Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-03004/USCOURTS-caDC-10-03004-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alfred L. Thompson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 14, 2013 Decided July 9, 2013

No. 10-3004

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

ALFRED L. THOMPSON,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cr-00205-1)

Lisa B. Wright, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued 

the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A.J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender. Neil H. Jaffee, Assistant 

Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance. 

Patricia A. Heffernan, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

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

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

Elizabeth H. Danello, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Stephen J. 

Spiegelhalter, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance. 

Before: HENDERSON, GRIFFITH, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit 

Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: It is the law of this circuit that we 

remand to the district court any claim of ineffective assistance 

of counsel first raised on direct appeal that we cannot readily 

resolve on the record before us. Applying our precedent, we 

remand one of the appellant’s claims and deny the other.

I

In June 2008, the police arrested Alfred Thompson after a 

foot chase. During the chase, Thompson tossed aside, but the 

police later found, a bag containing 53.6 grams of crack 

cocaine and 4 grams of marijuana. In July 2008, Thompson 

was indicted for unlawful possession with intent to distribute 

fifty grams or more of crack, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A)(iii) (2006), and possession of marijuana, 

in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 844(a). The crack count carried a 

statutory mandatory minimum prison sentence of ten years.

Shortly after Thompson’s indictment, the government 

brought separate murder charges against him in D.C. Superior 

Court stemming from a shooting in November 2007. The 

government and Thompson initially agreed to stay proceedings 

on the drug charges until the murder prosecution ran its course, 

but delays in the murder case caused the government to push 

ahead to trial on the drug charges in October 2009. 

Just six days before trial, the government filed an 

information under 21 U.S.C. § 851 describing a prior felony 

drug conviction on Thompson’s record, which doubled the 

mandatory minimum on the crack count to twenty years. At 

trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts, and the 

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district court sentenced Thompson to the mandatory minimum 

prison term in January 2010.

1

Thompson now appeals his sentence, claiming he was 

denied the effective assistance of counsel guaranteed by the 

Sixth Amendment. We take jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a).

II

To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, 

a party must show that his lawyer’s performance was deficient 

in a way that prejudiced his case. Strickland v. Washington, 

466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). Establishing deficient performance 

requires a showing that “counsel made errors so serious that 

counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the 

defendant by the Sixth Amendment.” Id. To establish 

prejudice, the defendant must show “a reasonable probability 

that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the 

proceeding would have been different. A reasonable 

probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence 

in the outcome.” Id. at 694.

Under this circuit’s precedent, “where a defendant raises a 

‘colorable and previously unexplored’ ineffective assistance 

claim on appeal,” we remand for further district court 

proceedings “unless the ‘record alone conclusively shows that 

the defendant either is or is not entitled to relief.’” United 

States v. Bell, 708 F.3d 223, 225 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (quoting 

 1 Shortly thereafter, Thompson’s murder trial began in Superior 

Court. He was convicted. See Docket, United States v. Thompson, 

2008 CF1 17330 (D.C. Sup. Ct.).

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United States v. Rashad, 331 F.3d 908, 908, 909-10 (D.C. Cir.

2003)).2

Thompson first claims that the prosecution made plea 

offers that his counsel failed to pass along to him before they 

expired. According to Thompson, in April 2009, the 

government offered to dismiss the marijuana count in 

exchange for his guilty plea on the crack count. He also claims 

that on the eve of trial, the prosecutor offered to withdraw the 

§ 851 information he had just filed and dismiss the marijuana 

count if Thompson pled guilty to the crack count. Had 

Thompson accepted either offer, the mandatory minimum he 

faced would have been ten years in prison rather than twenty.

“[D]efense counsel has the duty to communicate formal 

offers from the prosecution to accept a plea on terms and 

conditions that may be favorable to the accused,” and a failure 

to do so may constitute ineffective assistance of counsel.

