified as to its effects as sentencing. The 3rd Circuit blew that justification apart:

Rather than doing any research into the pharmacological effect of methylone in order to competently represent his client and inform the District Court’s application of the Guidelines table, Sentencing Counsel relied upon his client to explain the effects of methylone. Sentencing Counsel thus “decided to outsource to Sepling any discussion of methylone at the hearing.”

Still, lawyer ineffectiveness is only one-half of the equation. If a lawyer screws the pooch, but the defendant ends up being none the worse for the blunder, there is (in the words of Strickland v. Washington, the Holy Grail of ineffective assistance of counsel) no prejudice.

stupidlawyr191202After having read hundreds of 2255 decisions over the past 25 years, I was sure what was coming. Pete was sentenced far below his Guidelines range. Normally, a court would hold that because Pete got a downward variance sentence well under his guidelines, he could not possibly have been prejudiced by his lawyer’s failures.

But instead, the 3rd Circuit quite properly said the below-guidelines sentence was irrelevant to whether Pete was prejudiced:

A significant variance from an arguably high and inaccurate guideline sentence is not a gift. The District Court expressed a desire to base Sepling’s sentence on the seriousness of distributing methylone. It is impossible to review the transcript of the sentencing proceeding without concluding that the District Court did not have sufficient information to assess the actual seriousness of methylone. We therefore cannot dismiss the very real possibility that the court may have been amenable to a further downward variance based upon evidence specific to methylone’s reduced effect as compared to MDMA… Because Sentencing Counsel’s dereliction put the District Court in a position where it was literally ‘flying blind’ at sentencing, there was no way for a district court to know if the sentence imposed was the least serious penalty consistent with the Court’s objective in imposing the sentence.

This is an astounding case. I salute Duke Law (and sorry about the Stephen F. Austin thing).

United States v. Sepling, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 35706 (3rd Cir. Nov. 29, 2019)

– 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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When a Whacko Defense Theory Is No Defense At All – Update for September 21, 2018

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3RD CIRCUIT RULES PREJUDICE NEED NOT BE SHOWN IN ATTORNEY INEFFECTIVENESS CASE

Most post-conviction motions brought under 28 USC 2254 or 2255 fail, especially the ones that claim that the defendant’s lawyer was ineffective. It is not that hard proving that the lawyer screwed up. That happens all the time. Instead, the problem is that the defendant has to show that if the lawyer had not messed up, there is a reasonable chance that things would have turned out different.

nuns170427This “prejudice” showing is what trips up most such motions. After all, if a busload of nuns passing by saw you run out of the bank with a sack of money and a gun, it is pretty tough to convince the court that you would have been acquitted if only your lawyer had called your mother to the stand to swear you were at home helping her bake cookies.

The problem with post-conviction prejudice showings is what a 3rd Circuit decision last week so noteworthy. In August 2006, Gary Moses shot Lawson Hunt in Philadelphia. Hearing the shots, Jeff Workman ran to the victim, saw Gary and opened fire at him. One of Jeff’s bullets ricocheted off a solid object and struck the victim in the chest, who died (but of which shot no one was sure).

Jeff and Gary were both charged with first-degree murder. Before trial, Jeff’s lawyer told him that he could not be convicted, because the victim was already dead when Jeff’s bullet hit him. At trial, Jeff’s lawyer built his whole case on that fact, arguing to the jury that Jeff could not be found guilty because you cannot murder a dead man.

Except it was not a fact. The only evidence in the case record showed that the victim was still alive when Jeff’s bullet struck him. Jeff’s lawyer ignored this inconvenient fact. The jury did not. It convicted Jeff but acquitted Gary.

The 3rd Circuit last week ruled that Jeff’s lawyer gave substandard assistance that pervaded the whole proceeding. But normally, that’s not enough. Jeff was obligated to prove that if his lawyer had advanced a defense based on the facts in the case, Jeff might have been acquitted. Now how can he prove something like that?

