United States v. Goodley

United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
May 19, 2006
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
____________________
No. 04-50329
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Plaintiff-Appellee
v.
ARANDAL DERRICK GOODLEY
Defendant-Appellant
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
(01-CV-10)
_________________________________________________________________
Before KING, BARKSDALE, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Defendant-appellant Arandal Derrick Goodley appeals from the
denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or
correct his sentence. For the reasons stated below, we AFFIRM.
I. BACKGROUND
Defendant-appellant Arandal Derrick Goodley (“Goodley”) was
arrested in April 1997 after selling cocaine base (“crack
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined
that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent
except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R.
47.5.4.
cocaine” or “crack”) to an undercover police officer. Shortly
thereafter, Goodley retained Tony Chavez (“Chavez”) as counsel
and paid Chavez $10,000 for his services. In September 1997
Goodley was indicted for various drug offenses committed over a
four-year period.1 On June 6, 1998, Goodley was convicted on
charges of money laundering and conspiracy and possession with
intent to distribute crack cocaine.
Five days after Goodley’s conviction, on June 11, 1998,
Chavez was also indicted in the Western District of Texas for his
role in a separate and unrelated drug conspiracy.2 After
appointing new counsel for sentencing, the trial court sentenced
Goodley to concurrent sentences of life imprisonment on the drug
conspiracy charges and twenty years imprisonment on both the
possession with intent to distribute and the money laundering
charges. This sentence was affirmed by this court in an
1
Goodley was charged with conspiracy and possession with
intent to distribute crack in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§§ 841(a)(1), 846, and with money laundering in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 1956.
2
Chavez was indicted for two counts of intimidating or
using force against a witness in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512,
two counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, two counts of conspiracy to
distribute marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, and one
count of racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1952.
On November 2, 1998, Chavez pleaded guilty to the
intimidation charges and was sentenced to thirty months in
prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $5,000.
The illegal activities for which Chavez was convicted were
unrelated to the illegal activities for which Goodley was
convicted.
2
unpublished opinion. United States v. Goodley, No. 98-50923,
slip op. (5th Cir. Sept. 23, 1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1144(2000).
On January 22, 2001, Goodley filed a motion to vacate or
amend his sentence pursuant to 22 U.S.C. § 2255, arguing, inter
alia, that Chavez’s personal legal problems created a conflict
between Chavez’s self-interest and Goodley’s interest as his
client. Goodley argued that this conflict rendered Chavez
constitutionally ineffective in Goodley’s own case, thereby
depriving Goodley of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.3 On
May 22, 2003, Goodley and Chavez both testified about Chavez’s
performance at Goodley’s trial during an evidentiary hearing.
After considering this testimony, the district court denied
Goodley’s § 2255 claims on March 31, 2004, applying the rule set
forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), and
concluding that Chavez’s performance at Goodley’s trial was not
constitutionally deficient.
Goodley then filed an application for a certificate of
appealability (“COA”), raising eight grounds for relief from the
district court’s decision to deny his § 2255 motion. On June 28,
3
Goodley now argues, and the government concedes, that
both the district court judge and the attorneys prosecuting
Goodley’s case were aware of the separate and ongoing
investigation into Chavez’s otherwise unrelated illegal
activities. Apparently, Goodley was the only principal in the
courtroom who was unaware of that investigation.
3
2004, the district court denied Goodley’s application for a COA
with respect to his first four grounds of relief, but granted the
COA with respect to Goodley’s last four grounds of relief, all of
which revolve around the alleged violation of Goodley’s Sixth
Amendment rights caused by Chavez’s deficient representation.4
II. DISCUSSION
In this appeal, Goodley claims that the alleged conflict
between Chavez’s interests and his own should be analyzed under
4
More specifically, the district granted Goodley’s
application for a COA with respect to the following claims:
5) whether trial counsel labored under an actual
conflict of interest by choosing his own interests
over those of his client; violating Movant’s
constitutional right to effective and conflict free
counsel;
6) whether the untimely-plea-acceptance argument is
waived;
7) whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing
to timely communicate his client’s acceptance of a
plea offer; and
8) whether counsel’s other failures at trial,
including his lacking preparation, failure to move
for a judgment of acquittal, and his distraction
due to his own ongoing criminal investigation
rendered him constitutionally ineffective.
R. at 335. On December 28, 2004, this court also denied
Goodley’s application for a COA on the first four grounds of
relief requested in his application. Before an appeal from the
dismissal or denial of a § 2254 or § 2255 habeas application can
be taken, a would-be appellant must first obtain a COA which 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)
(2000). Therefore, only the grounds of relief quoted above are
raised in this appeal.
