Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_14-cv-02208/USCOURTS-azd-2_14-cv-02208-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 510
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Vacate Sentence
Cause of Action: 28:2255 Motion to Vacate / Correct Illegal Sentence

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Al-Quan Romain Loyal, 

Petitioner, 

v. 

USA, 

Respondent. 

No. CV-14-02208-PHX-GMS

ORDER 

 Pending before the Court is Petitioner Al-Quan Romain Loyal’s Writ of Habeas 

Corpus filed as a Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence (“Motion”) pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. (Doc. 1.) On December 8, 2015, United States Magistrate Judge 

Michelle H. Burns issued a Report and Recommendation (“R & R”) recommending that 

Loyal’s Motion be denied. (Doc. 16.) Loyal timely filed objections. (Doc. 17.) For the 

following reasons, the Court adopts the R & R in full. 

BACKGROUND 

 On February 24, 2009, Loyal entered into an open plea1

 admitting guilt as to each 

count in the government’s 4-count superseding indictment. On December 22, 2010, after 

denying Loyal’s Motion to Withdraw Plea of Guilty, this Court sentenced Loyal to 352 

months imprisonment. On January 3, 2011, Loyal filed a direct appeal to the Ninth 

Circuit which affirmed the conviction and judgment. On October 3, 2014, Loyal filed the 

present Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence pursuant to § 2255. The R & R 

 

1

 An open plea is a guilty plea that is not accompanied by a plea agreement. 

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sets forth a detailed procedural and factual background to this case, to which no party 

objects. Accordingly, the Court adopts this background and does not repeat it here. 

 Loyal raises three arguments in his Motion. First, Loyal argues that his Fifth and 

Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the district court, while conducting a 

conflicts hearing, did not allow Loyal to be present for the first-half of the hearing that 

addressed the potential conflicts between Loyal’s co-defendant, Freddie Brown, and his 

attorney Paul Bergrin, who had previously represented Loyal. Second, Loyal argues that 

he received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of his Fifth and Sixth 

Amendment rights when his attorney, Thomas Moran, Jr., did not have him present for 

the conflict hearing regarding Brown and Bergrin, and did not adequately counsel Loyal 

so as to ensure that he knowingly waived any conflict that may have resulted from 

Moran’s representation of Loyal. Third, Loyal argues that Moran provided ineffective 

assistance of counsel in violation of Loyal’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights when he 

advised Loyal to enter into an open plea. 

 The R & R recommends that the Court dismiss Loyal’s Motion with prejudice on 

all three grounds. 

DISCUSSION 

I. Legal Standard 

 A “district judge may refer dispositive pretrial motions, and petitions for writ of 

habeas corpus, to a magistrate, who shall conduct appropriate proceedings and 

recommend dispositions.” Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 141 (1985); see also 28 U.S.C. 

§ 636(b)(1)(B); Estate of Connors v. O’Connor, 6 F.3d 656, 658 (9th Cir. 1993). Any 

party “may serve and file written objections” to the R & R. § 636(b)(1). “A judge of the 

court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified 

findings or recommendations to which objection is made.” Id. A district judge “may 

accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by 

the magistrate.” Id.

/ / / 

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II. Analysis 

Loyal’s first two objections both challenge the Magistrate Judge’s recommended 

holding that any issues presented by Loyal’s absence from the first half of the conflicts 

hearing were cured by his subsequent voluntary and intelligent guilty plea. Loyal’s third 

objection challenges the Magistrate Judge’s recommended finding that Moran provided 

Loyal effective assistance of counsel when he recommended he enter into an open plea. 

A. Loyal’s First and Second Objections 

“When a criminal defendant has solemnly admitted in open court that he is in fact 

guilty of the offense with which he is charged, he may not thereafter raise independent 

claims relating to the deprivation of 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 . . . .” Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 267 (1973); see, e.g., United States v. 

