Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-15-06069/USCOURTS-ca10-15-06069-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David Miller
Appellee
Antonio Don Milton
Appellant

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

ANTONIO DON MILTON, 

 Petitioner - Appellant, 

v. 

DAVID MILLER, 

 Respondent - Appellee. 

No. 15-6069 

_________________________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Oklahoma 

(D.C. No. 5:10-CV-01367-F)

_________________________________ 

Submitted on the briefs:*

John T. Carlson, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for PetitionerAppellant. 

Jay Schniederjan, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Oklahoma, Oklahoma 

City, Oklahoma; Joshua L. Lockett, Office of the Attorney General for the State of 

Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Respondent-Appellee. 

_________________________________ 

Before MATHESON, MURPHY, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge. 

_________________________________ 

 *

 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of 

this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit 

February 9, 2016

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court

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Antonio Don Milton, an Oklahoma state prisoner, requests a certificate of 

appealability (COA) to appeal the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 

petition for habeas relief. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 

and 2253(a), we deny Milton’s request for a COA. 

I. BACKGROUND 

We have previously detailed Milton’s history in Oklahoma state courts and the 

federal district court. See Milton v. Miller, 744 F.3d 660, 663–68 (10th Cir. 2014).1

Milton’s case returns to us after we reversed the district court’s denial of his habeas 

petition solely regarding Milton’s ineffective-assistance-of-appellate-counsel claim 

and remanded for an evidentiary hearing on a narrow factual dispute, which, once 

resolved, would assist the district court in better assessing the merits of Milton’s 

remaining ineffective-assistance claim. See id. at 673. With evidence from the 

hearing now available to us, we have the necessary facts to assess Milton’s claim. 

Because the evidentiary hearing revealed new facts not known to courts that have 

previously addressed Milton’s post-conviction claims, we recount Milton’s journey 

through the criminal-justice system for the sake of clarity and coherence with our 

earlier opinion. 

A. State Court Proceedings 

In 2007, Milton was prosecuted in two separate cases pending simultaneously 

before a state district court. One included a charge for Milton’s trafficking in cocaine 

 1

 In his initial habeas appeal, we granted Milton’s request for a COA only “to 

appeal the dismissal of his claim of ineffective assistance based on counsel’s alleged 

failure to inform him of the plea offer.” R. vol. 1 at 959; see id. at 953–59. 

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base (crack cocaine),2

 while the other case concerned his involvement in a drive-by 

shooting.3

 Separate attorneys represented Milton in each case: Jacob Benedict, a 

public defender, represented Milton in the drug-trafficking case until Michael Arnett 

took over after the preliminary hearing; Joe Reynolds, a private attorney, represented 

Milton in the drive-by-shooting case. Because Milton had two earlier felony drugtrafficking convictions, the crack-cocaine-trafficking charge mandated life without 

parole upon conviction. See Okla. Stat. tit. 63, § 2-415(D)(3) (2004) (“If the person 

has previously been convicted of two or more violations of this section or any 

provision of the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act which constitutes a 

felony, or a combination of such violations arising out of separate and distinct 

transactions, [his sentence shall be a term of imprisonment of] life without parole.”). 

The State extended Milton at least one plea offer that covered at least one of 

Milton’s two cases. The parties have disputed the terms of the offered plea deal (or 

deals) throughout Milton’s pretrial and post-conviction proceedings. But Milton 

ultimately rejected the offered plea deal(s) and went to trial in the drug-trafficking 

case. He was convicted of the crack-cocaine-trafficking charge and sentenced to the 

 2

 In this case, a jury convicted Milton of: trafficking in cocaine base after two 

or more previous felony convictions (mandatory life without parole); possession of a 

firearm after two or more previous felony convictions (consecutive life sentence with 

a possibility of parole); possession of marijuana after two or more previous felony 

convictions (consecutive ten years); and possession of drug paraphernalia 

(consecutive one year). We refer to this case as the “drug-trafficking case.” 

3

 Milton was formally charged with using a vehicle to facilitate the intentional 

discharge of a firearm, but for brevity we refer to this case as the “drive-by-shooting 

case.” 

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mandatory term of life without parole. After this, the State let the drive-by-shooting 

case lapse, leaving the court to dismiss it for lack of prosecution. 

 On direct appeal, Katrina Conrad-Legler represented Milton. The Oklahoma 

Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) affirmed all of Milton’s convictions and 

sentences, including the drug-trafficking conviction with its mandatory life-withoutparole sentence. Later, Milton filed a pro se application for post-conviction relief and 

requested an evidentiary hearing in Oklahoma state district court. Relevant here, 

Milton argued “that his appellate counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to 

assert on direct appeal that Milton’s trial counsel was ineffective for failing to inform 

Milton of a plea-bargain offer made by the prosecution prior to the preliminary 

hearing.” Milton, 744 F.3d at 664. 

Milton’s ineffective-assistance claim had some basis in the record. At a 

pretrial hearing in the drug-trafficking case, Judge Twyla Mason Gray mentioned 

that, sometime before his preliminary hearing, Milton had rejected an offered plea 

deal providing for a 23-year sentence in the drug-trafficking case.4

 Upon hearing 

Judge Gray say this, Milton told his counsel at the time of trial, Arnett, who then told 

Judge Gray, that Milton had never heard about a 23-year offer. In response to the 

confusion, the prosecutor at the pretrial hearing, Ashley Altshuler, referenced the 

notes of Benjamin McGoldrick, the prosecutor who handled the case until leaving the 

 4

 Specifically, Judge Gray said, “I cannot remember exactly what we put on 

the record earlier, but the defendant had the opportunity to plead guilty and receive 

23 years [in the drug-trafficking case] prior to preliminary hearing and he turned that 

down.” R. vol. 2 at 215. 

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office sometime after December 2007. McGoldrick’s notes reflected that on the day 

of a preliminary-hearing conference,5

 he offered Milton a plea deal of 25 years’ 

incarceration in the drug-trafficking case, to run concurrently with 20 years’ 

incarceration in the drive-by-shooting case (25/20 Deal).6

 Now better informed, 

Judge Gray declared irrelevant any plea deals McGoldrick had offered Milton before 

the preliminary hearing because those deals had expired. Given this factual 

background, Milton argued that his direct-appeal counsel had ineffectively assisted 

him by not raising his trial counsel’s ineffectiveness in not telling Milton about the 

23-year offer Judge Gray had mentioned. 

