United States Fifth Circuit

Dismissal of a 28 U.S.C. section 2254 petition brought by a petitioner convicted of cocaine possession and sentenced to forty years in prison as a third-time felony offender is affirmed over claims of error regarding: 1) whether a state court's determination that there was a valid waiver of counsel as to one of petitioner's predicate offenses was unreasonable in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding, and, if so, whether petitioner was entitled to relief because of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment violations; and 2) whether trial counsel's failure to challenge the predicate offenses constituted ineffective assistance of counsel.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/22/2008
• Published 01/23/2008

Judges

• DENNIS, Circuit Judge:, Before KING, BARKSDALE and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Fifth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• James Phillip Manasseh, Kathryn F. Simino (argued), Manasseh, Gill & Knipe, PLC, Baton Rouge, LA, for Mallard., Kathryn W. Landry (argued), Ieyoub & Landry, Baton Rouge, LA, for Cain.