United States v. Parada , 555 F. App'x 763 ( 2014 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALSFebruary 7, 2014
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
No. 13-3261
v. (D.C. Nos. 5:11-CV-04048-JAR and
5:03-CR-40053-JAR-1)
NORMAN A. PARADA, (D. Kan.)
Defendant - Appellant.
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *
Before TYMKOVICH, ANDERSON, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges.
Norman A. Parada, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, seeks a certificate
of appealability (COA) to appeal the denial of his motion pursuant to Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), requesting that the district court reconsider his
habeas claim under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence.
Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2253(a), 2253(c), and 1291, we
DENY Parada’s request for a COA and DISMISS his appeal.
*
This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of
the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its
persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
I. Background
Parada was convicted of possession with intent to distribute 100 or more
grams of phencyclidine (PCP) and conspiracy to distribute the same. On appeal,
we vacated Parada’s conviction and reversed his sentence for an evidentiary error.
See United States v. McNeill, 136 F. App’x 153 (10th Cir. 2005). After a second
trial, a jury convicted Parada on both charges, and the district court sentenced him
to 405 months’ custody. We affirmed his conviction on direct appeal, United
States v. Parada, 577 F.3d 1275 (10th Cir. 2009), and the Supreme Court denied
certiorari.
Parada then timely sought § 2255 relief, raising twenty-five separate
grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel at every stage of the underlying
proceedings. The district court denied both Parada’s request for § 2255 relief and
his request for a COA. Parada then asked the district court to reconsider his
§ 2255 motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). In his motion,
Parada limited his request for reconsideration to four, or conceivably five, issues.
While his motion for reconsideration was sub judice, Parada appealed the denial
of his request for § 2255 relief to this court. We abated the appeal pending
disposition of Parada’s motion for reconsideration, which the district court
denied.
Parada filed an appellate brief that we liberally construe as a mixed appeal.
Hall v. Bellmon, 935 F.2d 1106, 1110 & n.3 (10th Cir. 1991) (explaining that pro
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se litigants’ filings are construed liberally). In part, Parada’s appeal opposes the
district court’s denial of his claims for ineffective assistance of counsel from his
original § 2255 motion. 1 See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(B)(i). Parada also partially
appeals the denial of his motion for reconsideration, where the district court
reclassified one of the claims as an unauthorized second or successive § 2255
petition based on an intervening change in controlling law and dismissed it for
lack of jurisdiction. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(B)(ii).
II. Discussion
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) requires a
petitioner to obtain a COA before he can appeal the denial of any final order in a
habeas corpus proceeding, including a motion for reconsideration under Rule
59(e). 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B); see also United States v. Cobb, 307 F. App’x
143, 144–45 (10th Cir. 2009). A COA requires the applicant to make a
“substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 2253(c)(2). “To meet this standard, a petitioner must demonstrate that jurists of
reason could disagree with the district court’s resolution of his constitutional
claims or that jurists could conclude the issues presented are adequate to deserve
1
If we instead interpret this portion of Parada’s pro se appeal as an
objection to the district court’s denial of his motion for reconsideration, we would
summarily dismiss these claims as a previously-presented habeas application
under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1).
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encouragement to proceed further.” Boutwell v. Keating, 399 F.3d 1203, 1211
(10th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted).
A. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
To prevail on his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, Parada must
show that (1) his counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard of
reasonableness, Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687–88 (1984), and (2)
“there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the
result of the proceeding would have been different,” id. at 694. In analyzing the
first prong, we apply the strong presumption that “counsel’s conduct falls within
the wide range of reasonable professional assistance.” Id. at 689.
Parada identifies four instances of ineffective assistance. First, he contends
that his trial and appellate counsel failed to challenge the validity of the
indictment. Specifically, he argues his counsel should have asserted that the
government did not indict him within thirty days of his arrest as required by 18
U.S.C. § 3161(b). We agree with the district court that this claim is a nonstarter
on both Strickland grounds. This court has held that “a person is not ‘arrested in
connection with’ a charge, within the meaning of section 3161(b) of the Speedy
Trial Act, unless there is some coincidence of (1) a pending federal complaint and
(2) federal custody based on that complaint.” United States v. Bagster, 915 F.2d
607, 611 (10th Cir. 1990). Parada was in state custody between March 12, 2003
and May 21, 2003, the date on which he was indicted by a federal grand jury. As
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the district court observed, the thirty-day clock under § 3161(b) did not begin its
countdown until May 21, 2003, when the grand jury indicted Parada under federal
law. Accordingly, no reasonable jurist could even propose that Parada’s counsel
fell below an objectively reasonable standard in failing to challenge the
indictment under § 3161(b).
