United States v. Abdush-Shakur , 314 F. App'x 97 ( 2008 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS June 20, 2008
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff–Appellee, No. 08-3039
v. (D.C. Nos. 2:07-CV-02519-JWL and
2:04-CR-20132-JWL)
SHAKIR ABDUSH-SHAKUR, (D. Kan.)
formerly known as Leonard Scott
Cunningham,
Defendant–Appellant.
ORDER *
Before O’BRIEN, McKAY, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.
Defendant, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, seeks a certificate of
appealability to appeal the district court’s denial of his § 2255 habeas petition. In
December 2003, a federal indictment against Defendant was dismissed after the
government filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 48 of the Federal Rules of
Criminal Procedure, based on the prosecutor’s illness. Defendant was
subsequently reindicted on the same charges and found guilty of attempting to
murder a corrections officer and possessing a handmade knife as a prison inmate.
*
This order is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of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.
We affirmed his conviction on direct appeal. United States v. Abdush-Shakur,
465 F.3d 458 (10th Cir. 2006).
In his § 2255 motion, Defendant claimed that the trial court refused to
decide whether to dismiss the first indictment with or without prejudice, that this
refusal caused his Fifth Amendment double jeopardy rights to be violated by his
reindictment, and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel when his
attorney failed to object to the court’s decision and did not claim on appeal that
the first indictment had in effect been rejected with prejudice. 1 All of these
claims were thus premised on Defendant’s basic argument that the government
could not reindict Defendant when the indictment had not been dismissed without
prejudice.
However, the district court determined that the trial court in fact dismissed
the first indictment without prejudice and therefore that Defendant’s rights were
not violated by his subsequent reindictment. Both the trial court’s order
dismissing the indictment and our decision on direct appeal indicated that the first
indictment was dismissed without prejudice. Although Defendant argued that
several passages in the transcript from the hearing demonstrated that the trial
court believed it did not need to decide the issue of prejudice when it dismissed
the indictment, the district court concluded that this language merely explained
1
Defendant also raised a claim of prosecutorial misconduct, which the
court found unsupported by the record and without merit even as alleged. On
appeal, Defendant does not seek to challenge the court’s dismissal of this claim.
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that the trial court would grant the dismissal motion without prejudice but that the
issue of prejudice could be revisited upon reindictment.
The district court also concluded that, even if the facts were as Defendant
alleged, the trial court’s dismissal of the indictment without discussion of
prejudicial effect must be presumed to be without prejudice. “The rule is that
when an indictment is dismissed before trial upon the government’s motion under
Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the dismissal is without
prejudice to the government’s right to reindict for the same offense, unless the
contrary is expressly stated.” United States v. Ortega-Alvarez, 506 F.2d 455, 458
(2d Cir. 1974); see also United States v. Stoker, 522 F.2d 576, 580 (10th Cir.
1975) (finding dismissal pursuant to Rule 48 to be without prejudice where
dismissal was based on non-constitutional ground and order did not specifically
indicate that dismissal was with prejudice).
To obtain a certificate of appealability, Defendant must make “a substantial
showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). In order
to meet this burden, Defendant must demonstrate “that reasonable jurists could
debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been
resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to
deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473,
484 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted).
We have carefully reviewed Defendant’s brief, the district court’s
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disposition, and the record on appeal. Nothing in these materials convinces us
that reasonable jurists could debate whether the district court erred in dismissing
the petition. Accordingly, for substantially the reasons set forth by the district
court, we DENY Defendant’s request for a certificate of appealability and
DISMISS the appeal.
Entered for the Court
Monroe G. McKay
Circuit Judge
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