UNITED STATES CO URT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT

BARRY W. BROWN, Petitioner - Appellant, v.JAMES W. GRAY, Commandant, USDBFort Leavenworth, Respondents – Appellees. No. 11-3303 (D.C. No. 5:09 -CV-03002-RDR) (D. Kan.)

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

Before O'BRIEN , McKAY , and TYMKOVICH , Circuit Judges.
Barry Brown, a military prisoner proceeding pro se , appeals from the district court’s denial of his application for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241. Brown contends the court erre d in concluding the military c ourts gave his claims a full and fair review. We affirm.

* The parties have waived oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). This case is submitte d for decision on the briefs. This order and judgment is an unpublishe d decision, not binding precedent. 10th Cir. R. 32.1(A). Citation to unpublished decisions is not prohibited. Fed. R. App. 32.1. It is appropriate as it relates to law of th e case, issue preclusion and claim preclusion. Unpublished decisions may also be cited for their persuasive value. 10th Cir. R. 32.1(A). Citation to an order and judgment must be accompanied by an appropriate parenthetical notation

B (unpublished). Id

. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### June 5, 2012
Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court- 2 - BACKGROUND Brown is a lawyer and former member of the judge advocate corps of the United States Air Force. He is currently incarcer ated for the attempted premeditated murder of his wife. From February 2005 until the time of his arrest, Brown was engaged in an illicit romance with an enlisted paralegal in his o ffice. In March 2005, he and his paramour located an individual who they believed wo uld be willing to murder Brown’s wife. Brown eventually met with th e individual at a local park to discuss the deal. Brown suggested one method to accomplish the task (i ndiscriminate shooting at his wife’s place of work) and provided pictures to identify his wife, as well as pictures of her vehicle and her workplace. He handed over $280 and agreed to pa y $25,000 for the completed murder. Fortunately, the would-be murderer was not the person Br own and his girlfriend thought he was; he notified the authorities shor tly after the duo requested his services. As a result, there was a visual and audio recordin g of the meeting and Brown was arrested as he prepared to leave. His case was referred to trial by general court-ma rtial. Pursuant to an agreement with the prosecu tion, Brown pled guilty to a ttempted first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit attempted first degree murder and wrongful fraternization. Under the agreement, he received a se ntence of 18 years in prison. Brown’s attorneys filed a Grostefon 1 appeal to the Air Force Court of Criminal

1 United States v. Grostefon, 12 M.J. 431, 436 (C.M.A.1982) (“[W]hen the accused specifies error in his request for appe llate representation or in some other form, the appellate defense counsel will, at a mini mum, invite the attention of the Court of Military Review to those issues [even if counse l thinks the issues lack merit] and, in its decision, the Court of Military Review will, at a minimum, acknowledge that it has considered those issues enumerated by the accused and its disposition of them.”).- 3 - Appeals (AFCCA) challenging his conviction and sentence. Brown planned to later provide further briefing of the issues. Brow n also filed a supplementary assignment of errors. The appeal claimed: (1) speedy trial violations; (2) Brown’s plea was improvident because it was based on inco rrect advice from counsel regarding a mandatory minimum life sentence; (3) prejud icial appellate delay; and (4) ineffective assistance of counsel. His ineffective assist ance of counsel claims were premised on counsels’ failure to seek cr edit for “pre-trial punishment ” under Article 13, lack of adequate trial preparation, failure to make a speedy trial motion, trial counsel’s failure to let him meaningfully assist in his defense or provide necessary info rmation, failure to interview and cross-examine w itnesses, failure to seek clarification from the court whether he was subject to a mandatory minimum life sentence prior to his plea decision and, failure to sequester prospective panel members. Because Brow n wished to author the reply briefs and was unable to gather the needed materials in time, Brown twice requested continuances to file briefs out of time. The first was granted, extending the time to file a brief to March 15, 2008. He filed his second request for a continuance on March 13, 2008. This request was denied and Brown did not submit a brief with supporting documentation. 2 (Vol. II at 373-375, 377, 378-79.) Brown’s appeal was denied on April 28, 2008, in a detailed opinion addressing the issues raised by counsel. See United States v. Brown , No. ACM 36607, 2008 WL 1956589 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. Ap ril 23, 2008). Brown claims he did not receive a copy