The State opposed Milton’s application for post-conviction relief, relying 

principally on an affidavit Jacob Benedict (Milton’s public defender) submitted, 

when the State supposedly had offered Milton the 23-year deal. In his affidavit, 

Benedict recounted two plea deals the State had offered to Milton before the 

preliminary hearing. The plea deals contained essentially the same terms, differing 

only on the date they were communicated: Milton was offered 20-year concurrent 

 5

 The preliminary-hearing conference, distinct from the preliminary hearing, 

took place on August 2, 2007. The preliminary hearing took place on October 30, 

2007. 

6

 Only if the prosecutor reduced Milton’s pending drug-trafficking charge 

could Milton avoid the mandatory life-without-parole sentence upon conviction. See 

R. vol. 2 at 126 (“Q: . . . [W]ould it be fair to conclude that on the 2nd of August you 

offered Joe Reynolds a package deal on both cases: 25, possession with intent, and 20 

on the drive-by? A: It would have been to reduce the trafficking to possession with 

intent, give him 25 on that, 25 on all the other counts contingent on him taking 20 

years to do on the drive-by shooting. . . . Q: You just have to drop the trafficking to 

possession with intent? A: Yes, ma’am. Q: Okay. And that automatically takes life 

without parole off the table? A: Yes, ma’am.”). 

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sentences in the drug-trafficking case and the drive-by-shooting case (20/20 Deal). 

The affidavit noted that McGoldrick originally offered the 20/20 Deal sometime 

before the preliminary-hearing date, and that McGoldrick also offered the same deal 

just before the hearing began. According to Benedict’s affidavit, Milton rejected the 

offers, and the parties proceeded with the preliminary hearing. 

Based partly on this information, the state district court denied Milton’s 

application for post-conviction relief on his ineffective-assistance-of-appellatecounsel claim, concluding that “[t]here is nothing submitted in the record which 

indicates that appellate counsel’s performance rendered the result unreliable or the 

proceeding fundamentally unfair.” R. vol. 1 at 214. On appeal, the OCCA affirmed, 

citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984), and holding as follows: 

[I]n order to prevail on his claim of ineffective assistance of 

appellate counsel, [Milton] must establish counsel made errors so 

serious the performance was deficient, and that the deficient 

performance deprived him of an appeal whose results are reliable 

and fair. The fact appellate counsel fails to recognize or raise a 

claim, regardless of merit, is not sufficient alone to establish 

ineffective assistance of counsel, or to preclude enforcement of a 

procedural default. We [find Milton] has not established appellate 

counsel’s performance was deficient, or that the result of his 

appeal was not reliable and fair. 

R. vol. 1 at 236–37 (citation omitted) (emphasis added). Thus, as Milton’s 

application for post-conviction relief proceeded through Oklahoma courts, the courts 

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considered conflicting evidence about offers for the 20/20 Deal, the 25/20 Deal, and 

a supposed 23-year deal.7

 

The timing, communication, and existence of each of these deals matter. 

Obviously, had McGoldrick offered Milton the 20/20 Deal minutes before the 

preliminary hearing, Milton could not have suffered prejudice from any earlier failure 

by his counsel to communicate a less favorable 23-year offer. But had McGoldrick 

offered Milton the 25/20 Deal before the preliminary hearing, Milton could have 

suffered prejudice if his counsel failed to communicate a more favorable 23-year deal 

before the preliminary hearing. But the state courts denied Milton relief without ever 

determining whether McGoldrick had offered a 23-year deal and, if so, whether 

Milton’s counsel had told Milton about it. 

B. Federal Habeas Proceedings 

Milton next filed a pro se habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the United 

States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. Milton alleged various 

claims for relief, including the same ineffective-assistance-of-appellate-counsel claim 

he had argued in the state courts: 

Appellate counsel, Katrina Conrad-Legler, rendered ineffective 

assistance by failing to raise in [Milton]’s direct appeal the 

following sub-proposition[] of trial counsel’s deficienc[i]es: . . . 

Trial attorney, Joe Reynolds, rendered ineffective assistance by 

failing to inform [Milton] of a (pre-preliminary hearing) pleabargain offer of 23 years on all counts until the day set for trial, 

and well after the plea offer had been withdrawn. 

 7

 At this stage of the proceedings, it was unclear whether the supposed 23-year 

plea offer related to the drug-trafficking case, the drive-by-shooting case, or both. 

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R. vol. 1 at 29 (capitalization omitted). The magistrate judge assigned to Milton’s 

case issued a report recommending that the district court deny Milton’s habeas 

petition in its entirety. 

In concluding that Milton’s ineffective-assistance claim lacked merit, the 

magistrate judge referenced Benedict’s affidavit, the same one that the state courts 

had relied upon to deny Milton’s claim. Milton argued that the 20/20 Deal referenced 

in the affidavit was a different plea deal than the one Milton had complained of in his 

habeas petition (i.e., the 23-year deal). The magistrate judge interpreted Milton’s 

argument as conceding the truth of the affidavit. From this, the magistrate judge 

concluded that Milton could not have suffered any prejudice from not hearing about 

the 23-year offer since he had already rejected the more favorable 20/20 Deal. 

Accordingly, the magistrate judge recommended that the district court deny Milton’s 

petition because he had failed to show any prejudice. 

 Milton objected to the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation. He 

conceded that he had been offered a 20-year plea deal in the drive-by-shooting case 

but denied receiving any offers in the drug-trafficking case—whether the purported 

offer was the 25/20 Deal or the 23-year deal. He claimed that he first heard of both 

the 25/20 Deal and the 23-year deal when Altshuler and Judge Gray discussed the 

pre-preliminary-hearing plea offers on the eve of trial. Therefore, Milton argued that 

either Benedict was lying in his affidavit about having conveyed to him the offered 

20/20 Deal or that Benedict had confused the drug-trafficking case with the drive-byshooting case. Milton noted that “[t]he issue” was that no one had “informed [him] of 

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any pre-preliminary hearing plea offer in [the drug-trafficking case], and as a direct 

result, rather than serving a twenty-five (25) year sentence with all counts running 

concurrently,” he was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. R. vol. 