Jackson, 697 F.3d 1141, 1144 (9th Cir. 2012) (“An unconditional guilty plea waives all 

nonjurisdictional, antecedent defects.”) (citations omitted); United States v. LopezArmenta, 400 F.3d 1173, 1175 (9th Cir. 2005) (“[I]t is well-settled that an unconditional 

guilty plea constitutes a waiver of the right to appeal all nonjurisdictional antecedent 

rulings and cures all antecedent constitutional defects.”) (citations omitted). Courts have 

held that pre-plea “jurisdictional” errors “include only those claims in which, judged on 

the face of the indictment and record, the charge in question is one which the state [or 

federal government] may not constitutionally prosecute.” United States v. Johnston, 199 

F.3d 1015 (9th Cir. 1999). Some examples of permissible pre-plea jurisdictional 

challenges include: vindictive prosecution, Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 30–31 

(1974); double jeopardy, Menna v. New York, 432 U.S. 61, 62 (1975); and an underlying 

criminal statute that is “unconstitutional or unconstitutionally vague on its face,” United 

States v. Garcia-Valenzuela, 232 F.3d 1003, 1006 (9th Cir. 2000). See Hill v. White, 

2011 WL 1641889, at *6 (D. Ariz. Apr. 4, 2011). 

 Loyal asserts that even though his challenges focus on past instances of 

constitutional infirmity, they carry with them a taint that infects the nature of his eventual 

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guilty plea, and thus he is attacking the “voluntary and intelligent character of [his] guilty 

plea”—a permissible attack under Tollett. According to Menna, however, the result of a 

guilty plea is that it “renders irrelevant those constitutional violations not logically 

inconsistent with the valid establishment of factual guilt and which do not stand in the 

way of conviction if factual guilt is validly established.” Menna, 423 U.S. at 63 n.2. 

Here, the alleged taint resulting from Loyal not being present at the Brown conflict 

hearing, and Loyal’s subsequent waiver of any conflict with Moran, does not undermine 

the valid establishment of Loyal’s factual guilt demonstrated by his guilty plea. See id.

(explaining that a pre-plea jurisdictional double jeopardy challenge is permissible 

because “the claim is that the State may not convict petitioner no matter how validly his 

factual guilt is established”); see also Tollett, 411 U.S. at 267 (“[I]t is not sufficient for 

the criminal defendant seeking to set aside [] a plea to show that his counsel in retrospect 

may not have correctly appraised the constitutional significance of certain historical facts, 

. . . it is likewise not sufficient that he show that if counsel had pursued a certain factual 

inquiry such a pursuit would have uncovered a possible constitutional infirmity in the 

proceedings.”) (citation omitted). 

 Moreover, Loyal’s reliance on Bishop v. Parratt, 509 F. Supp. 1140 (D. Neb. 

1991) and United States v. Sanchez, 194 F.3d 1319 (9th Cir. 1999) (unpublished) is 

unavailing. In Bishop, a District of Nebraska case and thus not binding on this Court in 

any event, the court concluded that Tollett did not bar a challenge to the voluntary and 

intelligent character of a guilty plea based on “advice received from counsel rendered 

ineffective because of conflict-ridden multiple representation.” Id. at 1145. The 

defendant in Bishop, however, unlike the Defendant here, never waived the subsequently 

alleged conflict-of-interest in open court months before entering into the guilty plea. As 

a result, the Bishop defendant’s challenge to the voluntary and intelligent character of his 

plea raised an unaddressed constitutional deprivation of conflict-free counsel that may 

have fallen outside of the waiver espoused in Tollett. However, pleading guilty because 

of advice received by counsel acting under an actual conflict of interest in turn rendering 

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his or her counsel ineffective is markedly different from pleading guilty under the advice 

of counsel to which the defendant has waived any potential conflict of interest. Thus, 

because Loyal waived the conflict of interest, any constitutional infirmity that allegedly 

stems from that waiver is cured by Loyal’s subsequent admission of factual guilt. As to 

Sanchez, the case simply rejects—in a single unpublished paragraph—the four grounds 

raised by the defendant in his direct appeal of his conviction, one of which alleges a 

possible conflict of interest with his trial counsel. Sanchez, 194 F.3d at *1. The case 

does not at all address any issue related to whether Tollett waives Loyal’s post-plea 

challenge to his conflict waiver. Sanchez poses no useful parallels to this case and is thus 

inapposite. 

