Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-03018/USCOURTS-caDC-11-03018-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Cooleridge Bell
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 5, 2013 Decided March 1, 2013 

No. 11-3018 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

v. 

COOLERIDGE BELL, ALSO KNOWN AS COOLRIDGE BELL, ALSO 

KNOWN AS CARLTON BELL, 

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:07-cr-00153-6) 

Richard A. Portale argued the cause and filed the brief 

for appellant. 

Trevor N. McFadden, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued 

the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen, Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, 

Chrisellen R. Kolb, John Han, and Anthony Scarpelli, 

Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

Before: HENDERSON and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, 

and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

USCA Case #11-3018 Document #1423009 Filed: 03/01/2013 Page 1 of 6
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Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Following a jury trial, 

appellant Cooleridge Bell was convicted of conspiring to 

possess and distribute one kilogram or more of PCP in 

violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(A)(iv). 

The district court sentenced Bell to 235 months of 

imprisonment and five years of supervised release. On 

appeal, Bell claims his trial and sentencing were defective in 

several respects. In this opinion we address only Bell’s 

assertion of ineffective assistance of counsel; his other claims, 

relating to various trial rulings of the district court, are 

addressed and rejected in an order issued today. We remand 

the ineffective assistance of counsel claim for consideration 

by the district court. 

* * * 

Bell’s ineffective assistance claim turns on two alleged 

deficiencies in his counsel’s performance, both of which relate 

to the “safety valve” provision of the U.S. Sentencing 

Guidelines. See USSG § 5C1.2. The safety valve authorizes 

a sentencing judge to impose a term of imprisonment lower 

than a statutory minimum if the defendant meets five specified 

qualifications, one of which is “truthfully provid[ing] to the 

Government all information and evidence the defendant has 

concerning [his] offense or offenses.” Id. A defendant who 

qualifies for the safety valve is also entitled to a two-point 

reduction in his offense level. Id. § 2D1.1(b)(16). 

The district court determined that Bell was ineligible for a 

sentence reduction under the safety valve because he failed to 

provide the government the information required—or, indeed, 

any information at all about the offense. Bell does not 

dispute that he declined to cooperate; rather, he asserts that his 

USCA Case #11-3018 Document #1423009 Filed: 03/01/2013 Page 2 of 6
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counsel neglected to inform him that such cooperation likely 

would have resulted in a lower sentence. Bell also alleges that 

his lawyer erred in failing to request a continuance at Bell’s 

sentencing hearing after it became apparent that he had never 

informed Bell of the safety valve. Bell claims that his 

counsel’s inaction deprived him of his Sixth Amendment right 

to effective representation, see Strickland v. Washington, 466 

U.S. 668 (1984), and requests a remand to the district court to 

pursue his claim. 

At the sentencing, when the court referred to the safety 

valve and Bell’s apparent ineligibility, Bell spoke up to assert 

that he had heard of the safety valve from fellow prisoners, 

“[b]ut my lawyer before him [sic], I never heard of no safety 

valve.” Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 486. Bell’s counsel did not 

dispute the assertion, but said he had told Bell that the court 

would be interested in Bell’s information about his offenses, 

“and that it was more likely than not that his changing his 

position on talking to people about these background matters 

would be beneficial.” Id. at 475. 

The government argues that the record leaves excessive 

doubt whether Bell “actually was in the dark about the safety 

valve.” Gov’t Br. at 41 (quoting United States v. Holland, 

117 F.3d 589, 596 (D.C. Cir. 1997)). It also notes the district 

court’s recognition of powerful record evidence of Bell’s 

overall lack of cooperative spirit, manifested most 

prominently in his refusal to discuss with the probation officer 

even innocuous issues such as his education or employment 

skills, but also in his adamant insistence on his innocence. 

J.A. at 473-75. Consistent with that general outlook, Bell 

denied to the court any knowledge of co-conspirators. Id. at 

482-83. From this the government infers that no additional 

information about the safety valve would ever have induced 

Bell to supply the information needed to earn its benefits. 