Missouri v. Frye, __ U.S. __, 132 S. Ct. 1399, 1408 (2012). 

Counsel renders constitutionally deficient performance if he 

“allow[s an] offer to expire without advising the defendant or 

allowing him to consider it.” Id. To establish prejudice, a 

defendant “must demonstrate a reasonable probability [that he] 

would have accepted the earlier plea offer” had he been 

advised of its existence. Id. at 1409. He must also show “a 

reasonable probability the plea would have been entered 

without the prosecution canceling it or the trial court refusing 

to accept it . . . .” Id.

 2 In its opposition brief, the government argues that the full 

court should overturn our precedent in favor of the view of those

circuits that hold that ineffective assistance of counsel claims

generally should be heard only on collateral review. Appellee’s Br. 

at 24-41. As a three-judge panel, of course, we are bound to apply 

existing precedent.

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We need not linger over whether the record before us is 

sufficient to resolve this claim, for both Thompson and the 

government agree that it is not. We therefore remand “for 

whatever proceedings are necessary to determine whether 

[Thompson] was denied his constitutional right to effective 

assistance of counsel, which may . . . include an evidentiary 

hearing” in the district court’s discretion. Bell, 708 F.3d at 226.

Thompson next claims that his lawyer’s ineffective 

assistance deprived him of the chance to benefit from the Fair 

Sentencing Act, which introduced sweeping reforms in crack 

sentencing. Pub. L. No. 111-220, 124 Stat. 2372 (2010). As 

relevant here, the Act lowered the mandatory minimum from 

twenty years to ten for defendants like Thompson with prior 

felony drug convictions whose crimes involved fifty grams or 

more of crack. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B)(iii).

When Thompson was sentenced, passage of the Act was 

seven months away. The bill was still being debated in 

Congress. At the sentencing hearing, Thompson’s lawyer 

asked orally for a continuance until after the bill had become 

law. Tr. 1/5/10, at 3-5. The district court denied the motion. Id. 

at 7-8. According to Thompson, had his lawyer filed a written 

motion for a continuance prior to the hearing, and in that 

motion made a series of arguments crafted by Thompson’s new 

counsel on appeal, it is likely that the district court would have 

waited to sentence him under the more lenient provisions of the 

Act. See Dorsey v. United States, __ U.S. __, 132 S. Ct. 2321, 

2326 (2012) (holding that the Act applies in all sentencing 

proceedings after its passage); see also United States v. Fields, 

699 F.3d 518, 522 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (declining to extend the 

Act’s retroactivity to defendants sentenced prior to its 

enactment).

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We find Thompson’s claim meritless and deny it on the 

record before us. See, e.g., United States v. Moore, 703 F.3d 

562, 574-75 (D.C. Cir. 2012). Even assuming – for the sake of 

argument alone – some legally significant distinction between 

the oral motion made at the sentencing hearing and a written 

motion made in advance, such a distinction made no difference 

in this case. The district court denied the continuance request 

on its merits. Tr. 1/5/10, at 7-8. As the district court clearly 

explained, it was not willing to grant a continuance and stay 

sentencing “indefinitely” to await legislation that showed no 

“imminent likelihood of success.” Id. at 7; see also id. at 6

(“[F]or me to wait for Congress to do something on this subject 

. . . it could be St. Swithen’s Day. It could be a decade from 

now, it could be never.”). That decision was well within the 

scope of the district court’s discretion. See Fields, 699 F.3d at 

522-23. Thompson argues that his lawyer could have allayed 

the district court’s concerns by suggesting that the continuance 

extend only until after trial in the Superior Court murder case. 

This is a red herring. As the government points out, Thompson 

was convicted in that case little more than a month later – and 

still half a year in advance of the Act’s passage. See Docket, 

United States v. Thompson, 2008 CF1 17330.

III

We remand to the district court for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion to determine whether Thompson 

was denied the effective assistance of counsel.

So ordered.

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