Second, Parada alleges his counsel was ineffective for failing to appeal the
result of the trial on the grounds that the district court improperly admitted as
evidence inadmissible post-arrest statements of an alleged co-conspirator. Parada
argues that the statements were made after the alleged conspiracy ended, making
them hearsay not covered by the co-conspirator exemption in Federal Rule of
Evidence 801(d)(2)(E). Prior to his second trial, counsel for Parada filed a
motion in limine to, among other things, exclude the co-conspirator’s testimony
under Rule 801. The district court denied this motion and admitted the co-
conspirator’s statements. On appeal following the trial, counsel for Parada
challenged the credibility of the co-conspirator’s statements, but failed to
challenge their admissibility.
Although criminal defendants are entitled to effective assistance of counsel
on direct appeal, see Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 396–97 (1985), it is difficult
to establish a claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel based on a
failure to raise a particular issue on appeal. Upchurch v. Bruce, 333 F.3d 1158,
1163 (10th Cir. 2003). Parada presents no evidence establishing that his appellate
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counsel’s decision not to challenge the admissibility of his co-conspirator’s post-
arrest statements on appeal existed outside the “wide range of reasonable
professional assistance.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. Indeed, many of the co-
conspirator’s supposedly inadmissible statements under Rule 801(d)(2)(E) are
independently admissible because they do not constitute hearsay under any
circumstances or they would otherwise fall under an exception contained within
the Federal Rules of Evidence. In any event, Parada has not sufficiently
identified any prejudice that he suffered as a result of his counsel’s allegedly
deficient performance. The district court’s denial of relief on this ground cannot
be reasonably questioned.
Third, and relatedly, Parada contends that his counsel fell below an
objective standard of reasonableness when he failed to challenge several aspects
of the testimony of another co-conspirator during trial. Like his claims respecting
the first co-conspirator, Parada’s scattershot attempt to challenge his counsel’s
handling of this co-conspirator’s testimony is insufficient to establish either prong
of the Strickland standard, particularly prejudice. Simply put, Parada cannot meet
his burden to show that in the absence of his counsel’s alleged unprofessional
error, the outcome of his trial or appeal would have been different. There can be
no reasonable dispute that the district court correctly found that this claim lacks
merit.
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Finally, Parada argues that his counsel performed ineffectively by failing to
challenge, either through an evidentiary hearing or on appeal, the government’s
information submitted pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 851 during sentencing. Relying on
the record before it, the district court found that Parada’s contentions regarding
the inaccuracies in the § 851 report were conclusively unsubstantiated. For this
reason, Parada’s claim that his counsel’s failure to challenge the validity of the
§ 851 report amounted to ineffective representation lacks reasonable integrity.
In sum, Parada’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims on his appeal
from the denial of his § 2255 motion fail to establish a substantial showing of the
denial of a constitutional right necessary for this court to grant a COA.
B. Second or Successive Habeas Petition
In Parada’s Rule 59(e) motion, the district court properly construed his new
Sixth Amendment challenge as a second or successive habeas motion, United
States v. Pedraza, 466 F.3d 932, 934 (10th Cir. 2006), and dismissed it for lack of
jurisdiction, In re Cline, 531 F.3d 1249, 1252 (10th Cir. 2008). But we do not
end our analysis there. Construing Parada’s filings broadly, we consider his
appeal as a request to file a second habeas petition.
To secure this court’s permission to file a second habeas petition, Parada
must establish that his claim is based on either new evidence or a new rule of
constitutional law made retroactive by the Supreme Court. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h).
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Parada cannot satisfy either requirement. He has never claimed that he has
discovered new evidence. Instead, he argues under § 2255(h)(2) that the Supreme
Court’s decision in Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013), gives him
the right to a new trial. Alleyne held that any fact that increases the mandatory
minimum sentence constitutes an element of the crime that must be found by a
jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 2155. But we have held, however, that,
while Alleyne “actually does set forth a new rule of constitutional law,” it has not
“been made retroactive to cases on collateral review.” In re Payne, 733 F.3d
1027, 1029 (10th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Simpson
v. United States, 721 F.3d 875, 876 (7th Cir. 2013). Thus, Alleyne does not
satisfy § 2255(h)(2).
III. Conclusion
Construing Parada’s appellate filing as a mixed appeal, we DENY his
application for a COA and DISMISS the appeal of his original § 2255 motion and
DENY authorization to file a second or successive habeas petition.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT,
Timothy M. Tymkovich
Circuit Judge
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