Case ID: f-appx_56/html/0334-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff — Appellee, v. Zafarollah MOHSENZADEH, aka Zafar Mohsenzadeh, Defendant — Appellant.
    No. 00-50512.
    D.C. No. CR-99-00280-CAS-01.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted Jan. 13, 2003.
    
    Decided Feb. 11, 2003.
    Before HALL, KOZINSKI and RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       This panel unanimously finds this case suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Mohsenzadeh’s motion for a new trial. On the current record, the representation provided by Mohsenzadeh’s trial counsel did not fall “below an objective standard of reasonableness.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Trial counsel’s decision not to introduce evidence of Mohsenzadeh’s membership in Mujahedin-e-Khalq or to investigate or present possible evidence of selective prosecution was a reasonable tactical decision that we decline to second-guess. See United States v. Claiborne, 870 F.2d 1463, 1468 (9th Cir.1989). Nor did trial counsel err in failing to raise a selective prosecution claim as, based on the facts before us, it wouldn’t have succeeded. See United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 465,116 S.Ct. 1480,134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.