16-2971-pr 

Best v. Griffin 

1 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 

SUMMARY ORDER 

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A 

SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED 

BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. 

WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST 

CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE 

NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A 

COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second 

Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley 

Square, in the City of New York, on the 15th day of August, two thousand 

seventeen. 

PRESENT: 

PETER W. HALL, 

CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY, 

Circuit Judges, 

LAURA TAYLOR SWAIN,*

District Judge. 

Sean Best, 

Petitioner-Appellant,

v. No. 16-2971-pr 

Thomas Griffin, Superintendent, Green 

Haven Correctional Facility, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

FOR APPELLANT: NATHANIEL R.B. KOSLOF, (Franklin B. Velie, on the brief), 

Sullivan & Worcester LLP, New York, NY.

FOR APPELLEE: PRISCILLA STEWARD, Assistant Attorney General, 

(Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General; Nikki 

 

* Judge Laura Taylor Swain, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 

sitting by designation. 
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Best v. Griffin 

2 

Kowalski, Deputy Solicitor General, on the brief), for Eric 

T. Schneiderman, Attorney General of the State of New 

York, New York, NY. 

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern 

District of New York (McMahon, C.J.). 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, 

AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

Petitioner-Appellant Sean Best appeals from the district court’s decision denying 

his petition for a writ of habeas corpus based on alleged constitutional defects in his 

criminal conviction in a New York court. He claims that the New York trial court’s 

failure to order an evaluation of his competency prior to accepting his plea of guilty 

and imposing sentence amounted to a violation of his constitutional right to due 

process of law. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the 

procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal. 

We review de novo a district court’s denial of a petition for a writ of habeas 

corpus. Moss v. Colvin, 845 F.3d 516, 519 (2d Cir. 2017) (citing Dixon v. Miller, 293 

F.3d 74, 78 (2d Cir. 2002)). Habeas corpus relief from a state court conviction is 

appropriate only where the state court’s decision was “contrary to, or involved an 

unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the 

Supreme Court of the United States,” or was “based on an unreasonable 

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State Court 

proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. §§ 2254(d)(1)–(2). 
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Best v. Griffin 

3 

“To conclude that a state court decision involved an unreasonable application of 

clearly established federal law, the petitioner must show that the state court 

applied the law in a manner that was objectively unreasonable.” Moss, 845 F.3d at 

520 (internal quotation marks omitted). “A state court determination that a claim 

lacks merit is not objectively unreasonable if fairminded jurists could disagree on 

the correctness of the state court’s decision.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Under AEDPA, state court factual findings are presumptively correct, and the 

Petitioner bears the burden of rebutting this presumption by clear and convincing 

evidence. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(1). As the Supreme Court has explained, a trial 

court’s assessment of a defendant’s competency is “essentially a factual 

determination.” Demosthenes v. Baal, 495 U.S. 731, 737 (1990) (per curiam); accord 

id. at 735 (“We have held that a state court’s conclusion regarding a defendant’s 

competency is entitled to such a presumption.”); see also Thompson v. Keohane, 516 

U.S. 99, 111 (1995) (noting that while the distinction between questions of fact and 

questions of law under § 2254 “is sometimes slippery,” the former category “notably 

includes: competency to stand trial”). 

We have examined the record through the lens of these highly deferential 

standards of review, and to the extent Best challenges the trial court’s factual 

finding that Best was competent in entering a knowing and voluntary plea, he has 

not rebutted the presumption in § 2254(e). To the extent Best contends, pursuant to 

§ 2254(d), that the trial court unreasonably applied the Supreme Court’s 

jurisprudence concerning competency, we “cannot say that the state trial court’s 
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Best v. Griffin 

4 

conclusions . . . that a [competency] examination was unwarranted, and the 

Appellate Division’s affirmance, were contrary to or involved an unreasonable 

application of clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court.” 

See Woodley v. Griffin, 652 F. App’x 75, 77–78 (2d Cir. 2016) (summary order). We 

therefore affirm the district court’s denial of Best’s petition for substantially the 

reasons set forth in Chief Judge McMahon’s Decision & Order of July 26, 2016 and 

Magistrate Judge Peck’s Report & Recommendation of November 6, 2015. 

We have considered all of Best’s arguments for reversal and conclude that they 

are without merit.1†The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

 FOR THE COURT: 

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk

 

1 Best also contends that the sentencing court violated his due process rights by refusing to allow him 

to withdraw his guilty plea. But this challenge falls outside the scope of the certificate of 

appealability granted by the district court. See J.A. 301. Because Best has not moved for this Court 

to expand the certificate of appealability, and we decline to do so sua sponte, our review is confined to 

the single issue on which the certificate was granted: whether the trial court violated Best’s due 

process rights by failing to order a competency hearing before accepting his guilty plea. See, e.g., 

Newkirk v. Capra, 615 F. App’x 712, 714 n.3 (2d Cir. 2015) (summary order).