United States v. Soto , 374 F. App'x 785 ( 2010 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
March 22, 2010
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee, No. 09-4194
v. (D. of Utah)
JOEL SOTO, (D.C. Nos. 2:09-CV-00068-TC and
2:07-CR-00171-TC-1)
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER DENYING A CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY *
Before HARTZ, ANDERSON, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges. **
Joel Soto, a federal prisoner represented by counsel, seeks a certificate of
appealability (COA) to appeal the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2255
motion. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253, we DENY
Soto’s request for a COA and DISMISS the 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This order is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of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.
**
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.
I. Background
Soto was arrested for violating a protective order. During a search of his
vehicle incident to his arrest, police officers found approximately 75 grams of
methamphetamine. A jury subsequently convicted Soto of one count of
possession of 50 grams or more of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Thereafter, the district court sentenced Soto
to 151 months’ imprisonment and 60 months of supervised release.
Following the entry of judgment, Soto pursued a direct appeal, challenging
the admission of unqualified expert testimony. See United States v. Soto, 297 F.
App’x 752 (10th Cir. 2008). We affirmed Soto’s conviction, finding he failed to
show that excluding the challenged evidence would have changed the outcome of
his trial. Id. at 754.
Soto then filed a pro se § 2255 motion, contending he received ineffective
assistance from his trial counsel. After the district court appointed Soto counsel,
the § 2255 motion was amended to include the argument that Soto’s trial counsel
provided ineffective assistance by failing to move to suppress evidence of the
methamphetamine found in Soto’s vehicle. That contention was based on the
Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Arizona v. Gant, 129 S. Ct. 1710 (2009),
which ruled that a police officer “may search a vehicle incident to a recent
occupant’s arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger
compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle
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contains evidence of the offense of arrest.” Id. at 1723. The district court denied
the motion on the merits, holding, among other things, that a reading of pre-Gant
caselaw governing search incident to arrest at the time Soto was arrested did not
support a finding of ineffective assistance.
Soto filed a notice of appeal on October 16, 2009. The district court denied
his request for a COA. 1 Soto now requests a COA from this court to appeal the
district court’s decision regarding his trial counsel’s failure to file a motion to
suppress the evidence found in his vehicle. 2
II. Discussion
A § 2255 movant must obtain a COA before appealing the district court’s
final order. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B). “[O]nly if the applicant has made a
substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right” will the court issue a
COA. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). When, as here, the district court denies the
1
Soto filed a notice of appeal but did not submit a separate application for
a COA to the district court. The district court did not issue Soto a COA within 30
days of filing the notice of appeal. Under the applicable version of the Tenth
Circuit Rules, the absence of an issued COA within that period is deemed a denial
by the district court of a request for a COA. See 10th Cir. R. 22.1(C) (“The
district court must consider the propriety of issuing a [COA] in the first instance.
Failure of the district court to issue a [COA] within thirty days of filing the notice
of appeal shall be deemed a denial.”).
2
While Soto did not submit a separate application for a COA to this court,
we deem his notice of appeal an application for a COA pursuant to Rule 22(b)(2)
of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. See Fed. R. App. P. 22(b)(2) (“If no
express request for a certificate is filed, the notice of appeal constitutes a request
addressed to the judges of the court of appeals.”).
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movant’s claim on the merits, we will not issue a COA unless the petitioner
demonstrates “that reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of
the constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473,
484 (2000).
Soto contends that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective
assistance of counsel due to his trial counsel’s failure to file a motion to suppress
evidence obtained pursuant to an allegedly unconstitutional search of his vehicle.
To prevail on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim, Soto must demonstrate
that “[(1)] counsel’s performance was objectively deficient and [(2)] counsel’s
deficiency prejudiced the defense, depriving [Soto] of a fair trial with a reliable
result.” United States v. Sanders, 372 F.3d 1183, 1185 (10th Cir. 2004). Soto
“must overcome the strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the
wide range of reasonable professional assistance, and we are reminded that there
are countless ways to provide effective assistance of counsel.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted). Prejudice is demonstrated by showing that “there is a
reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of
the proceeding would have been different.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S.
668, 694 (1984).
After reviewing the record, we are convinced that Soto has failed to
establish a debatable claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The search at
issue here was “wholly consistent with and supported by this court’s precedent
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prior to Gant.” 3 United States v. McCane, 573 F.3d 1037, 1041S42 (10th Cir.
2009), cert. denied, No. 09-402, 2010 U.S. LEXIS 2009 (U.S. Mar. 1, 2010). We
cannot consider Soto’s trial counsel’s decision not to move to suppress the
methamphetamine objectively deficient when the search that led to its discovery
was conducted in conformity with was at the time our settled caselaw. Employing
similar reasoning, in United States v. Davis, 590 F.3d 847 (10th Cir. 2009), we
held that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied where a vehicle
was searched in violation of Gant: the good-faith exception “applies when an
officer acts in reasonable reliance upon our settled [caselaw] that is later made
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.” Davis, 590 F.3d at 848.
Accordingly, we find it beyond debate that Soto cannot overcome the
presumption that his trial counsel rendered reasonable professional assistance.
3
We are not persuaded that the circumstances relating to Soto’s arrest and
the search of his vehicle—namely, that a police officer prevented him from
closing a locked car door after exiting his vehicle—remove this case from the
bounds of our pre-Gant caselaw concerning vehicle searches incident to arrest or
our recent cases applying Gant in the evidence suppression context.
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III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we DENY Soto’s application for a COA and
DISMISS this appeal.
Entered for the Court,
Timothy M. Tymkovich
Circuit Judge
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