United States v. Ferguson , 604 F. App'x 687 ( 2015 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
March 20, 2015
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee, No. 14-4111
v. (D. of Utah)
ANTHONY TERRELL RAY (D.C. Nos. 2:12-CV-01197-TC and
FERGUSON, 2:09-CR-00888-TC-1)
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *
Before LUCERO, TYMKOVICH, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. **
Anthony Ferguson, filing pro se, seeks a certificate of appealability (COA)
to appeal the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 petition seeking to
vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. 1 He contends that the sentencing court
erred in its application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines and that his
*
This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of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.
**
After examining the briefs and the appellate record, this three-judge
panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not be of material
assistance in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); 10th
Cir. R. 34.1(G). The cause is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
1
We construe pro se filings liberally. Garza v. Davis, 596 F.3d 1198,
1201 n.2 (10th Cir. 2010).
counsel was ineffective. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we deny
a COA and dismiss the appeal.
I. Background
The Drug Enforcement Agency began investigating Ferguson when it
learned he was involved in a scheme to traffic methylenedioxymethamphetamine
(MDMA, or “ecstasy” ) between California and Utah. Through seizures and
undercover purchases, the DEA recovered pills suspected to contain MDMA and a
different controlled substance called N-benzylpiperazine (BZP). DEA lab reports
confirmed that the active ingredient in many of these pills was BZP and not
MDMA. Ferguson was charged in the District of Utah with (1) conspiracy to
distribute MDMA in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, (2) distributing BZP in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and (3) distributing MDMA in violation of 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Ferguson pleaded guilty to the first charge in exchange for
dismissal of the other two charges and a recommendation that he be sentenced at
the lower end of the Guidelines.
A pre-sentencing report noted that 955 of the pills contained BZP. The
DEA lab reports indicated that the number of pills containing BZP (and not
MDMA) was far greater than 955, but Ferguson’s counsel did not supply the court
with these reports. The district court concluded that Ferguson conspired to
distribute between 110,000 and 120,000 pills of MDMA and BZP. Although there
was no sentencing guideline for BZP, Section 1B1.2 of the Guidelines provided
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that courts should “use the most analogous guideline.” The court found that
MDMA was most analogous to BZP because distributors, including Ferguson
himself, represented BZP as MDMA to their customers. Consequently, the
MDMA Guideline applied to the entire quantity of pills. Based on that Guideline
and Ferguson’s career offender status, the advisory range exceeded the statutory
maximum of 240 months in prison. The court sentenced him to 180 months.
Ferguson appealed the sentence to this court, but we affirmed. United
States v. Ferguson, 447 F. App’x 898 (10th Cir. 2012). He then filed a § 2255
collateral challenge in the District of Utah, arguing only that his counsel was
ineffective in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The court denied his petition
and also denied a COA.
II. Analysis
To attain a COA, Ferguson must make a “substantial showing of the denial
of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). We must grant the COA if
reasonable jurists could find the district court’s decision “debatable or wrong.”
Laurson v. Leyba, 507 F.3d 1230, 1231–32 (10th Cir. 2007) (citing Slack v.
McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)).
In his brief, Ferguson makes two arguments: (1) reasonable jurists could
debate whether it was proper for the sentencing court to apply MDMA Guidelines
to BZP, and (2) reasonable jurists could debate whether his counsel was effective.
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A. Sentencing Court’s Application of MDMA Guidelines
Ferguson contends that the district court should not have applied the
MDMA Guidelines to BZP because MDMA is not the most analogous drug. He
cites cases in which other circuits remanded for resentencing after finding
insufficient evidence to prove that BZP-containing pills were analogous to
MDMA. See United States v. Beckley, 515 F. App’x 373 (6th Cir. 2013); United
States v. Figueroa, 647 F.3d 466 (2d Cir. 2011). But Ferguson did not include
this argument in his original habeas petition to the district court or in his direct
appeal. Construing the petition liberally, we understand that he only argued his
counsel was ineffective. The argument will not be heard for the first time on
appeal. See, e.g., United States v. Flood, 713 F.3d 1281, 1291 (10th Cir. 2013)
(citing Parker v. Scott, 394 F.3d 1302, 1319–20 (10th Cir. 2005)) (declining to
expand COA to include claim that was not adequately raised below), cert. denied,
134 S. Ct. 341 (2013); Parker, 394 F.3d at 1319–20 (“We do not review these
claims because Parker failed to assert them in his district court petition for habeas
relief.”).
B. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel
Ferguson next contends that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated
because his counsel was ineffective. To prevail on this claim, he must show his
counsel’s performance was deficient and that the deficiency prejudiced his
defense. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). His counsel must
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have “committed serious errors in light of ‘prevailing professional norms’ such
that his legal representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness,”
and there must be “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional
errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Grant v.
Trammell, 727 F.3d 1006, 1017 (10th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks
omitted) (quoting Wackerly v. Workman, 580 F.3d 1171, 1176 (10th Cir. 2009)),
cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 2731 (2014). But there is “a strong presumption that
counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional
assistance.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689.
While it is somewhat unclear from his pleadings, we understand Ferguson
to challenge counsel’s failure to submit the lab reports at sentencing and
counsel’s recommendation that Ferguson plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute
MDMA when the lab reports stated that the pills contained BZP.
1. Failure to Submit Lab Reports at Sentencing
We reject the claim that counsel’s failure to submit the lab reports at
sentencing constituted ineffective assistance, and in doing so we need not
consider whether counsel’s performance was deficient. “If it is easier to dispose
of an ineffectiveness claim on the ground of lack of sufficient prejudice, . . . that
course should be followed.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 697. There was no prejudice
here because the district court already knew that at least some of the pills
contained BZP. The government admitted that the drugs recovered from Ferguson
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included BZP, and the court made a factual finding that the pills included BZP.