1 at 894. From this, he contended that he had been “prejudiced by trial counsel’s 

failure to timely inform him of the State’s pre-preliminary hearing plea offer of 

twenty-five (25) years in [the drug-trafficking case].” Id. The confusion over the 

offers for the 20/20 Deal, the 25/20 Deal, and the 23-year deal persisted. Was Milton 

now arguing that his trial counsel had failed to communicate the 25/20 Deal and the 

23-year deal he mentioned in his habeas petition? If so, the record does not show that 

he expressed surprise at the pretrial hearing after Altshuler told Judge Gray about the 

pre-preliminary-hearing plea offer of the 25/20 Deal. 

 Leaving Milton’s objections unaddressed, the district court simply adopted the 

magistrate judge’s report and recommendation. The district court declined to grant a 

COA, but we later granted Milton’s pro se request for a COA on his ineffectiveassistance-of-appellate-counsel claim and appointed Milton counsel to assist with his 

appeal. 

In Milton, we concluded that the OCCA’s ineffective-assistance analysis was 

contrary to clearly established federal law and that Milton had overcome the bar that 

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) imposed. Milton, 744 F.3d at 669–70. Specifically, we 

concluded that the OCCA “rendered meaningless” its prejudice analysis under 

Strickland “[b]y ignoring the merits of the underlying predicate claim in assessing 

appellate counsel’s performance.” Id. at 670. In this regard, we held that the OCCA 

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had “deviated from the controlling federal standard.” Id. (quoting McGee v. Higgins, 

568 F.3d 832, 839 (10th Cir. 2009)). With § 2254(d)(1)’s bar no longer in play, we 

then reviewed de novo Milton’s Strickland claim. 

Applying the two-pronged Strickland framework, we first concluded that 

Milton’s appellate counsel, upon reviewing Milton’s trial transcripts, should have 

seen and raised as an issue that Milton’s trial attorney had “failed to promptly and 

meaningfully convey to Milton the existence of a plea offer made by the prosecution 

at some point” before the preliminary hearing. Id. at 671. The trial counsel’s failure, 

we concluded, would have been “inconsistent with prevailing professional norms and 

[would have given] rise to a viable claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel.” 

Id. We therefore held that “[b]y failing to discover and raise the issue [of trial 

counsel’s ineffectiveness] on direct appeal, Milton’s appellate counsel clearly 

performed deficiently.” Id. 

In addition, the Milton court considered under Strickland’s second prong 

“whether Milton was prejudiced by his appellate counsel’s deficient performance.” 

Id. We concluded that the state courts and the federal district court had erred by 

finding, based solely on Benedict’s affidavit and in the face of conflicting evidence, 

that Milton had suffered no prejudice from his appellate counsel’s ineffective 

assistance. We noted that prejudice depended on whether Milton’s counsel had failed 

to convey to Milton any plea offer in the drug-trafficking case: “Assuming, for 

purposes of argument, that Milton is truthfully alleging that he was not informed of 

any pre-preliminary-hearing plea offer, and that he would have accepted such offer 

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had he been timely informed of it, that is clearly sufficient to establish 

prejudice . . . .” Id. at 672. 

We concluded that Milton was entitled to a federal evidentiary hearing to 

resolve this factual dispute because the appellate record did not give us sufficient 

information to do so.8

 The evidentiary hearing would bring forth crucial facts: either 

(1) that Milton’s trial counsel had indeed failed to communicate a favorable plea 

deal, which likely would satisfy Strickland’s prejudice prong, or (2) that Milton’s 

trial counsel had communicated the most favorable plea deal, meaning Milton’s 

ineffective assistance claim would fail to satisfy Strickland’s prejudice prong. As 

explained below, the evidentiary hearing produced facts that did not fit squarely into 

either category. 

 8

 We further concluded that, in this case, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2) would not 

preclude the district court from holding an evidentiary hearing. By asking for an 

evidentiary hearing on the ineffective-assistance claim in the state courts, Milton 

hadn’t “failed to develop the factual basis” of his claim. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2); see 

Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 432 (2000) (“Under the opening clause of 

§ 2254(e)(2), a failure to develop the factual basis of a claim is not established unless 

there is lack of diligence, or some greater fault, attributable to the prisoner or the 

prisoner’s counsel.”); Stouffer v. Trammell, 738 F.3d 1205, 1219 (10th Cir. 2013) 

(“[The prisoner’s] counsel asked the trial court for a hearing . . . . As the State 

concedes, he raised the issue in his state application for post-conviction relief . . . . 

This is sufficient to satisfy § 2254(e)’s diligence requirement.”). 

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C. The Evidentiary Hearing 

On remand, the district court held an evidentiary hearing to resolve the factual 

dispute regarding the nature of Milton’s plea offers. We recount the testimony 

relevant to this appeal.9

1. McGoldrick’s Testimony 

The testimony of Benjamin McGoldrick, the prosecutor assigned to both of 

Milton’s cases until McGoldrick left the office sometime after December 2007, 

produced three important facts. 

First, McGoldrick testified that he never communicated a 23-year plea deal to 

either Benedict or Reynolds, notwithstanding his case-file notes referencing a 

possible plea offer for a 23-year sentence in the drug-trafficking case and a 

concurrent 23-year sentence in the drive-by-shooting case (23/23 Deal).10

Importantly, these notes about the possible 23/23 Deal are dated December 18, 

2007—well after the October 30, 2007 preliminary hearing. McGoldrick testified that 

he wrote the notes about the possible 23/23 Deal as a potential recommendation if 

Milton’s attorneys agreed to resolve the case without trial at a pretrial conference 

scheduled for the following day, December 19, 2007. But critically, McGoldrick 

 9

 The attorney who represented Milton in the drive-by-shooting case, Joe 

Reynolds, died before the evidentiary hearing. He therefore could not testify about 

his recollection of the events in Milton’s case. 