Accordingly, the government says, Bell has failed to establish 

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facts necessary to show “prejudice” as required by Strickland, 

i.e., “that there [was] a reasonable probability that, but for 

counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding 

would have been different,” 466 U.S. at 694. 

The Supreme Court has said that the district court is “the 

forum best suited to developing the facts necessary to 

determining the adequacy of representation during an entire 

trial,” and that “ineffective-assistance claims ordinarily will 

be litigated in the first instance” before a trial judge, 

preferably the same judge who presided over the defendant’s 

trial. Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500, 505-06 (2003). 

In keeping with that view, we have held that where a 

defendant raises a “colorable and previously unexplored” 

ineffective assistance claim on appeal, United States v. 

Rashad, 331 F.3d 908, 908 (D.C. Cir. 2003), we remand 

unless the “record alone conclusively shows that the 

defendant either is or is not entitled to relief,” id. at 909-10 

(internal quotations removed). See also United States v. 

Mohammed, 693 F.3d 192, 202-203 (D.C. Cir. 2010). 

Here it cannot be said that Bell has pointed to record facts 

that, if established without contradiction in a hearing, would 

conclusively entitle him to a re-sentencing. His admission 

that he had heard other prisoners use the term “safety valve,” 

and his resolve not to share information with the authorities, 

raise serious doubt on the prejudice requirement. 

But Rashad’s call for remand of a “colorable and 

previously unexplored” claim of ineffective assistance is 

clearly not limited to cases where the record alone shows a 

Strickland violation. Otherwise, Rashad’s separate category 

for instances where the “record alone conclusively shows that 

the defendant . . . is . . . entitled to relief”—meaning remand is 

not required—would make no sense. 

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We note that the normal appellate process gives the 

defendant no chance to submit affidavits; on appeal we are 

limited to the record in the district court. For that reason 

alone, we find quite irrelevant the government’s insistence 

that “even now, with the benefit of appellate counsel, 

appellant does not state he would in fact truthfully debrief.” 

Gov’t Br. at 42. 

Both Rashad’s use of “colorable” to describe the sort of 

claim adequate to trigger a remand, and Massaro’s message 

that the district court should hear ineffective assistance claims 

in the first instance because it is in the best position to develop 

the factual record, see Massaro, 538 U.S. at 505, point to 

remands when the record discloses a genuine possibility of 

ineffective assistance. 

In Bell’s case, the record supports neither a conclusive 

determination that his ineffective assistance claim will 

succeed, nor one that it must fail. Counsel’s advice that “it 

was more likely than not that . . . talking to people . . . would 

be beneficial” is a pale substitute for a precise description of 

the safety valve’s potential impact—a two-point reduction in 

Bell’s offense level, and a consequent reduction in his 

sentencing range from 235-293 months to 188-235 months. 

(The statutory minimum of ten years of imprisonment for 

Bell’s offenses is a good deal lower than both of these ranges 

and so is not pertinent here.) Thus the record evidence 

suggests a serious possibility that counsel was ineffective, 

with prejudice to Bell. Exploration of the issue in district 

court can resolve the uncertainty. 

Bell notes that it is the general practice of this circuit to 

remand an inconclusive ineffective assistance claim for an 

evidentiary hearing. App. Br. 12. We have said as much in 

our cases, see Rashad, 331 F.3d at 909, but that proposition 

does not mean a defendant is entitled to a hearing any time the 

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court orders a remand. Rather, we remand for whatever 

proceedings are necessary to determine whether the defendant 

was denied his constitutional right to effective assistance of 

counsel, which may in some circumstances include an 

evidentiary hearing, but in other cases will not. As Massaro

indicates, the district court’s familiarity with the trial and 

sentencing proceedings may play a useful role. 

* * * 

We have considered all of Bell’s arguments, and remand 

the record to the district court for further proceedings to 

determine whether Bell was denied effective assistance of 

counsel. For the reasons stated in the accompanying order, 

we conclude that Bell's other claims lack merit. 

 So ordered. 

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