 Finally, even setting aside the Tollett waiver, Loyal already challenged on direct 

appeal to the Ninth Circuit the district court’s underlying rejection of his motion to 

withdraw his guilty plea based on his original counsel’s alleged conflict of interest and 

the involuntary and unknowing nature of his waiver of such conflicts. (Doc. 11, Ex. 4 at 

3–4.) “Issues raised at trial and considered on direct appeal are not subject to collateral 

attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.” Egger v. U.S., 509 F.2d 745, 748 (9th Cir. 1975); see 

also U.S. v Redd, 759 F.2d 699, 701 (9th Cir. 1985) (holding that because the defendant 

had “raised this precise claim in his direct appeal, and this court expressly rejected it[,] 

. . . this claim cannot be the basis of a § 2255 motion.”) (citing Egger, 509 F.2d at 748). 

Loyal asserts, nevertheless, that the challenges here on his § 2255 are distinguishable 

from the issues raised on direct appeal. The assertion is unconvincing. The Ninth Circuit 

held that “Loyal’s allegation that a conflict of interest existed is undermined by the fact 

that the district court had made inquires (sic) of Loyal as to whether he would waive any 

potential conflict and determined that he had done so.” (Doc. 11, Ex. 4 at 4.) “Grounds 

which were apparent on original appeal cannot be made the basis for a second attack 

under § 2255.” Egger, 509 F.2d at 748. Loyal’s rehashing here of the challenges he 

raised on direct appeal is improper. 

 The Court thus overrules Loyal’s first two objections to the R & R and adopts the 

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R & R’s dismissal of Loyal’s first two grounds for relief. 

B. Loyal’s Third Objection 

 “Under the standard established in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), 

representation is only constitutionally inadequate if counsel’s conduct is unreasonable 

and results in prejudice to the defendant.” Daire v. Lattimore, 818 F.3d 454, 459 (9th 

Cir. 2016). The Strickland test “applies to challenges to guilty pleas based on ineffective 

assistance of counsel.” Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 58 (1985). Whether Moran’s 

advice to enter into an open plea was competent under Strickland requires determining 

“whether the plea represents a voluntary and intelligent choice among the alternative 

causes of action open to the defendant.” Hill, 474 U.S. at 56 (internal quotation marks 

and citation omitted). And to “attack the voluntary and intelligent character of the guilty 

plea” Loyal must show “that the advice he received from [Moran] was not within the 

range of competence demanded of attorneys in criminal cases.” United States v. Signori, 

844 F.2d 635, 638 (9th Cir. 1988) (citing Tollett, 411 U.S. at 267). 

Loyal asserts that the Magistrate Judge’s finding that Moran supplied competent 

counsel when he advised Loyal to enter into an open plea on the eve of trial ignores the 

fact that Loyal was offered and advised to reject an earlier and arguably more favorable 

plea that ensured a lower maximum sentence. Loyal adds that Moran also failed to 

inform him that the open plea did not foreclose the application of the career offender 

guidelines;2

 as a result, Loyal did not understand that although the open plea set a 15 year 

minimum, he was likely to receive a more significant sentence. These facts fail, either 

singly or collectively, to meet the Strickland standard for ineffective assistance of 

counsel. 

 Loyal’s main objection conflates the timing of the two plea offers (the first plea 

and the open plea) and ignores the fact that Loyal was also re-extended the original and 

arguably better plea and again turned it down. Loyal presents a scenario where he was 

presented with two opposing plea offers at the same time: one plea limited his exposure 

 

2

 U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. 