Killtodeath180921The 3rd Circuit said that under the circumstances of the case, Jeff didn’t need to show prejudice. In United States v. Cronic, the Supreme Court held back in 1984 that “if counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing, then there has been a denial of 6th Amendment rights that makes the adversary process itself presumptively unreliable.” Employing the Cronic holding, the 3rd Circuit ruled that Jeff need not show any prejudice:

Trial counsel’s failure to present a case on behalf of Workman or to modify his theory of the case to account for, if not rebut with evidence, the testimony offered by the Commonwealth, represents a near-total failure on the part of trial counsel to contest the Commonwealth’s case. This is not to say that the decisions not to call a rebuttal expert on a defendant’s behalf or to decline to call fact witnesses in a defendant’s case-in-chief are inherently unreasonable. Here, however, they clearly derived not from a legitimate and reasonable trial strategy but from trial counsel’s failure to understand what was happening in the case in which he was ostensibly participating. The Commonwealth sought to prove that Workman killed Hunt, but Workman’s counsel sought only to prove his chosen theory seemingly without regard for the facts in evidence. This deprived Workman of his 6th Amendment right to counsel.

Jeff will get a new trial, where exactly how the victim was killed to death will be addressed.

Workman v. Superintendent, Albion SCI, Case No. 16-1969 (3rd Cir. Sept. 11, 2018)

– 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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Brady Takes a Hit (Maybe) – Update for June 23, 2017

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SUPREME COURT DECIDES THREE AGAIN

The Supreme Court issued three opinions yesterday, all on criminal matters.

  • Brady Material Not Material

Turner v. United States, Case No. 15-1503:  The case concerns the murder of Catherine Fuller, a District of Columbia mother, nearly a quarter-century ago. The petitioners in the case were a group of Washington, D.C., men who were convicted of the crime, based primarily on testimony from alleged eyewitnesses. Years later, a reporter learned that the men’s lawyers had not received a statement suggesting that someone else had committed the crime; additional discovery then revealed that prosecutors had not turned over other evidence that could have aided the defendants. The men sought to vacate their convictions, but were unsuccessful in the lower courts. However, last fall the justices agreed to review the case, focusing on whether the men’s convictions must be set aside under Brady v. Maryland, which requires the government to turn over information that could exonerate the defendant.

The Supreme Court affirmed, 6-2, holding that the government did not violate Brady. Justice Breyer wrote that the question before the court was whether the withheld evidence was material under Brady. In the case, a group attack was the very cornerstone of the Government’s case, and virtually every witness to the crime agreed that Fuller was killed by a large group of perpetrators.

Pat Brady - Roy Rogers' comical sidekick back in the 1950s – had nothing to do with Brady v. Maryland, which is deadly serious for many defendants.
Pat Brady – Roy Rogers’ comical sidekick back in the 1950s – had nothing to do with Brady v. Maryland, which is deadly serious for many defendants.

The Court held that it was not reasonably probable that the withheld evidence could have led to a different result at trial. Petitioners’ problem, Justice Breyer wrote, is that their current alternative theory would have had to persuade the jury that two defendants had  falsely confessed to being active participants in a group attack that never occurred; that another person falsely implicated himself in that group attack and yet gave a highly similar account of how it occurred; that an otherwise disinterested witness wholly fabricated his story; that two other witnesses likewise testified to witnessing a group attack that did not occur; and that Montgomery in fact did not see petitioners and others, as a group, identify Fuller as a target and leave together to rob her.

The case is very fact-bound, meaning that it may not have a lot of relevance to other Brady cases.

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Maslenjak v. United States, Case No. 16-309:

Divna Maslenjak was an ethnic Serb who came to the United States as a refugee from what is now Bosnia, fleeing the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.  She became a U.S. citizen but was later stripped of her U.S. citizenship and deported (along with her husband) to Serbia after the U.S. officials discovered that she had made false statements during the naturalization process. Divna told immigration officials (among other things) that her family feared persecution from Muslims, and that they might be abused because her husband had evaded service in the army.

That turned out to be false, Her husband actually had served in the army, and was part of a unit that participated in an infamous massacre of Muslims.

Divna admitted she lied to U.S. immigration officials, but she argued that she should still be able to remain a U.S. citizen because the false statements were not material – that is, they would not have been important to the officials deciding whether to grant her citizenship application. 

Well, we're calling you a liar, Ms. M... But was your lie material?
Well, we’re calling you a liar, Ms. Maslenjak… But was your lie material?

In an opinion by Justice Kagan, the Court vacated and remanded, by 9-0, with three concurrences. The Justices held that the government must establish an illegal act by the defendant played some role in her acquisition of citizenship. When the illegal act is a false statement, that means the government must demonstrate that the defendant lied about facts that would have mattered to an immigration official, because they would have justified denying naturalization or would predictably have led to other facts that would justify denial.

The Court did not decide whether the lie Divna told was disqualifying. In all likelihood, it is. But that is for the district court to decide on remand.