The court nonetheless concluded that the MDMA Guidelines should apply to all
of the pills because it found that MDMA was the most analogous drug to BZP.
Because the lab reports merely would have shown that there was more BZP
than originally suspected, there is no reasonable probability that the attorney’s
failure to submit these reports could have influenced the district court’s decision.
As long as the district court treated BZP as equivalent to MDMA, the sentence
would have been the same.
2. Advising Ferguson to Plead Guilty to Conspiracy Charge
Ferguson contends that because the lab reports revealed “that the substance
in question was actually BZP,” counsel performed ineffectively by advising him
to plead guilty to conspiring to distribute MDMA. Aplt. Br. at 9. We reject this
contention because Ferguson does not support it with facts, reasoning, or law.
The record and his brief do not include any specific evidence as to what counsel
told him about pleading guilty and why this advice was unreasonable,
unprofessional, or even bad. There are certainly no obvious reasons for thinking
that counsel advised him deficiently. Ferguson faced three charges and pleaded
guilty to one of them in exchange for avoiding the other two, and as a result he
ended up with a sentence well below the statutory maximum even though his
advisory range exceeded the maximum. One of the charges that was dropped was
for distributing BZP. Because there was a chance that BZP would be treated as
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equivalent to MDMA, counsel likely knew that Ferguson would have faced the
same sentence for distributing BZP that he would have faced for conspiring to
distribute MDMA. 2 Pleading guilty to an equally serious charge in exchange for
avoiding the other charges and receiving a lighter sentence does not evidence
deficient or prejudicial advice.
Thus, without any explication from Ferguson as to how this advice was
deficient, we have no basis for holding that reasonable jurists could find the issue
debatable. Although we construe pro se filings liberally, “the court cannot take
on the responsibility of serving as the litigant’s attorney in constructing
arguments and searching the record.” Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer,
425 F.3d 836, 840 (10th Cir. 2005). This is especially true where the allegations
are “merely conclusory in nature and without supporting factual averments.”
United States v. Fisher, 38 F.3d 1144, 1147 (10th Cir. 1994).
Furthermore, even if the lab reports revealed that none of the pills
contained MDMA—a fact without clear support in the record––the reports may
not have been relevant to the crime to which Ferguson pleaded guilty.
Conspiracy to distribute MDMA does not require actual possession of MDMA.
Rather, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances under 21 U.S.C. § 846
2
See 21 U.S.C. § 846 (“Any person who attempts or conspires to commit
any offense defined in this subchapter shall be subject to the same penalties as
those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the
attempt or conspiracy.”).
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requires “(1) an agreement with another person to violate the law, (2) knowledge
of the essential objectives of the conspiracy, (3) knowing and voluntary
involvement, and (4) interdependence among the alleged conspirators.” United
States v. Carter, 130 F.3d 1432, 1439 (10th Cir. 1997). In other words, if
Ferguson thought the pills contained MDMA instead of BZP (and it appears that
he did, based on his assertion in his original § 2255 petition that he did not know
the pills contained BZP), he could have been convicted of conspiracy to distribute
MDMA even if there had been indisputable proof that the pills contained only
BZP. Thus, there is no obvious reason to doubt counsel’s competence in failing
to share the lab reports and advising Ferguson to plead guilty to the conspiracy
charge.
Although we could end our inquiry here because there is no evidence of
deficient performance by counsel, we also note that Ferguson does not provide
reason to believe that he was prejudiced. To establish the prejudice element of a
Strickland claim, a petitioner who pleaded guilty must show that “there is a
reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he would not have pleaded
guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.” Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52,
59 (1985). Ferguson does not argue that he would have gone to trial if he had
seen the lab reports, and indeed he did not argue this in his § 2255 motion either.
Rather, if we liberally assume that he means to repeat the same arguments he
made in his § 2255 motion, he contends that his attorney should have advised him
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to plead guilty to the BZP offense instead of the MDMA offense. He claims he
was prejudiced because he would have received a different sentence for the BZP
offense: “the district court conceded that the amount of MDMA compared to BZP
would affect Mr. Ferguson’s sentence and [BZP] carries a lesser penalty.” Aplt.
Br. at 9.
But the district court said nothing of the sort. It stated that it had held an
evidentiary hearing to determine the amount of MDMA because it “would affect
the length of Mr. Ferguson’s sentence,” but it was not distinguishing MDMA
from BZP. R., Vol. I at 167. On the contrary, it treated BZP as equivalent to
MDMA. For the same reasons discussed above, the sentence would have been the
same had he pleaded guilty to a BZP-related offense. To assert that he would
have pleaded guilty to an equally serious count is not to assert that he would have
insisted on going to trial or that the outcome would have been different, as
required under Hill and Strickland. See United States v. Landsaw, 206 F. App’x
773, 777 (10th Cir. 2006) (finding no prejudice where petitioner argued that he
would have pleaded guilty to a different count and received a sentencing
reduction if not for ineffective assistance, but could not establish that he actually
would have received the reduction); see also Short v. United States, 471 F.3d 686,
696–97 (6th Cir. 2006) (finding no prejudice under Hill where petitioner, rather
than claiming he would have gone to trial, asserted “that he wound up with a less
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favorable plea or sentence than he otherwise would have accepted with the advice
of competent counsel”).
Accordingly, reasonable jurists could not debate the conclusion that
Ferguson was not prejudiced by a deficient performance by counsel.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons we DENY the COA and DISMISS this matter.
We also DENY the motion to proceed in forma pauperis.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT,
Timothy M. Tymkovich
Circuit Judge
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