Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-09-02614/USCOURTS-ca3-09-02614-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Gary Lee Myers
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

The Honorable John E. Jones, III, United States District Judge for the Middle District *

of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

 

No. 09-2614

 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

GARY LEE MYERS,

Appellant

 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Criminal Action No. 08-cr-00181; Civil Action No. 09-394)

District Judge: Honorable Gary L. Lancaster

 

Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

January 12, 2010

Before: AMBRO and CHAGARES, Circuit Judges, and JONES, District Judge.*

(Opinion filed: February 9, 2010)

 

OPINION

 

JONES, District Judge 

Gary Lee Myers pled guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced

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 The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We have jurisdiction 1

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 2253(a). This Court exercises plenary review over the legal

component of an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, and the underlying facts are

reviewed for clear error. Untied States v. Smack, 347 F.3d 533, 537 (3d Cir. 2003).

2

to 51 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by an 8-year term of supervised release. 

Myers did not take a direct appeal of his conviction and sentence. After retaining new

counsel, Myers filed a motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, alleging that he had received

ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing. The District Court denied Myers’ motion,

and he now appeals that denial. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.1

I.

In 2008, a Pennsylvania State Trooper assigned to the Bureau of Criminal

Investigation, Computer Crime Division, conducted an investigation into the Internet

sharing of child pornography. Following that investigation, a search warrant for Myers’

home was obtained and executed. Retrieved from Myers’ home was child pornography

contained on Myers’ computer, hard drive, and CDs. The material contained graphic

images of minors engaged in sexual acts, including minors under the age of 12 and

materials depicting the penetration of minors.

In April 2008, Myers was charged in a one-count Indictment with Possession of

Material Depicting the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 2252(a)(4)(B). Myers was represented by Ronald W. Hayward, Esq. at the District

Court proceedings, including Myers’ plea and sentencing. On November 14, 2008, Myers

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3

pleaded guilty to Count One. No formal plea agreement was entered.

Utilizing the 2008 edition of the Sentencing Guidelines, the probation officer

calculated Myers’ offense level to be 28 and his criminal history category (“CHC”) to be

level I, yielding an advisory guideline range of 78 to 97 months. After argument by

Myers’ attorney at sentencing, the District Court sustained Myers’ objection to the 4-point

enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(4), for possession of material portraying

sadistic conduct, masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence, specifically

materials depicting the penetration of a minor. Accordingly, Myers’ offense level was

set at 24 and his CHC was I, yielding a guideline range of 51 to 63 months. Before

passing sentence on March 9, 2009, the District Court reviewed the factors set forth in 18

U.S.C. § 3553(a) as they applied to Myers, stating:

I note that this is the defendant’s first criminal conviction. And I also

[ac]knowledge his stable upbringing and gainful employment. While

commendable, these facts, however, do not reflect the serious and

disturbing nature of his offense, nor the large number of sexually explicit

images attributable to the defendant. This conduct warrants a significant

period of incarceration.

The District Court thereafter sentenced Myers to 51 months incarceration, to be followed

by an 8-year term of supervised release. Myers did not appeal.

After sentencing, Myers retained new counsel, Attorney Stanton D. Levenson, and

on April 3, 2009 filed a Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 2255. Myers argued that he had been denied his Sixth Amendment right to

effective assistance of counsel as the result of Attorney Hayward’s failure to argue that

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4

the guideline under which he was sentenced, U.S.S.G. § 2G2.4, is seriously flawed and

should not be followed. The District Court subsequently denied Myers’ motion, and this

appeal followed.

II.

We exercise plenary review over the legal component of ineffective assistance of

counsel. See United States v. Smack, 347 F.3d 533, 534 (3d Cir. 2003). “The underlying

facts are reviewed for clear error, and are subject to independent judgment ‘on whether

the facts thus found constitute constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel.’” United

States v. Baird, 218 F.3d 221, 225 (3d Cir. 2000) (quoting Gov’t of the Virgin Islands v.

Weatherwax, 33 V.I. 399, 77 F.3d 1425, 1430-31 (3d Cir. 1996)).