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to 15–23 years imprisonment and the other open plea provided a 15 year minimum but 

left the maximum open to life. In fact, however, Loyal was not presented with both pleas 

side-by-side. Rather, the record shows that sometime before trial, Loyal rejected the 

government’s first plea offer because he wanted a lower sentencing range than what was 

proposed. Then, on the eve of trial, and facing a mandatory life sentence if convicted, 

Moran advised Loyal to enter into an open plea that took the mandatory life sentence off 

the table. The fact that Loyal rejected an arguably more favorable plea at some earlier 

time and under separate and distinct circumstances3

 does not push Moran’s advice to 

enter into an open plea on the eve of trial outside the “range of competence demanded of 

attorneys in criminal cases.”4

 Moreover, there is no evidence that Loyal would have 

fared better going to trial; in other words, Loyal presents insufficient evidence of 

prejudice to counter the fact that by entering into the open plea he eliminated the 

guarantee of a life sentence upon conviction and allowed Moran (or Loyal’s subsequent 

attorney) to seek a more lenient sentence.5

 

 Moran’s failure to inform Loyal of the career offender guidelines also does not 

constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Even assuming, arguendo, that Moran 

should have instructed Loyal that he qualified as a career offender and thus he would be 

subject to its enhanced guidelines, the district court’s plea colloquy at Loyal’s change of 

plea hearing cured any resulting prejudice. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 697 (“If it is 

easier to dispose of an ineffectiveness claim on the ground of lack of sufficient prejudice . 

. . that course should be followed.”). There is no evidence or any argument alleging that 

 

3

 For example, the record indicates that Moran advised Loyal to enter into an open plea after apprising him of the likely testimony that his co-defendants would provide against him at trial. There is no evidence that such information was available when the 

government presented its first offer. 

4

 Moreover, as explained in detail above, to the extent that Loyal is arguing that Moran provided ineffective assistance of counsel by advising Loyal to reject the earlier

plea agreement, that constitutional challenge is cured by Loyal’s subsequent guilty plea. See Tollett, 411 U.S. at 267. 

5

 Loyal’s charge of prejudice is further undermined by the fact that he rejected the government’s re-extension of the original plea offer after entering into the open plea and under the advice of different counsel. 

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the district court’s plea colloquy was anything but “dutifully conducted . . . [and] 

embraced all disclosures and inquiries required by Rule 11[.]” United States v. Jeronimo, 

398 F.3d 1149, 1151 (9th Cir. 2005), overruled on other grounds. Further, during the 

colloquy Loyal acknowledged inter alia that he understood that by entering into an open 

plea he was leaving his sentencing up to the discretion of the court and that he could be 

sentenced up to life imprisonment. See United States v. Ross, 511 F.3d 1233, 1236 (9th 

Cir. 2008) (“Statements made by a defendant during a guilty plea hearing carry a strong 

presumption of veracity in subsequent proceedings attacking the plea.”). In Loyal’s case, 

the effect of qualifying as a career offender meant that he faced a maximum possible 

sentence of life imprisonment. See § 4B1.1 (offense level 37). Thus, the judge’s 

thorough Rule 11 plea colloquy cures Moran’s failure to expressly inform him of his 

career offender status since Loyal knowingly and voluntarily acknowledged that he faced 

the possibility of the concomitant effect of that status. As such, the facts do not support 

a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel. 

 Finally, again, like Loyal’s other claims, his claim that he received ineffective 

assistance of counsel when he was advised to enter into an open plea was already 

challenged and rejected on direct appeal by the Ninth Circuit,6

 (Doc. 11, Ex. 4 at 4); thus 

his collateral attempt at a second attack is improper and rejected. See Egger, 509 F.2d at 

748. 

 The Court accordingly overrules Loyal’s third objection to the R & R and adopts 

the R & R’s dismissal of Loyal’s third ground for relief. 

CONCLUSION 

 For the foregoing reasons, the Court adopts the Magistrate Judge’s R & R in full. 

 IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Court ADOPTS the R & R. (Doc. 16.) 

Loyal’s Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence (Doc. 1) is thus DENIED and

DISMISSED with prejudice. 

 

6

 An ineffective assistance of counsel claim may be brought appropriately on either a direct appeal or in a collateral proceeding under § 2255. Cf. Massaro v. United 

States, 538 U.S. 500 (2003). 

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 IT IS FUTHER ORDERED that the Court declines to issue a certificate of 

appealability because reasonable jurists would not find the Court’s ruling debatable. See 

Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000).

 Dated this 25th day of August, 2016. 

Honorable G. Murray Snow

United States District Judge

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