United States v. Williams ( 2003 )

Opinions of the United
2003 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
7-15-2003
USA v. Williams
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 02-3876
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_______________
NO. 02-3876
________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
V.
PERRY WILLIAMS,
Appellant
___________________________________
On Appeal From the United States District Court
For the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 01-cr-00343)
District Judge: Honorable J. Curtis Joyner
_______________________________________
Submitted under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
June 23, 2003
Before: SLOVITER, AMBRO and BECKER, Circuit Judges.
(Filed July 15, 2003)
_______________________
OPINION
_______________________
BECKER, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal by Perry Williams from the final judgment of the District Court.
The question before us is whether Williams’s trial counsel was ineffective under the
(applicable) standard of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Williams alleges
three ways in which trial counsel was ineffective, none of which is sufficient to warrant a
reversal.
The first allegation is that counsel failed to file a motion to suppress the evidence
obtained in the search of Williams’s home. Williams asserts that his attorney was
unfamiliar with the standards that govern such searches, and also that there was no
reasonable suspicion to support the search. Williams’s counsel testified that he did not
file a motion to suppress because he felt such a motion would be meritless. The merit of
the motion turns on the existence vel non of reasonable suspicion, the applicable test for
a parolee such as Williams, which is determined by the totality of the circumstances.
That “process allows officers to draw on their own experience and specialized training to
make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them
that might well elude an untrained person.” United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273
(2002)(quotation omitted).
Reasonable suspicion was clearly present here — Williams was arrested for
driving a motor vehicle, a violation of the terms of his parole, and in the car officers
found a beeper, another violation. When combined with the testimony of Carla Trippett
and her mother that Williams was selling drugs, reasonable suspicion existed. Agent
Bordoni corroborated that testimony as far as possible, observing what he believed to be
a drug deal. Reasonable suspicion can be less than the preponderance of evidence
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standard, and given that it almost certainly existed, Williams’s attorney was not
ineffective by not moving to suppress.1
The second way in which Williams’s attorney allegedly rendered ineffective
assistance was in failing to object to the testimony of Detective Matthew McDonald, an
expert in the distribution of illegal drugs. He testified, inter alia, that “[w]e look at
organizations involved in high levels of violence, drug dealing and using firearms and try
to work investigations and bring [suspects] to justice.” Williams argues that this
testimony was inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 402 because it was not
relevant. We disagree. At all events, Williams’s attorney testified that he believed the
testimony was not objectionable and did not want to highlight it, a decision that falls
squarely within the “strategy deference” afforded under Strickland.
The third alleged act of ineffective assistance was that trial counsel failed to
present evidence that Carla Trippett had falsely accused Williams of stabbing someone
while testifying before the grand jury. At the evidentiary hearing, Trippett acknowledged
that Williams actually had not stabbed her friend, and testified:
Q. At the grand jury, you told the grand jury that Mr. Williams stabbed
Lenora, a friend of yours?
A. Yes.
Q. And that was a lie?
1
Counsel also believed that Williams had consented to the search, but we need not
address that point.
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A. Yeah, it was a lie.
Williams submits that his attorney ought to have cross-examined Trippett on this point.
Instead, he moved in limine to exclude any reference to such allegation. The fact that
Trippett lied about the stabbing did not come out until after the verdict, so that
Williams’s attorney had no reason to think it was false, and he therefore chose not to
cross-examine a witness who knew a lot about his client’s affairs. This too was a
reasonable strategic decision.
Williams also argues that he is entitled to a new trial because after he was
convicted, Carla Trippett recanted her trial testimony in letters she wrote to Williams
while he was in prison. But Trippett testified at the evidentiary hearing that her trial
testimony was true while her unsworn recantations were false. The Court that heard her
trial and post-verdict testimony concluded that “Trippett did not recant her trial testimony
and never testified under oath to anything contrary to her testimony at trial about the
defendant’s possession and control of the [cocaine.]” The cases are legion that courts
look upon recantations with great suspicion. The denial of a new trial was not an abuse
of discretion.
The order of the District Court will be affirmed.
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TO THE CLERK:
Please file the foregoing opinion.
/s/ Edward R. Becker
Circuit Judge
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