10 The note in McGoldrick’s file for the drug-trafficking case read: “Rec: 23 to 

do; amend Count 2 to [possession with intent].” R. vol. 2 at 140–41. His note in his 

file for the drive-by-shooting case: “rec: 23 to do c/c with [the drug-trafficking 

case].” Id.

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testified that he in fact never communicated an offer for the 23/23 Deal to either of 

Milton’s attorneys. McGoldrick also testified that he was uncertain how Judge Gray 

knew anything about his notes for the 23/23 Deal at the pretrial conference where she 

mentioned it. 

Second, McGoldrick testified that on August 2, 2007, with Milton present, he 

communicated the 25/20 Deal at least to Reynolds, Milton’s counsel in the drive-byshooting case. McGoldrick’s file notes for each case substantiate the existence and 

communication of the 25/20 Deal. That offer remained pending before the 

preliminary hearing on October 30, 2007. And McGoldrick also testified that he 

made Milton a better offer in the courtroom immediately before the preliminary 

hearing began: the 20/20 Deal. McGoldrick did not write a case-file note about 

having offered the 20/20 Deal. 

Third, McGoldrick testified that on August 17, 2007, he told Reynolds, 

without Milton present, that if Milton succeeded in getting the drive-by-shooting case 

dismissed, McGoldrick would “probably” pursue the life-without-parole sentence in 

the drug-trafficking case.11 R. vol. 2 at 137. This effectively meant McGoldrick 

“probably” wouldn’t make any plea offer that reduced Milton’s pending drug-

 11 Specifically, McGoldrick said: 

 

I told Reynolds that the offer on both cases would go away if this 

case, being the drive-by case, got dismissed. I would probably 

proceed with the recommendation of life without parole if the 

case got dismissed. Mr. Reynolds said he wanted to talk to the 

defendant and his family about it. 

R. vol. 2 at 137. 

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trafficking charge—the only way Milton could escape Oklahoma’s mandatory lifewithout-parole sentence applying to that charge. In other words, the 25/20 Deal—the 

sole offer pending on August 17, 2007—was a package deal, and McGoldrick would 

continue to insist on guilty pleas in both cases.12 McGoldrick testified that he never 

discussed this approach to prosecuting the cases with Benedict, Milton’s counsel in 

the drug-trafficking case. 

2. Altshuler’s Testimony 

At the evidentiary hearing, the court also heard from Ashley Altshuler, the 

prosecutor who took over the drug-trafficking and drive-by-shooting cases after 

McGoldrick left the district attorney’s office. Most importantly, Altshuler explained 

how Judge Gray had heard of a 23-year deal: “I believe we had a conversation and I 

just had the files in front of me and I believe she [Judge Gray]—there may have been 

a discussion of what the offer was before the prelim.” R. vol. 2 at 215–16. Simply 

put, Judge Gray knew about a 23-year deal because Altshuler had conversed with 

Judge Gray while undoubtedly referencing what turned out to be McGoldrick’s 

written musings about possibly offering the 23/23 Deal—as stated, a possible offer in 

fact never made. 

 12 McGoldrick insisted on Milton’s serving a substantial sentence. In 

Oklahoma, the drive-by-shooting charge was an “85 percent crime,” one conditioning 

parole eligibility on service of 85% of the sentence imposed. R. vol. 2 at 67. Thus, 

had Milton accepted offers for the 25/20 or 20/20 Deal, he likely would have served 

about 17 years concurrently on both offenses. Accordingly, Milton’s prison time 

might well have been the same whether Milton pleaded to the 25/20 Deal or the 

20/20 Deal. He would have been eligible for parole in the drug-trafficking case long 

before he was eligible for parole in the drive-by-shooting case. 

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Understandably, after reading McGoldrick’s notes, Altshuler thought that 

McGoldrick had offered Milton the 23/23 Deal. But Altshuler already knew that 

McGoldrick had dated his notes about the 23/23 Deal December 18, 2007, nearly two 

months after the preliminary hearing. Accordingly, Altshuler told Judge Gray that the 

pre-preliminary hearing offer had been “25 on possession with intent with all other 

counts to run concurrent and then also to run concurrent with the 20 in [the drive-byshooting case]. It was before prelim.” R. vol. 2 at 216. 

Amid the multiple plea offers and dates, Judge Gray made an honest mistake. 

Contrary to Judge Gray’s misunderstanding, McGoldrick had not even contemplated 

offering the 23/23 Deal Judge Gray had heard about in her conversation with 

Altshuler until after the preliminary hearing, not before it. The 25/20 Deal was the 

sole offer pending before the preliminary hearing, just as Altshuler had told Judge 

Gray based on McGoldrick’s notes. A relative newcomer to the case, Altshuler had 

no way to know about McGoldrick’s offering the 20/20 Deal to Milton in the 

courtroom immediately before the preliminary hearing began—as mentioned, 

McGoldrick did not write a note in the file about the offer or Milton’s refusal of it. 

Altshuler also could not have known from McGoldrick’s notes whether McGoldrick 

ever offered Milton the 23/23 Deal, whether on December 18, 2007, or after. 

3. Benedict’s Testimony 

Jacob Benedict, the public defender who represented Milton in the drugtrafficking case, also testified at the evidentiary hearing. Benedict’s case notes and 

testimony revealed two important facts. 

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First, Benedict’s case notes indicated that McGoldrick had offered the 25/20 

Deal sometime before the preliminary-hearing date.13 Benedict also testified that he 

recalled, even without any notes, that McGoldrick offered the 20/20 Deal in the 

courtroom before the preliminary hearing began. Benedict also admitted that he may 

have erred in the portion of his affidavit where he stated that the pending offer before 

the preliminary-hearing date was the 20/20 Deal. Instead, after viewing McGoldrick’s 

case files, Benedict conceded that it probably had been the 25/20 Deal. In addition, 

Benedict still recalled McGoldrick’s having offered the 20/20 Deal in the courtroom 

before the preliminary hearing began, consistent with his earlier statement in a 

different portion of his affidavit. 