Strickland v. Washington supplies the standard for addressing a claim of

ineffective assistance of counsel:

First, the defendant must show that counsel’s performance was deficient. 

This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was

not functioning as the “counsel” guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth

Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the deficient

performance prejudiced the defense. 

466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). To establish prejudice, the defendant must demonstrate that

“there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result

of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 694.

III.

As aforestated, Myers argues that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to

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effective assistance of counsel by Attorney Hayward’s failure to argue that the guideline

under which he was sentenced, U.S.S.G. § 2G2.4, is seriously flawed and should not be

followed. Myers relies on Kimbrough v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 558 (2007), for the

proposition that courts are permitted to discount various guidelines for lack of empirical

support. Myers thus extrapolates that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel

based on his counsel’s failure to argue at sentencing that the District Court should reject

Section 2G2.4 for lack of empirical support.

Our first step in analyzing Myers’ novel ineffective assistance claim is to

determine whether counsel’s failure to make such an argument constituted deficient

performance. To undertake this analysis, we must first discuss Kimbrough and its

potential import here. In Kimbrough, the Supreme Court found that the guidelines for

crack cocaine were not based on the Sentencing Commission’s independent “empirical

data and national experience,” but were largely fashioned by Congressional legislation

alone. 128 S. Ct. at 575. Based on this reasoning, the Supreme Court held that “it would

not be an abuse of discretion for a district court to conclude when sentencing a particular

defendant that the crack/powder disparity yields a sentence ‘greater than necessary’ to

achieve 3553(a)’s purposes.” Id. Kimbrough was then clarified by the Supreme Court in

Spears v. United States, wherein the Court held “that district courts are entitled to reject

and vary categorically from the crack-cocaine Guidelines based on a policy disagreement

with those Guidelines.” 129 S. Ct. 840, 843-44 (2009). Thereafter, in United States v.

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 Notably, Prophet addresses the guideline in the context of a direct appeal, not an 2

ineffective assistance claim.

6

Prophet, 335 Fed. Appx. 250 (June 25, 2009), we considered Kimbrough’s effect on the

child pornography sentencing Guidelines and held that “even if it were true that district

courts, based on the reasoning of Kimbrough, may impose below-guideline sentences for

child pornography offenses solely based upon policy disagreements with those guidelines,

it does not follow that they must do so.” Id. at 252 (emphasis in original). However,

Prophet was not a precedential opinion, and to date this Court has not rendered any

precedential opinions pertaining to Kimbrough’s application to the child pornography

guidelines.2

Myers is endeavoring to have his counsel’s performance declared ineffective based

upon a failure to raise a creative argument that analogizes the child pornography

sentencing guidelines with the crack/powder cocaine guidelines. To be sure, Prophet

spoke at least in part to the point Myers raises, but as noted, it was a not precedential

opinion. Although not specifically articulated by Myers, he essentially seeks to have his

counsel declared ineffective for the failure to assert an arguably relevant point contained

within a not precedential opinion of this Court. We decline to hold counsel to such a

standard, which is far beyond what Strickland mandates. Based on the current status of

the jurisprudence in this Circuit, we simply cannot find that Myers’ counsel’s

performance was deficient based upon his failure to argue that § 2G2.4 should be rejected

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or discounted for lacking empirical support. 

Further, even if we did hold counsel to what we believe is an unreasonable

standard, Myers was not prejudiced. First, the District Court sustained Myers’ objection

to the 4-point enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(4), resulting in a

significantly lower advisory guideline range. Further, the District Court outlined the

§ 3553(a) factors in significant detail when passing sentence, noting in particular the

seriousness of the offense conduct. The District Court then sentenced Myers at the very

bottom end of the guidelines, after concluding that nothing in his background warranted a

sentence outside of that range.

In sum, we conclude that Myers has not established that his counsel was

ineffective based on the Strickland standard. Accordingly, we affirm the District Court’s

denial of his Motion to Vacate, Set Aside or Correct Sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 2255. 

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