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Weaver v. Massachusetts, Case No. 16-240:

This case explored whether a criminal defendant who contends that his lawyer provided constitutionally inadequate representation that resulted in a “structural” error – that is, a fundamental error that affects the entire structure of a trial – must also show that he was harmed by that inadequate representation.

Kentel Weaver was arrested in 2003 at the age of 16 for the murder of a 15-year-old in Boston. He eventually confessed. However, Weaver’s case went to trial anyway, with a jury pool of approximately 90 potential jurors.

courthouseclosed170605When Weaver’s mother and other supporters arrived for the trial, they were told – on two separate days – that the courtroom was “closed for jury selection.” Weaver’s lawyer was aware that Weaver’s supporters had not been admitted to the courtroom, but he did not object. Several years later, Weaver sought a new trial, citing (among other things) his lawyer’s failure to object when the courtroom was closed during jury selection. The judge ruled that the courtroom had indeed been closed, in violation of Weaver’s Sixth Amendment right to a “public trial.” But he also ruled that Weaver would have to show that he was prejudiced by the courtroom closure, which he had failed to do.

In an opinion by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court held, 7-2, that although the right to a public trial is important, “in some cases an unlawful closure might take place and yet the trial still will be fundamentally fair from the defendant’s standpoint.”  Here, Weaver had not shown a “reasonable probability of a different outcome but for counsel’s failure to object, and he had not shown that counsel’s shortcomings led to a fundamentally unfair trial. He is not entitled to a new trial.”

The Court said the proper remedy for addressing violation of the right to a public trial depends on when the objection was raised. If an objection is made at trial and the issue is raised on direct appeal, the defendant generally is entitled to “automatic reversal” regardless of the error’s actual “effect on the outcome.” If, however, the defendant does not preserve a structural error on direct review but raises it later in the context of an ineffective-assistance claim, the defendant generally bears the burden to show deficient performance and that the attorney’s error “prejudiced the defense.” To demonstrate prejudice in most cases, the defendant must show “a reasonable probability that . . . the result of the proceeding would have been different” but for attorney error.

In other words, if the defendant’s trial counsel is incompetent, and if his appellate counsel is incompetent, he is prejudiced by having to show prejudice at the post-conviction stage? Whew. We suspect we have not heard the last of this theory.

– Thomas L. Root

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Investigation Drives Strategy, Not the Other Way Around – Update for April 27, 2017

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PISS POOR PLANNING…

We’re only nine days from the 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby, one of three times in the year when average Americans pretend to be interested in horse racing. Today, we’re remembering Derby great Old Rosebud.

rosebud170427You don’t recall? Old Rosebud won the 40th running of the Derby in 1914 by eight lengths, a tie for the biggest margin of victory in Derby history. We’re reminded of that by today’s case, a habeas corpus appeal of a 28 USC 2254 ruling from California.

If grounds for habeas corpus actions were horses, ineffective assistance of counsel would be Old Rosebud. The 6th Amendment does not entitle criminal defendants to legal counsel at trial, it entitles them to effective legal counsel. A defendant is not entitled to Perry Mason. But then, he or she is not to be saddled with Vinny Gambini, either.

vinnie170427Ineffective assistance of counsel is far and away the most claimed constitutional defect in the world of post-conviction remedies. Despite (or maybe because) the ineffective assistance of counsel claim is so well used, courts look at such claims with a gimlet eye. A successful claimant has to show, first, that his or her lawyer screwed up, that is, did something or failed to do something that a lawyer of average skill would not have done or omitted. And that’s the easier of the standards. The claimant then has to show that except for the screwup, there is a reasonable probability that things would have turned out differently.

That second standard is called “prejudice.” It’s not prejudice in the classic sense, but rather means that the screwup somehow worked to the defendant’s detriment. This necessarily means that how close the case was matters. We see the problem often. The habeas petitioner tells us that her attorney failed to call a witness who would have said she was 20 miles away from the convenience store at the time it was robbed. If the only evidence is a grainy video of someone the same height as the defendant wearing sunglasses and a black hoodie and a clerk who says he thinks the defendant was the robber, a lawyer’s failure to call an alibi witness is pretty significant.