Second, Benedict corroborated McGoldrick’s earlier testimony: McGoldrick 

had communicated to Reynolds, but not to Benedict, that McGoldrick would continue 

to pursue the drug-trafficking case as already charged—resulting in a mandatory lifewithout-parole sentence in the drug-trafficking case—if the court ultimately 

dismissed the drive-by-shooting case.14 Despite McGoldrick’s failure to communicate 

this prosecution position to both of Milton’s attorneys, Benedict recalled that 

 13 Benedict had written a note in his file for the drug-trafficking case saying: 

“reduce Count 2 to 25 and possession with intent.” R. vol. 2 at 245. This note was 

located directly below a notation memorializing a 20-year offer in the drive-byshooting case and above a note indicating the “offer is open until prelim.” R. vol. 1 at 

1037. Benedict testified at the evidentiary hearing that, based on these notes, the 

25/20 Deal had been conveyed to him. 

14 Benedict also corroborated McGoldrick’s testimony that McGoldrick never 

offered the 23/23 Deal. 

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Reynolds discussed every other detail relevant to Milton’s plea offers at the 

preliminary hearing, when Milton and both of his attorneys were present: 

Q: [W]as it ever discussed that a plea might be in Mr. 

Milton’s best interest? 

A: Well, absolutely. And that would have been the October 

30th meeting where—which essentially Joe Reynolds 

was on point talking with Mr. Milton about the fact that 

what the offer was, which would have been the 20-year 

offer on the drive-by case, but that he needed to take 

care of both of them because they weren’t parsing them 

out or splitting them up for us. 

* * * 

[On October 30, 2007, at the preliminary hearing,] I 

remember it vividly that Mr. Reynolds was essentially 

telling Mr. Milton that he needed to take the offer from 

the state. And what I remember vividly was Mr. Milton 

with his head down shaking his head referencing the 

drive-by case, that he just—that seemed to be what 

drove him in his decision-making. 

[Court]: So are you telling the Court that Mr. Reynolds was 

fairly unequivocal in his recommendation that Mr. 

Milton take the then pending deal in the drive-by case? 

[A]: Yes. 

[Court]: And that was for [] what sentence? 

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[A]: That was for a 20-year sentence, which he would have 

had to serve 85 percent of that sentence. And I recall it 

as a 20 on possession with intent, but notes within the 

documents here indicate that it was a 25-year sentence 

on possession with intent, all running together, 

concurrent, at the same time. 

R. vol. 2 at 273–76.15

4. Milton’s Testimony 

Milton also testified at the evidentiary hearing. Relevant to this appeal, Milton 

admitted receiving a 20-year plea offer for the drive-by-shooting case on the day of 

the preliminary hearing, but he testified that he never received any plea offer in the 

drug-trafficking case. Milton also testified that no one ever told him that any plea 

offer in one of his two pending cases was contingent on his accepting an offer in the 

other case. Finally, Milton testified that Reynolds never told him that the State would 

probably continue to pursue its pending drug-trafficking charge (carrying a 

mandatory sentence of life without parole) if Milton somehow obtained a dismissal in 

the drive-by-shooting case. 

 15 Benedict recounted his vivid recollection of the meeting between him, 

Milton, and Reynolds later in his testimony, perhaps more succinctly: 

 

Mr. Reynolds drove it. I think Mr. Milton had a lot more respect 

for Mr. Reynolds, just because he’s a private attorney, and 

seemed to listen to him. Mr. Reynolds seemed to control the 

conversation. And he just discussed the case, discussed the fact 

that both cases were contingent upon a plea in each case, and that 

that was probably in his best interest, even though—despite him, 

Mr. Milton, maintaining his innocence in the [drive-by-shooting] 

case. 

R. vol. 2 at 280. 

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D. Petition Denied 

The district court directed Milton’s habeas counsel and the State to submit 

proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law after the evidentiary hearing. 

Ultimately, the district court denied Milton’s petition for habeas relief. In doing so, 

the district court first reviewed the question we posed on remand: “whether petitioner 

received constitutionally ineffective assistance of appellate counsel as a result of 

counsel’s failure to pursue, during appellate proceedings, a possible claim of 

ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failure to communicate a 23-year plea offer” 

before the October 30, 2007 preliminary hearing. R. vol. 1 at 1155. For clarity, we 

will refer to this particular habeas claim as Milton’s “Original Claim.” 

The district court denied Milton’s Original Claim because, as the evidentiary 

hearing revealed, McGoldrick considered offering Milton the 23/23 Deal, but 

McGoldrick never did. In view of this, the district court concluded that Milton’s 

ineffective-assistance-of-appellate-counsel claim failed for lack of prejudice. 

Although that ordinarily would have ended the matter, the district court further 

addressed two brand-new habeas claims Milton fashioned from testimony at the 

evidentiary hearing. First, the district court turned to what we will term Milton’s 

“New Claim”: Reynolds was ineffective for “blatantly fail[ing] to communicate the 

complete terms of the State’s offer.” Id. at 1167. More specifically, Milton argued 

that Reynolds had failed to communicate McGoldrick’s “warning” that McGoldrick 

would continue to pursue the pending drug-trafficking charge (again, carrying a 

mandatory sentence of life without parole) if Milton somehow obtained a dismissal in 

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the drive-by-shooting case. Second, the district court defined what we will term 

Milton’s “Other New Claim”: After the preliminary hearing but before trial, Michael 

Arnett, Milton’s new public defender in the drug-trafficking case, “failed to attempt 

any negotiation on Mr. Milton’s behalf,” “[denying Milton] the opportunity to 

resolve his exposure to punishment for terms of years significantly less than” life 

without parole. Id.

At the outset, the district court held as a matter of law that Milton had failed to 

exhaust his new claims in the state court. The district court noted that this procedural 

basis alone was sufficient to dismiss Milton’s new claims. But the district court also 

addressed the merits of both new claims, ultimately concluding that each lacked 

merit. The district court denied Milton’s petition for habeas relief and later declined 

to grant a COA. 

Milton now petitions this court for a COA. We address all of Milton’s claims 

below, both old and new. 

II. DISCUSSION 

Before Milton can appeal to this court, we must grant him a COA. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2253(c)(1)(A). We may grant a COA only if the petitioner makes a “substantial 

showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” Id. § 2253(c)(2). This requires a 

“showing that reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) 

the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues 

presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. 

McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000) (quotation marks omitted). To obtain a COA 

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after a district court has rejected a petitioner’s constitutional claims on the merits, the 

“petitioner must demonstrate that reasonable jurists would find the district court’s 

assessment of the [petitioner’s] constitutional claims debatable or wrong” to obtain a 

COA. Id. 

In requesting a COA, Milton has not reasserted his true Original Claim as 

such. The evidence defeated his claim that his trial counsel had failed to convey a 23-

year offer (because no such offer was ever made). Instead, Milton now tries to stretch 

the canopy of his Original Claim to cover one of his new claims. Even though Milton 

has abandoned his true Original Claim, we still find it prudent to address the Original 

Claim to show that Milton is wrong that his new claims are mere amplifications of 

his Original Claim. 

A. The Original Claim 

We do not grant Milton a COA with respect to his Original Claim because 

Milton does not ask for one. Instead, Milton has wisely abandoned this claim in his 

current request. 

The evidentiary hearing served its purpose. The testimony at the hearing made 

sense of the conflicting evidence noted in Milton. The hearing established, and 

Milton does not contest, that McGoldrick never communicated the 23/23 Deal to 

either Reynolds or Benedict because the 23/23 Deal existed only in Benedict’s mind 

and notes. Obviously, trial counsel could not be ineffective for failing to convey to 

Milton an offer that the prosecutor never made. In turn, Milton suffered no Strickland

prejudice for his appellate counsel’s failure to raise what turned out to be a losing 

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issue. Our de novo review of Milton’s original ineffective-assistance-of-appellatecounsel claim, which began with Milton, is now complete. 

B. The New Claims 

Despite fulfilling the goal of our remand, we must address what the district 

court termed Milton’s “new claims” to the extent Milton pursues them in his current 

request for a COA.16 

1. Amplification or Alteration? 

Milton argues that his request for a COA does not abandon his Original Claim 

but includes evidence that merely “clarif[ies] or amplif[ies] the claim he made in his 

original petition for relief.”17 Pet’r’s Request at 30. Milton essentially attempts to 

recast his Original Claim in broad language that would encompass both his Original 

Claim and New Claim. Instead of referencing the narrow language of his habeas 

petition, for example, which explicitly references Reynolds’s failure to communicate 

a 23-year deal, Milton argues in his request that “[h]is theory remains unchanged: 

 16 We note that the district court concluded that Milton had actually crafted 

two new claims from evidence at the hearing. We do not address the Other New 

Claim, however, because Milton has abandoned this claim in his current request for a 

COA. In his request, Milton did not even reference the factual predicate for the Other 

New Claim—that Arnett was ineffective for failing to negotiate a plea deal after the 

preliminary hearing. We note, though, that the Other New Claim is distinct from his 

Original Claim, which primarily concerned the pre-preliminary-hearing conduct of 

Milton’s counsel. Although both claims involve counsel’s ineffectiveness, that hardly 

makes them the same claim. 

17 Milton argues that we must construe his pro se habeas petition liberally and 

that his original petition reflected what Milton knew at the time. We agree that 

Milton’s pro se petition should be construed liberally, but “we will not rewrite a 

petition to include claims that were never presented.” Parker v. Champion, 148 F.3d 

1219, 1222 (10th Cir. 1998). 

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because of information withheld by his lawyer, Milton forwent a favorable plea offer. 

That’s what he alleged in his original petition and that’s what he alleges here.” Id. at 

31. We reject Milton’s attempt to cast his habeas petition in a more favorable light. 

Although Milton cites authority one would normally cite to amend a habeas 

petition, Milton simultaneously argues that his claim remains unchanged (i.e., 

unamended). Id. at 29–30 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(2); Mayle v. Felix, 545 U.S. 

644, 650 (2005)). He argues that he has always claimed that “one of his trial lawyers 

failed to inform him of a plea offer made by the prosecutor before the October 30 

preliminary hearing.” Id. at 30. We disagree that that is what he has always claimed, 

noting that the New Claim has a dramatically different factual predicate: that 

Reynolds failed to communicate McGoldrick’s “warning” to continue prosecuting the 

pending drug-trafficking charge if Milton somehow obtained a dismissal in the driveby-shooting case. Although this claim and the Original Claim both allege ineffective 

assistance of counsel, they are separate claims. Milton cannot allege an ineffectiveassistance claim and then usher in anything fitting under that broad category as the 

same claim. Counsel can perform ineffectively in myriad ways. See Hammon v. 

Ward, 466 F.3d 919, 926 n.8 (10th Cir. 2006) (considering one ineffectiveassistance-of-appellate-counsel claim but refusing to consider another such claim 

because the petitioner “did not raise [the latter] claim in his § 2254 habeas petition, 

and we therefore will not consider it on appeal”). Further, we note that Milton’s COA 

request has abandoned his original argument that his appellate counsel was 

ineffective. Instead, he now argues that Reynolds, his trial counsel, was ineffective. 

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We fail to see how a claim based on trial counsel’s ineffectiveness merely amplifies a 

claim based on appellate counsel’s ineffectiveness. To the extent Milton is asking us 

to consider his habeas petition as amended, we note that Milton has never sought to 

amend his habeas petition, even after the evidentiary hearing, and we cannot allow 

him to do so now.18 Milton’s New Claim is indeed new. 

2. Presentation and Exhaustion 

Generally, Milton must have presented his New Claim in his written habeas 

petition for federal courts to consider it. See Rules Governing Section 2254 Cases, 

Rule 2(c), 28 U.S.C. foll. § 2254; Adams v. Armontrout, 897 F.2d 332, 334 (8th Cir. 

1990) (“We hold that in order to substantially comply with the Section 2254 Rule 

2(c), a petitioner must state specific, particularized facts which entitle him or her to 

habeas corpus relief for each ground specified. These facts must consist of sufficient 

detail to enable the court to determine, from the face of the petition alone, whether 

the petition merits further habeas corpus review.”). Milton must also have exhausted 

his New Claim in state court for federal courts to consider it on the merits. Cullen v. 

Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 181 (2011) (“Sections 2254(b) and (c) provide that a 

federal court may not grant [a habeas] application[] unless, with certain exceptions, 

the applicant has exhausted state remedies.”). Milton’s New Claim meets neither 

 18 In his request, Milton goes so far as to argue the following: “Now that 

Milton has [new pieces of evidence], he has inserted them and their meaning into the 

record and into his petition, as he is authorized by Rule 15(c), to clarify or amplify 

what has always been his position . . . .” Pet’r’s Request at 33 (emphasis added). 

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requirement. Milton’s New Claim appears nowhere in his habeas petition and he 

never presented the New Claim to state courts for review. 

Ordinarily in this situation, the habeas section of the Antiterrorism and 

Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254, dictates that we 

decline Milton’s request for a COA on his New Claim for failure to exhaust but leave 

open the possibility that Milton might be able to return to the Oklahoma state courts 

to try to present his New Claim. AEDPA’s structure and policy favors states having 

the first opportunity to resolve claims their prisoners make. See O’Sullivan v. 

Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845 (1999) (“[T]he exhaustion doctrine is designed to give 

the state courts a full and fair opportunity to resolve federal constitutional claims 

before those claims are presented to the federal courts . . . .”). But Milton’s case is 

procedurally unusual for two reasons, both of which justify treating his New Claim 

differently. 

First, despite the New Claim not appearing in Milton’s habeas petition, the 

district court still chose to reject the New Claim on its merits. The district court did 

not reject Milton’s New Claim based solely on exhaustion or the claim’s failure to 

appear on the face of the petition. Second, Milton bases his New Claim on evidence 

newly revealed at the evidentiary hearing, although outside our narrow remand. With 

this procedural background, we choose to address the merits of the unexhausted New 

Claim in determining whether to grant Milton’s request for a COA. In doing so, we 

stress that new claims arising from this unusual procedural setting are not excused 

from Rule 2(c)’s petition requirements or the exhaustion requirement. 

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Ordinarily, to present his new claims on the merits, Milton would have to 

amend his habeas petition to add his new claims, 28 U.S.C. § 2242, or file a second 

or successive habeas application in accordance with § 2244, see Carter v. Bigelow, 

787 F.3d 1269, 1277–81 (10th Cir. 2015) (concluding that a habeas petitioner adding 

new claims rather than adding evidence in support of the “precise” claims in his 

habeas petition must follow the procedures in § 2244). But sending his New Claim 

back to the district court after the district court already addressed the New Claim on 

the merits would only unnecessarily belabor these proceedings. 

Similarly, we address Milton’s New Claim despite its being unexhausted 

because § 2254(b)(2) allows the district court to do so if the New Claim lacks merit. 

“An application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, 

notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the 

courts of the State.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(2); see Moore v. Schoeman, 288 F.3d 1231, 

1235 (10th Cir. 2002) (“[Under § 2254(b)(2),] a district court faced with a habeas 

petition containing unexhausted claims may either (1) dismiss the entire petition 

without prejudice in order to permit exhaustion of state remedies, or (2) deny the 

entire petition on the merits.”). In the interest of judicial economy, our court has 

often considered habeas claims on the merits despite a petitioner’s failure to exhaust. 

See Allen v. Mullin, 368 F.3d 1220, 1235 (10th Cir. 2004) (reviewing de novo an 

unexhausted claim and citing § 2254(b)(2)); Romero v. Furlong, 215 F.3d 1107, 1111 

(10th Cir. 2000) (“Before addressing Appellant’s ineffective assistance arguments, 

we note that this case presents a number of complex issues concerning the 

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applicability of Colorado’s procedural bar to these claims. We need not and do not 

address these issues, however, because the case may be more easily and succinctly 

affirmed on the merits.”). 

We also note that we may address Milton’s New Claim because, “as the 

Supreme Court has pointed out, the doctrine[] of exhaustion . . . raise[s] only federalstate comity concerns and [is] not a jurisdiction[al] limitation of the power of the 

court.” Cain v. Redman, 947 F.2d 817, 820 (6th Cir. 1991) (pre-AEDPA) (citing 

Granberry v. Greer, 481 U.S. 129, 131–36 (1987)); Strickland v. Thaler, 701 F.3d 

171, 174 (5th Cir. 2012) (post-AEDPA) (“While a district court should dismiss an 

entire federal habeas application if the petitioner’s state remedies have not been 

exhausted as to all claims raised in the federal petition, because exhaustion is based 

on comity rather than jurisdiction, there is no absolute bar to federal consideration of 

unexhausted habeas applications.” (quotation marks and citation omitted)). 

3. Substantive Analysis 

We note once more that because the district court denied Milton’s New Claim 

on the merits, we should only grant a COA for the New Claim if “reasonable jurists 

would find the district court’s assessment of the [petitioner’s] constitutional claims 

debatable or wrong.” Slack, 529 U.S. at 484. 

To succeed on the merits of his New Claim under Strickland, Milton must 

show that: (1) appellate counsel “unreasonably failed to discover [a] nonfrivolous 

issue[] and to file a merits brief raising [it]”; and (2) prejudice. Smith v. Robbins, 528 

U.S. 259, 285 (2000); see Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. In the context of a claim of 

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appellate-counsel ineffectiveness, a defendant can prove prejudice by showing “a 

reasonable probability that, but for his counsel’s unreasonable failure to” raise the 

nonfrivolous issue, “he would have prevailed on his appeal.” Robbins, 528 U.S. at 

285. Because we do not believe reasonable jurists would find the district court’s 

assessment of Milton’s New Claim debatable or wrong, we deny Milton’s request for 

a COA. 

Supporting his New Claim, Milton argues that the district court misunderstood 

the value of Milton’s knowing the prosecutor’s planned approach to plea bargaining 

in the drug-trafficking and drive-by-shooting cases. Specifically, Milton argues that, 

on the day of the preliminary hearing when the State offered the 20/20 Deal, “he was 

unaware of a vital fact: if the drive-by were indeed dismissed there would be no plea 

bargaining forthcoming on the drug case. But this Milton didn’t know, precisely 

because of his lawyer’s failure to communicate the full terms of the offer he was then 

pondering.” Pet’r’s Request at 39 (emphases in original). The district court found that 

this claim lacked merit on three grounds, but we address only one ground because it 

resolves Milton’s New Claim. 

