Christopher Brown v. Warden (2010)

DECISION

THE COURT:  All right.   The following's going to constitute the decision of the Court in this matter, and, Madam Court Reporter, please prepare the transcript for my signature at this point.

The petitioner has been-now comes before this Court seeking to withdraw his voluntary plea of guilty to the charge of murder.   It's important at the outset to understand that there is a critical difference between the legal status of a person who is accused of a crime as opposed to one who has been convicted of a crime.

Now, the person who is accused of a crime is entitled to a presumption of his or her innocence.   The petitioner in a habeas corpus petition, however, is not.   It's undoubtably true that a person when first charged with a crime is entitled to a presumption of innocence and may insist that his guilt be established beyond all reasonable doubt, In re Winship, and this presumption of innocence, however, does not outlast the judgment of conviction at trial, Somerville versus Warden.   Consequently, the burden of proving a right to habeas relief rests with the petitioner and not with the respondent.

In the eyes of the law, the petitioner does not come before this Court as one who is innocent.   On the contrary, as one who has been convicted by due process of law, again, Somerville versus Warden.

Now, in this case, not only has the petitioner been convicted of the offense, he's been convicted pursuant to a plea of guilty.   Now, a valid guilty plea generally operates as a waiver of all defects in the prosecution except those involving the canvass of the plea and the court's subject matter jurisdiction, State versus Reddick.

The guilty plea is a waiver of constitutional rights, a waiver of non-jurisdictional defenses and for the record disclose such acts was voluntary, knowing, intelligent and done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.   The plea of guilty will be determined to be valid, Consiglio v. Warden.

Now, it's clear in this case upon a review of the plea canvass and the testimony provided by Attorney Dolan that the petitioner's plea of guilty to the charge of murder is voluntary and knowing, intelligent and done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.

The Court, Judge Damiani, engaged in a full canvass of the petitioner to determine the providence of his guilty plea.   The petitioner was represented by counsel, and despite his testimony here in the habeas trial, the Court finds that he fully understands, understood, the import of what he was doing.   Consequently, this Court will find his guilty plea to the murder charge to be valid.

A valid plea of guilty will operate to stop the petitioner from seeking to withdraw that plea at any subsequent habeas corpus proceeding, which, of course, is precisely what the petitioner's trying to do.

Guilt or the degree of guilt is at times uncertain and elusive.   An accused, though believing in or entertaining doubts respecting his innocence, might reasonably conclude that a jury would be convinced of his guilt, that he would fare better in the sentence by pleading guilty.

Here, the petitioner is charged with several serious charges, including murder and assault with a firearm upon his own brother.   Had he gone to trial on all matters and been convicted, he would have faced incarceration for a significantly longer period, perhaps up to a hundred, hundred five years.   This would have undoubtedly been for the remainder of his natural life.   His total exposure, therefore, was quite high.

Now, at the time he entered his guilty plea to this murder conviction, murder charge, it was indeed prudent for the petitioner to agree to the settlement and enter a plea of guilty.   Quote, reasons other than the fact that he is guilty may induce a defendant to so plead, and he must be permitted to judge for himself in this respect.  North Carolina versus Alford, 400 U.S. 25, citing with approval State versus Kaufman, 51 Iowa 578.

Here, the petitioner accepted the plea offer at a time when he already faced a potential sentence of thirty-five years on the assault case, which he had been convicted but not yet sentenced.   By making the pragmatic decision to plead guilty, even if he believed his assault case would later be reversed, the petitioner voluntarily chose to forego his constitutional right to a trial on a murder charge in exchange for what is translated to a limitation upon his total exposure that allowed him to receive a more favorable sentence of not more than thirty years for everything.

Now, with the agreement, the petitioner will be released from prison at about age fifty-one.   I understand that at age twenty-one, that looks to be a long way off.   It's not as far as anybody really believes.