Unfortunately, however, there was a busload of nuns parked outside of the convenience store, and all of the sisters saw the defendant leave the 7-11 with a bag of swag, and then take off the glasses and hoodie to take a selfie in front of the store. All of a sudden, a single alibi witness is pretty unlikely to have changed the outcome.

nuns170427Courts don’t like to second-guess defense attorneys. Over the years, the rule has evolved that if the lawyer investigated the evidence and witnesses, and then chooses a strategy, the courts will seldom question that strategy. In our example, the lawyer read the discovery, talked to a few of the nuns, and quickly concluded that an alibi defense would look phony. He instead decided that since his client was known as “Mushmouth Marianne,” his better defense was to argue the clerk misunderstood her. She was there to pick up the garbage, but when she said, “Give me all your trash,” the clerk thought she said, “Give me all your cash.” And inasmuch as it was a sunny, clod day, a hoodie and sunglasses made perfect sense.

Pretty weak, but the lawyer investigated the evidence and picked a strategy based on what looked the most promising. Courts do not tend to Monday-morning quarterback decisions like that. But occasionally courts need to be reminded that reasonable investigation is what leads to development of strategy. It cannot be the other way around.

Consider what happened to poor, simple teenager Sarah Weeden. She was convicted in California of felony murder and sentenced to 29-to-life for her role in a bungled robbery. It turns out that while 14-year old Sarah was not present at the scene of the crime, she had some involvement in making the robbery happen.

psy170427Weeden’s entire defense at trial consisted four character witnesses, who generally are people least likely to sway a jury. Although there was plenty of evidence that Sarah had heard about the robbery plans and helped lure the marks – some boys she had met earlier – to a park where the robbery occurred (and the robber’s gun discharged accidentally, killing one of the victims), all her attorney presented was the testimony of four character witnesses who said Sarah was not the kind of girl to who would plan a robbery. Sarah’s attorney did not get her evaluated by a psychologist or present expert testimony about the effect of her youthfulness on her mental state.

With a new lawyer, Sarah brought a habeas corpus motion claiming her trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate psychological evidence. She submitted a report from a psychologist concluding that “it is extremely unlikely Sarah would intend to commit robbery or knowingly participate in one,” and “she would probably be slow to understand that a robbery was being considered by others if their intentions were not clearly articulated.” The report found Sarah to “quite passive and vulnerable to being manipulated by others,” and concluded she had “serious cognitive deficits (for example, 91% of people her age function[ed] intellectually at a higher level),” “well below average language skills,” and “a strong tendency to miss important environmental cues.”

Sarah’s lawyer defended his decision, claiming he did not obtain a psych evaluation of his client because “regardless of what the doctor would have concluded, it would be inconsistent with the defense that I was putting forth.” Counsel also speculated the prosecution might have used the results of an examination against her. The state court concluded that defense counsel’s failure to obtain a psychological examination was a “sound tactical decision.” State appellate courts agreed, as did a federal district court.

Last week, the 9th Circuit took a very different view.

PPP170427The Circuit complained that the state courts’ conclusions that Sarah’s attorney made a “reasonable decision” because counsel feared that the results of an expert evaluation might undermine his trial strategy “puts the cart before the horse.” The Court said, “Counsel cannot justify a failure to investigate simply by invoking strategy…. counsel’s investigation must determine trial strategy, not the other way around.” Sarah’s counsel could not have reasonably concluded that a psychological examination would conflict with his trial strategy without first knowing what such an examination would reveal. Besides, the Circuit pointed out, defense counsel’s conclusion that the prosecution could have used the results of an examination against Sarah was nonsense: a defendant must disclose expert reports she intends to rely on at trial, but if the evaluation was not helpful, counsel could decide not to use it, and thus not produce it.

“The correct inquiry,” the 9th said, “is not whether psychological evidence would have supported a preconceived trial strategy, but whether Weeden’s counsel had a duty to investigate such evidence in order to form a trial strategy, considering all the circumstances…. The answer is yes.” The State’s felony murder theory required proof that Sarah had specific intent to commit the robbery, so her “mental condition was an essential factor in deciding whether she actually had the required mental states for the crime.”

But did the mistake prejudice Sarah? The appellate panel said it did. Sarah’s psychologist concluded that “it is extremely unlikely she would intend to commit robbery or knowingly participate in one, that she would probably be slow to understand that a robbery was being considered by others if their intentions were not clearly articulated, and that she was “quite passive and vulnerable to being manipulated by others.” This testimony from a qualified expert would have added an entirely new dimension to the jury’s assessment” of the critical issue of Sarah’s mens rea.

Weeden v. Johnson, Case No. 14-17366 (9th Cir., Apr. 21, 2017)

– Thomas L. Root

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