Initially, we take issue with Milton’s argument because of its 

mischaracterization of the “threatening warning” McGoldrick communicated to 

Reynolds. Id. at 35. McGoldrick simply noted that he would “probably” refuse to 

reduce the drug-trafficking charge (leaving intact its mandatory life-without-parole 

sentence) if the drive-by-shooting case were dismissed. R. vol. 2 at 137. But Milton 

characterizes this “warning” in more fatalistic, certain terms: “if the drive-by were 

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indeed dismissed there would be no plea bargaining forthcoming on the drug case.” 

Pet’r’s Request at 39 (second emphasis added). McGoldrick’s position was not so 

certain, given McGoldrick’s still mulling a possible deal (the 23/23 Deal) long after 

the preliminary hearing.

Moreover, the district court noted that even if Reynolds had communicated 

McGoldrick’s warning, “the evidence presented at the hearing thoroughly 

undermines any suggestion that petitioner would have gone for” any of the offered 

plea deals. R. vol. 1 at 1169. The district court further explained its reasoning: 

Without the warning, petitioner knew that he could take a 20-

year, 85% deal on the drug case or stand trial and subject himself 

to the virtual certainty of a sentence of life without parole. With

the warning, petitioner would have known, while he pondered a 

20-year, 85% deal in the drug case, that if the drive-by case were 

to be dismissed, he would still face a virtually certain sentence of 

life without parole in the drug case. 

Id. (emphases in original). We agree with the district court’s assessment.19

Milton argues that the district court should have added a third alternative: 

Without the warning, Milton believed he could “reject the offers and defeat the driveby at the preliminary hearing, thereby reducing the charges he faced from two to 

one . . . .” Pet’r’s Request at 38. Under this scenario, Milton argues that he “would 

[have] be[en] free of the drive-by case, and he could then negotiate a discrete and 

 19 Milton correctly states that the district court appears to have mistaken the 

drug-trafficking case for the drive-by-shooting case by referring to the drugtrafficking charge as an 85% crime. But this mistake does not defeat the district 

court’s sound logic in rejecting Milton’s New Claim. 

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singular plea bargain on the drug case.” Id. Milton couched this argument in the 

appropriate legal standard: 

In the absence of complete information, Milton took his chances. 

He rejected the package plea hoping to drive a wedge between 

two cases linked by fiat of the prosecutor, believing he could 

defeat one on the evidence and negotiate a settlement of the 

other. He lost his gamble. The drive-by survived the preliminary 

hearing. The question, though, is this: would he have taken that 

chance with full information before the hearing? The answer is 

probably not. To be faithful to the formal legal standard, it is 

more accurate to say there is a reasonable probability Milton 

would have eschewed the gamble and instead accepted the 20/20 

plea bargain, if only he had full information. 

Id. at 39 (emphasis in original). But what Milton fails to argue is why he would 

reasonably believe that the State would reduce his drug-trafficking charge to one not 

carrying a mandatory life-without-parole sentence because Milton somehow obtained 

dismissal in the drive-by-shooting case. That defies common sense. In addition, 

Milton fails to explain why he would have changed his course had he heard of the 

“warning” about continuing to prosecute the pending drug-trafficking charge (with its 

mandatory sentence of life without parole) when he had already rejected the 25/20 

Deal or the 20/20 Deal.20

 20 The district court made no explicit finding of fact regarding which deal 

McGoldrick ultimately offered Milton at the preliminary hearing. Rather, the court 

noted the conflicting testimony we outlined above and concluded: 

It does not appear that the question of whether the offer in the 

drug case was a 20-year offer or a 25-year offer is of any 

moment, because the only deal that would have ever been made 

would have been a package deal including a 20-year sentence in 

the drive-by case, which would have been an 85% sentence. 

Thus, the difference being considered for parole in the drug case, 

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Reynolds told Milton that the existing plea deal was a package offer—he 

would receive no stand-alone offer in either case. See R. vol. 2 at 280 (“Mr. Reynolds 

seemed to control the conversation. And he just discussed the case, discussed the fact 

that both cases were contingent upon a plea in each case, and that that was probably 

in his best interest, even though—despite him, Mr. Milton, maintaining his innocence 

in the [drive-by-shooting] case.”). To any reasonable jurist, Milton’s poor “gamble” 

was the cause of his current predicament, not the lack of any additional “warning” 

from Reynolds. Milton knew, based on his conversation with Reynolds on the day of 

the preliminary hearing, that any existing offer would expire if Milton proceeded 

with the imminent preliminary hearing, let alone if Milton continued to seek 

dismissal of the drive-by-shooting case. Even so, Milton rejected the offer and opted 

for a preliminary hearing on a pending charge that provided for and ultimately 

resulted in his life-without-parole sentence. 

Even after Reynolds told Milton that any existing deal would expire if he 

chose to proceed with a preliminary hearing, Milton apparently hoped against all 

odds that McGoldrick would inexplicably reduce Milton’s pending drug-trafficking 

charge if Milton succeeded in getting his drive-by-shooting case dismissed. But 

 

after serving one third of a 20-year sentence or one third of a 25-

year sentence is of no consequence because petitioner would, in 

any event, have been required to serve 85% of a 20-year sentence 

in the drive-by case. 

R. vol. 1 at 1161 n.2. Milton abandons his position that he never heard about the 

25/20 Deal or the 20/20 Deal in his request for a COA. 

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Milton knew that McGoldrick was not obliged to make any offer and was not 

inclined to make an offer on just one of Milton’s cases. 

Because we do not believe reasonable jurists could debate that Milton’s New 

Claim lacks merit based on Milton’s argument above, we deny Milton’s related 

request for a COA. 

III. CONCLUSION 

New evidence discovered at the federal evidentiary hearing has assisted our de 

novo review of Milton’s ineffective-assistance claims, and we conclude that all of 

them lack merit. Accordingly, we deny Milton’s request for a COA on all bases 

presented. 

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