2 Brown also filed a supplementary assignment of errors.- 4 - of the decision until May 29, 2008. On June 5, 2008, he filed a motion for reconsideration and su bmitted his brief and supplementary documentation in support of his arguments. The AFCCA agreed to consid er the supplementary materials. However, it summarily denied his motion for reconsidera tion five days later. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) denied his subs equent request for review of the AFCCA’s decision. Brown’s § 2241 habeas petition alleges: (1) a denial of his due process rights to speedy post-trial review; (2) ine ffective assistance of counsel in nine respects; (3) denial of a fair trial by failing to sequester prosp ective panel members; (4) two incidents of prosecutorial misconduct; (5) denial of post-tria l due process; (6) denial of a speedy trial; and (7) an involuntary guilty plea because counsel incorrectly advised him he faced a mandatory minimum life sentence. In a thorough and well-reasoned decision, the district court determined, under th e factors set forth in Roberts v. Callahan , 321 F.3d 994, 996- 97 (10th Cir. 2003), the military courts gave full and fair consideration to Brown’s claims. DISCUSSION Under § 2241, habeas co rpus relief is granted when a federal prisoner demonstrates he is “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2 241(c). The narrow scope of ha beas review is even more circumscribed when considering de cisions from a court martial. Burns v. Wilson , 346 U.S. 137, 139 (1953). Initially, we must determine whether th e military courts gave full and fair consideration to the petitioner’s claims. Id . at 142. (“[W]hen a military decision- 5 - has dealt fully and fairly with an allegation rais ed in that application, it is not open to a federal civil court to grant the writ simply to re-evaluate the evidence.”). “[I]t is not the duty of the civil courts simply to repeat th at process—to re-examine and reweigh each item of evidence of the occurrenc e of events which tend to pr ove or disprove one of the allegations in the applications for habeas corpus.” Id . at 144. If the military courts have fully and fairly considered each issue under the correct standard of law, we will not separately reach the merits. Id. (“It is the limited function of the civil courts to determine whether the military have gi ven fair consideration to each of these claims.”). This threshold issue is determined by applying a four-factor test. Roberts, 321 F.3d at 997; Dodson v. Zelez , 917 F.2d 1250, 1252-53 (10t h Cir. 1990). We consider whether: (1) “the asserted error [is] of s ubstantial constitutional dimension;” (2) the issue is “one of law rather than of disputed fact already determined by the military tribunals;” (3) the issues contain “[m]ilita ry considerations” that may “w arrant different treatment of constitutional claims;” and (4) the military courts gave “ade quate consideration to the issues involved and appl[ied] proper legal standards.” Roberts , 321 F.3d at 996 (citation omitted). “While we continue to apply this four-part test [to assess the fairness of the consideration], our recent cases have emphasi zed the fourth consideration as the most important.” Thomas v. U.S. Disciplinary Barracks , 625 F.3d 667, 671 (10th Cir.) cert denied 131 S. Ct. 1711(2011). Brown claims the district court’s conc lusion is wrong because the AFCCA: (1) received only Grostefon materials rather than full briefing or argu ment; (2) failed to account for the only “brief and argument” subm itted (his own, which he filed with the- 6 - motion for reconsideration); (3) refused to reconsider once the factual record was complete; (4) based its decision largely on a ffidavits prepared by trial defense counsel containing misrepresentations which were shown in Brown’ s supporting documentation; (5) failed to hold the hearing required if it had actually considered th e facts in the record; and (6) rendered its decision in such a shor t time after receiving Brown’s materials “that it is unlikely that the court fully and fairly considered all the record as required.” (Appellant’s Br. at 15-16.) We reject these arguments for the same re asons as the district court. While it is true that the AFCCA rendered its decision on the Grostefon briefs, these briefs included a statement of each issue, the factual basis fo r the claim and legal argument in support. 3 The AFCCA’s decision denying Brown’s appe llate claims carefully considered each issue. The supplemental br iefing and documentary materi al Brown submitted with his motion for reconsideration was admitted and, according to the AFCAA, was considered. We do not “presume a military appellate c ourt has failed to consider all the issues presented to it before making a decision.” Thomas , 625 F.3d at 672. Rather, we assume, in the absence of clear contrary evidence, that public officers, including judicial tribunals, “have properly discharged their official duties.” Bernklau v. Principi , 291 F.3d 795, 801- 02 (Fed. Cir. 2002); see also Johnson v. Zerbst , 204 U.S. 458, 468 (1938) (“[T]he judgment of a court carries with it a presumption of regularity.”). Neither does the summary disposal of Brown’s motion for reconsideration require

3 The brief also included Brown’s affi davit setting forth many of the factual assertions in his later pleadings.- 7 - a different conclusion. “When an issue is briefed and argued before a military board of review, we have held that the military tri bunal has given the claim fair consideration, even though its opinion summari ly disposed of the issue with the mere statement that it did not consider the issue merito rious or requiring discussion.” Watson v. McCotter , 782 F.2d 143, 145 (10th Cir. 1986). Our own review of the entire record reveals no compelling factual submissions by Brown re quiring the AFCCA to do more in response to his motion for reconsideration. Moreove r, our review leaves us with no doubt the AFCCA could fully consider Brown’s submi ssions in the time between receiving his briefs and issuing its order. The district court correctly applied our precedent in determ ining that Brown’s claims are not entitled to additional review be cause the military courts gave them full and fair consideration.
AFFIRMED. Entered by the Court: Terrence L. O’Brien United States Circuit Judge