United States v. Pflum ( 2007 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS April 10, 2007
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
No. 06-3301
(D .C. N os. 06-CV -3111-SA C &
v.
04-CR-40008-SAC)
(Kansas)
DAVID G. PFLUM ,
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER *
Before M U R PHY , SE YM OU R, and M cCO NNELL, Circuit Judges.
David G. Pflum, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, 1 seeks a Certificate
of Appealability (COA) to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion under
28 U .S.C . § 2255 to vacate or correct his sentence. For the reasons set out below ,
w e decline to grant a C OA .
M r. Pflum was convicted by a jury on eight counts of failure to pay
quarterly employment taxes, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7202, and three counts of
*
This order is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of
the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel.
1
We liberally construe Mr. Pflum’s pro se application. See Hall v. Scott, 292
F.3d 1264, 1266 (10th Cir. 2002).
failure to file a federal income tax return, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7203. He
was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment. 2 He appealed his conviction, claiming
the district court erred in refusing to give the jury his proposed instruction on
“willfulness,” and in denying a motion to strike the testimony of two IRS agents
regarding the amount of taxes M r. Pflum allegedly owed the government. W e
affirmed. United States v. Pflum, 150 Fed. Appx. 840 (10th Cir. 2005).
Regarding his second claim, we held that because M r. Pflum’s objection to the
IRS agents’ testimony was untimely, he could not assert a claim on appeal that
the testimony was admitted in error.
M r. Pflum filed the present § 2255 action asserting his counsel was
ineffective for failing to object in a timely fashion to the agents’ testimony and to
the accompanying exhibits. In a thoroughly reasoned opinion, the district court
denied M r. Pflum’s motion, concluding he had failed to show that his counsel’s
untimely objections prejudiced his defense at trial or resulted in an illegal
sentence. Rec., vol. I, doc. 121. The court also denied M r. Pflum’s application
for a certificate of appealability (COA). Id. doc. 127.
2
M r. Pflum’s trial took place between the two Supreme Court opinions in
Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004), and United States v. Booker, 543
U.S. 220 (2005). The trial court, in an abundance of caution, submitted to the
jury all applicable sentencing factors, including the amount in taxes owed by M r.
Pflum. Accordingly, the sentencing range faced by M r. Pflum was calculated
using facts found by a jury under the reasonable doubt standard. See United
States v. Pflum, 150 Fed. Appx. 840, 841 (10th Cir. 2005).
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Issuance of a COA is jurisdictional. M iller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322,
335-36 (2003). A COA can issue only “if the applicant has made a substantial
showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). “A
petitioner satisfies this standard by demonstrating 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 encouragement
to proceed further.” M iller-El, 537 U.S. at 327.
In order to establish a successful claim for ineffective assistance of
counsel, M r. Pflum must show that counsel's performance was deficient and that
this deficient performance prejudiced his defense, depriving him of a fair trial
with a reliable result. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). In
determining M r. Pflum failed to show that his counsel’s performance prejudiced
his defense, the district court found that the testimony and exhibits M r. Pflum
claims his counsel was deficient in failing to challenge pertained to the amount of
taxes M r. Pflum owed the government. After reviewing the trial record, the court
concluded the amount of taxes owed was never a defense M r. Pflum asserted at
trial, and therefore his counsel’s failure to object to the manner in which the
amount was calculated did not interfere with M r. Pflum’s chosen “good faith”
defense. M oreover, the court noted M r. Pflum’s concession on appeal “that the
challenged testimony of [the agents] ‘affected only his sentence,’ not his
convictions.” Rec., vol. I, doc. 121 at 10.
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M r. Pflum contends on appeal that he was prejudiced by counsel’s failure
to object because “his entire sentence was based on inadmissible evidence of the
28% of the w ages that he did not deduct from his employees’ wages.” A plt. Br.
at 4. The district court concluded M r. Pflum failed to show that, but for his
counsel’s allegedly deficient performance, the result at sentencing would likely
have been different. The court pointed out that the amount of taxes M r. Pflum
owed could have been constitutionally determined by the court instead of the jury
at a sentencing hearing post-Booker. Id. at 11.
After reviewing the record, we conclude M r. Pflum has not demonstrated
that jurists of reason could debate the district court’s resolution of his ineffective
assistance of counsel claim. M r. Pflum’s assertion that he would have been given
a lesser sentence if his counsel had objected to the IRS agents’ testimony and the
government’s exhibits is speculative at best and fails to meet the requirements of
the second Strickland prong for a showing of prejudice.
Accordingly, for substantially the same reasons given by the district court,
we D EN Y M r. Pflum’s application for a COA and DISM ISS his appeal.
ENTERED FOR TH E CO UR T,
Stephanie K. Seymour
Circuit Judge
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