Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-19-03219/USCOURTS-ca6-19-03219-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Donald Hope
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

File Name: 20a0140n.06

Case No. 19-3219

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

DONALD HOPE,

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN 

DISTRICT OF OHIO

O P I N I O N

BEFORE: COLE, Chief Judge; BOGGS and SUTTON, Circuit Judges

COLE, Chief Judge. Appellant Donald Hope pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess with 

intent to distribute mixtures containing heroin and cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 

841(b)(1)(C), 846, and 856. At sentencing, the district court imposed a sentence of 220 months’ 

imprisonment. As part of the plea agreement, Hope waived his right to appeal his conviction and 

sentence, except as to claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, or that 

his sentence exceeded the statutory maximum. Hope now avails himself of his reserved right to 

appeal on the ground of ineffective assistance of counsel. Specifically, he claims that his attorney 

was ineffective for not arguing that the district court was required to apply the preponderance-ofevidence standard in making any fact-finding that would increase Hope’s base offense level under 

the Sentencing Guidelines and United States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148 (1997). 

 Case: 19-3219 Document: 37-2 Filed: 03/10/2020 Page: 1
Case No. 19-3219, United States v. Hope

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We typically do not consider claims of ineffective assistance of counsel when they are 

raised for the first time on direct appeal. See, e.g., United States v. Martinez, 430 F.3d 317, 338 

(6th Cir. 2005). Instead, to allow the parties to “develop an adequate record on the issue,” we 

normally review ineffective-assistance claims in post-conviction proceedings. United States v. 

Brown, 332 F.3d 363, 369 (6th Cir. 2003) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). The 

rationale for this practice is that “[w]hen an ineffective-assistance claim is brought on direct 

appeal, appellate counsel and the court must proceed on a trial record not developed precisely for 

the object of litigating or preserving the claim and thus often incomplete or inadequate for this 

purpose.” Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500, 504–05 (2003). In short, to review an 

ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, we require a record from which we can comprehensively 

evaluate the performance of the counsel in question, and such a record is rarely available on direct 

appeal.

We are not persuaded that this is one of those rare instances. On the record currently before 

us, we are unable to evaluate the effectiveness of Hope’s counsel at the sentencing hearing to

determine whether his approach was constitutionally deficient. Accordingly, and without opining 

on the performance of Hope’s attorney at the sentencing hearing, we decline to reach Hope’s claim

at this juncture and affirm the judgment and sentence of the district court. 

 Case: 19-3219 Document: 37-2 Filed: 03/10/2020 Page: 2