This eliminates, to a great degree, the significantly likely possibility that had he gone to trial on all matters, he would die in prison.

Now, the ultimate decision as to whether a criminal defendant pleads guilty, pleads not guilty rests with the individual charged with the crime.   A criminal defendant has an absolute constitutional right to persist in a plea of not guilty even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and overwhelming evidence.   He or she has an absolute right to hold the government to its justifiably high burden of proof and take the matter to a jury of his or her peers.

Our common law has interpreted these constitutional guarantees as requiring that the government seeking to deprive a person of freedom must first prove that person's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.   It is not, never has been a decision for the trial counsel to make as to what plea his or her client should enter.

However, because the defendant often relies heavily on counsel's independent evaluation of the charges and defenses, the right to effective assistance of counsel includes an adequate investigation of the case to determine facts relevant to the merits or punishment in the event of conviction.

An attorney who fails to offer his client proper counsel in connection with that decision to accept or reject pretrial agreement may be providing ineffective representation.

Now, the focus of a habeas inquiry where there's been a guilty plea is the nature of the advice of counsel and the voluntariness of the plea, not the existence of a purported antecedent constitutional infirmity, Tollett versus Henderson.

If a prisoner pleads guilty under advice of counsel, he must demonstrate that the advice was not within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in criminal cases, McMahon versus Richardson.

A guilty plea represents a break in the chain of events which has preceded it in the criminal process.   When a criminal defendant has solemnly admitted in open court that he's in fact guilty of the offense with which he is charged, he may not thereafter raise independent claims relating to the deprivation of his constitutional rights that occurred prior to the entry of the guilty plea.

He may only attack the voluntary and intelligent character of the guilty plea by showing that the advice he received from counsel was not within the standards set forth in McMann, Bunkley versus Warden.

Now, here, the petitioner comes to court seeking to set aside his plea of guilty on the ground that his attorney did not advise him that if his assault conviction were reversed, his plea to murder would still stand.   As already noted, the petitioner faced a sentence of thirty-five years on the crimes for which he had been convicted by a jury.

While the jury did deadlock on the murder charge, there was no impediment to the state trying the petitioner on the murder once again, and this time, as Attorney Dolan was convinced, the state had a stronger case in that it now had DNA evidence to implicate the petitioner.

The offer to have the petitioner plead to escape and murder and receive a maximum thirty year sentence for all of his crimes, not only limited his exposure on the charges on which the jury had deadlocked at forty-two percent of the maximum, it essentially protected the petitioner on the charges the jury found proven and protected him in the event of a reversal of those charges as well.

Without agreeing to this pretrial settlement, the petitioner could have been retried upon the reversal of the assault charges, and he could have received up to seventy years on murder and the escape, and if successful on appeal, he could have been exposed to a potential thirty-five years to run consecutive to the murder sentence.

Attorney Dolan's advice to accept the plea offer was indeed prudent and clearly competent.   Now, any claim of ineffective assistance of counsel must satisfy both prongs of the test set forth by the Supreme Court, Strickland versus Washington.

Specifically, the petitioner must first show that counsel's performance was deficient.   This requires a showing that counsel made errors so serious counsel was not functioning as the counsel guaranteed the defendant by the 6th Amendment.   If and only if the petitioner manages to get over this hurdle, then the petitioner must clear the second obstacle by proving the deficient performance prejudiced the defendant.

This requires showing that counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is in fact reliable, and unless the petitioner makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process.   In short, the petitioner must show both deficiency and prejudice.   A failure to prove both, even though counsel's trial performance may have been substandard, will result in denial of petition.   Moreover, it is clear that the habeas court is free to deny the petition on either ground.

Trial in this Court of a habeas petition is not an opportunity for a new counsel to attempt to relitigate the case in a different manner.   A habeas court may not indulge in hindsight to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the challenged conduct, but must evaluate the acts or omissions from trial counsel's perspective at the time of trial, Beasley versus Commissioner.