4
the standard set forth in Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335(1980). In Sullivan, the Supreme Court held that when a lawyer
simultaneously represents multiple defendants, a defendant may be
able to establish a limited presumption of prejudice if he can
show that “an actual conflict of interest adversely affected his
lawyer’s performance.” Sullivan, 446 U.S. at 348. Goodley now
argues that this court should apply this limited presumption from
Sullivan because Chavez’s conflicted representation of Goodley
raises the same concerns present in the multiple representation
discussed in Sullivan.
Goodley’s arguments are misplaced; the district court’s
decision to apply the Strickland standard was correct. This
court has determined that “[n]ot all conflicts of interest . . .
[are] suited to [Cuyler v. Sullivan’s] stringent rule,” and that
“Strickland more appropriately gauges an attorney’s conflict of
interest that springs not from multiple client representation but
from a conflict between the attorney’s personal interest and that
of his client.” Beets v. Scott, 65 F.3d 1258, 1269, 1260 (5th
Cir. 1993) (en banc); see also United States v. Corona, 108 F.3d
565, 575 (5th Cir. 1997) (refusing to apply Sullivan to an
alleged attorney-client conflict that did not arise from multiple
representation). Because the Strickland standard applies when,
as here, the quality of representation is alleged to have been
affected by the attorney’s self-interest, the district court
correctly determined that Goodley’s claims should be evaluated
5
under Strickland’s standard, not Sullivan’s. Recent instruction
from the Supreme Court and the recent decisions of this court
have reaffirmed the strict limitation of Sullivan to cases
involving multiple representation and the application of
Strickland to most other alleged conflicts. See Mickens v.
Taylor, 535 U.S. 162, 174-75 (2002) (quoting Beets, 65 F.3d at
1266, and criticizing courts of appeals that “have applied
Sullivan ‘unblinkingly’ to ‘all kinds of alleged attorney ethical
conflicts,’” even when the conflict arises because
“representation of the defendant somehow implicates counsel’s
personal or financial interests”); United States v. Newell, 315
F.3d 510, 516 (5th Cir. 2002) (stating that Sullivan’s standard
is “confined to claims . . . that challenge an attorney’s divided
loyalties due to multiple representation,” while “Strickland’s
two-pronged analysis . . . governs all other attorney-client
conflicts”).
Strickland establishes a two-part test for analyzing
conflicts between a convicted client and his attorney’s alleged
self-interest:
First, the defendant must show that counsel’s performance
was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made
errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the
‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth
Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the
deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This
requires showing that the counsel’s errors were so
serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a
trial whose result is reliable. Unless a defendant makes
both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction or
6
death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the adversary
process that renders the result unreliable.
Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. These two steps are often referred
to as the “performance component” and the “prejudice component”
of the Strickland test. Id. at 699. The district court found
that Goodley’s claims failed to meet the “performance component”
because Goodley failed to provide any evidence that Chavez’s
performance was actually deficient. We agree.
Contrary to Goodley’s assertions, the district court
correctly found that Chavez’s failure to interview certain
witnesses fell short of Strickland’s standard for deficient
performance. The district court recognized that under
Strickland, a petitioner such as Goodley “who alleges a failure
to investigate on the part of his counsel must allege with
specificity what the investigation would have revealed and how it
would have altered the outcome of the trial.” United States v.
Green, 882 F.2d 999, 1003 (5th Cir. 1989) (citing, inter alia,
Alexander v. McCotter, 775 F.2d 595 (5th Cir. 1985)). Because
Goodley did not provide sufficient detail about what the foregone
investigations might have revealed or how they might have altered
the outcome of his trial, the district court correctly concluded
that he failed to show that these foregone investigations met the
performance component of the Strickland test.
Second, the district court also correctly rejected Goodley’s
claim that Chavez’s failure to make a motion for a judgment of
7
acquittal pursuant to FED. R. CRIM. P. 29 was deficient under
Strickland’s standard. After reviewing the record from Goodley’s
trial, the district court concluded that such a motion would have
been futile, given the weight of the evidence presented by the
prosecution. The district court correctly analyzed the facts and
our precedent; we have repeatedly stated that the performance
component of Strickland does not require counsel “to make futile
motions or objections.”5 Koch v. Puckett, 907 F.2d 524, 527 (5th
Cir. 1990); see also United States v. Gibson, 55 F.3d 173, 179
(5th Cir. 1995) (stating that trial counsel’s failure to file a
motion to suppress evidence did not constitute deficient
performance under Strickland because “[c]ounsel is not required
by the Sixth Amendment to file meritless motions”).
Third, the district court correctly concluded that Goodley’s
claims about Chavez’s general state of impairment failed to meet
the performance component of the Strickland test. The district
court found
that the record demonstrates that [Chavez’s]
representation at trial, though imperfect, was effective
5
Of course, the boundaries of the performance component
of the Strickland test are not fixed at mere futility in every
case. As we have repeatedly held, “counsel is not obligated to
advance every available nonfrivolous argument . . . .” Smith v.