A fair assessment of an attorney's performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effect of hindsight to reconstruct the circumstances to counsel's challenged conduct and to evaluate the conduct from counsel's perspective at the time.   Because of the difficulties inherent in making evaluation, the Court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within a wide range of reasonable professional assistance, Henry versus Commission of Correction.

Now, although Strickland applies generally to the evaluation whether ineffective assistance of counsel during criminal proceedings has infringed on a petitioner's constitutional rights, the United States Supreme Court has articulated a modified prejudice standard for cases in which the conviction has resulted from a guilty plea, Hill versus Lockhart.

Hill requires a petitioner to demonstrate that he would not have pleaded guilty, would have insisted on going to trial, that the evidence that had been undiscovered or the defenses he claimed should have been introduced were likely to have been successful at trial.

Given this, the petitioner must first prove that the performance by his trial defense counsel was deficient in the manner in which he conducted his pretrial activities and negotiating plea agreement for the petitioner.   Then the petitioner must prove that but for his counsel's inadequacies, he would have pled not guilty, gone to trial and been acquitted.

To begin with, this Court cannot find any deficiencies in the performance of Attorney Dolan.   He clearly conducted an adequate investigation, was fully aware of the facts in the case, achieved a deadlocked verdict on the first go round on the murder charge and managed to negotiate an extremely favorable pretrial settlement of the case even after conviction on the assault charge.

It's also clear that the petitioner didn't suffer any prejudice as a result of any of the challenged actions or omissions of his trial counsel.

Now when a defendant pleads guilty, he or she relieves the state of the enormous burden of having to go forward to prove guilt.   A guilty plea is often thought to be the first step on the long road to rehabilitation and the beginning of a return of the offender to being a productive member of society.   In return, the state will generally recommend the defendant receive the lower sentence.

To mount a successful collateral attack on his conviction, a prisoner must demonstrate miscarriage of justice or other prejudice and not merely some error that might entitle him to relief on appeal.

In order to demonstrate such a fundamental unfairness or miscarriage of justice, the petitioner should be required to show that he's burdened by an unreliable conviction, Bunkley versus Commissioner, and this can't be done in this case.

Now, there is a disparity in testimony between that of Mr. Dolan and petitioner.   The Court credits the testimony of Attorney Dolan over the testimony of the petitioner.   The petitioner's testimony was self-serving.   The petitioner indicated that Mr. Dolan had told him to simply say yes to all of the questions from the judge and plea canvass.   It's also crystal clear from the transcript that he did not do so, despite the petitioner's testimony under oath that all he did was say yes to the judge.

Madam Clerk, if you would please serve the appeal papers on the petitioner.   I'm not sure I said it, but the habeas petition shall be dismissed on all grounds, and, Mr. Brown, I wish you luck.

Stanley T. Fuger, J.

As I said, I know that a thirty year sentence for one who receives it at twenty-one years old is an incredibly long time, and it seems that that will never roll around.   It will roll around.   You'll have an opportunity to come back into society and try to become a productive member.

Had you been convicted of all of the charges facing you, you would not have had that opportunity, and the reason why you have that opportunity is the services provided by ck Attorney Dolan.   I cannot find that he was ineffective.   Good luck, to you, Mr. Brown.   Anything further, counsel?

ATTY. CLIFTON:  No, Your Honor.

ATTY. BOURN:  No, Your Honor.

THE COURT:  Ms. Bourn, I do want to compliment you.   It's obvious you put a lot of work effort into this.   You've come up with-again, I use the word ingenious-I don't mean that in any way to be disparaging-I mean it to be you were creative and demonstrated good lawyering.   Unsuccessful, but nevertheless, you're to be complimented on coming up with a theory.

ATTY. BOURN:  Thank you, Your Honor.

THE COURT:  Good luck to you both.   Court's adjourned.  (Whereupon, court was adjourned.)

Fuger, S.T., J.