Collins, 977 F.2d 951, 960 (5th Cir. 1992) (citing, inter alia,
Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 485-88 (1986)). Therefore, a
defendant must point to more than the possibility of success in
order to demonstrate ineffective assistance of counsel under
Strickland. See id. However, when, as here, even the
possibility of success is lacking, further analysis under
Strickland is unnecessary.
8
and did not rise to the level that violates the Sixth
Amendment . . . . [In addition, Goodley] has not proven
that the alleged impairment caused any acts or omissions
that resulted in an unfair trial nor negated the fact
that some acts or omissions were due to human error and
not the impairment.
Chavez admitted that he made mistakes while representing Goodley,
and he conceded that the ongoing investigation into his own
criminal activity was “unsettling” and “disruptive,” but he also
maintained that he gave Goodley his best efforts and “didn’t hold
back any punches because of what was happening” outside of
Goodley’s trial. While Chavez’s performance, by his own
admission, fell far short of the ideal, more is required to meet
Strickland’s performance component. See Smith, 977 F.2d at 960
(stating that under Strickland “[t]he defense of a criminal case
is not an undertaking in which everything not prohibited is
required. . . . [nor does it require] the employment of wholly
unlimited time and resources”). Goodley’s general claim that
Chavez’s distraction due to his own ongoing criminal
investigation rendered him constitutionally ineffective falls
short of this requirement.
Fourth, the district court correctly rejected Goodley’s
claim that Chavez’s performance was actually deficient under
Strickland based on Chavez’s alleged failure to timely
communicate Goodley’s acceptance of a plea offer.6 The district
6
Goodley and Chavez both testified that Assistant United
States Attorney Tom Beery (“Beery”) contacted Chavez before
Goodley’s trial and offered Goodley a plea deal involving a ten-
9
court held that “this particular claim of deficient performance”
had been waived because it was not included in Goodley’s original
motion to vacate, which focused solely “on the efforts of
[Chavez] at trial” without any “mention of the plea
negotiations.” The district court also addressed the substance
of Goodley’s plea argument and concluded that Goodley had not
demonstrated deficient performance under Strickland because there
was no evidence that the plea would have been accepted by either
Goodley’s prosecutors or the trial court. This substantive
analysis was correct, but we will not consider it further because
Goodley has not provided sufficient reasons to overturn the
district court’s waiver ruling.
Ordinarily, this court accepts “a district court’s finding
of waiver unless it is clearly erroneous, as it constitutes a
finding of fact.” United States v. Gipson, 985 F.2d 212, 216
(5th Cir. 1993) (citing Meeks v. Cabana, 845 F.2d 1319, 1323 (5th
Cir. 1988)). In this appeal, Goodley argues that the plea offer
year maximum sentence. Goodley and Chavez both testified that
Goodley initially declined the offer, but they agreed that Chavez
was eventually able to convince Goodley to accept it.
However, Chavez testified that he did not immediately convey
Goodley’s acceptance of this alleged plea deal to Beery or any
other attorney involved in Goodley’s prosecution. Furthermore,
Chavez testified that by the time he communicated Goodley’s
acceptance of the deal to Goodley’s prosecutors, Beery had been
replaced by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Roomberg, who
refused to accept or acknowledge the plea offer allegedly made by
Beery. Chavez testified that he had no good reason for failing
to timely communicate Goodley’s acceptance of Beery’s alleged
plea offer, and he acknowledged that “if you want to talk about
mistakes, that certainly was.”
10
argument was not waived because his original motion roughly
described the factual circumstances related to the alleged plea
deal, albeit without expressly claiming that Chavez’s performance
was somehow deficient. To support this reading of the original
motion, Goodley also points to excerpts from the government’s
first responses to his original motion, which tend to dispute
Goodley’s description of the factual circumstances related to
this alleged plea deal. However, these responses also do not
discuss the quality of Chavez’s performance as it related to the
circumstances surrounding the alleged plea deal. Goodley’s
citations, and our own examination of the record, reveal that
although Goodley discussed the existence of the alleged plea
agreement in his original motion, he failed to claim that
Chavez’s performance in connection with this alleged plea
agreement was somehow deficient. Therefore, we conclude that
Goodley has failed to show that the district court’s waiver
finding was clearly erroneous.
In conclusion, the district court correctly found that
Goodley’s arguments fail to meet the performance component of the
Strickland test. We also briefly note that Goodley’s claims fail
to meet the prejudice component of the Strickland test. To meet
the prejudice component of Strickland, a defendant must show that
the errors under review “were so serious as to deprive [him] of a
fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable.” Strickland, 466
U.S. at 687. As we held in Goodley’s direct appeal, the
11
prosecution presented “overwhelming evidence of guilt” against
Goodley during the course of his trial. United States v.
Goodley, No. 98-50923, slip op. at 2 (5th Cir. Sept. 23, 1999).
In light of this overwhelming evidence of guilt, Chavez’s alleged
errors cast no doubt on the result of Goodley’s trial.
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we AFFIRM.
12