[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 20-14700

Non-Argument Calendar

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BRIAN CARL RICHARDS, 

Petitioner-Appellant,

versus

SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, 

ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF FLORIDA, 

Respondents-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 6:19-cv-02244-PGB-LRH

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 20-14700

Before ROSENBAUM, LUCK, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Brian Richards, a state prisoner, appeals the denial of his federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). After careful review, we affirm.

I.

Richards pled nolo contendere in a Florida trial court to a 

charge of petit theft with two prior convictions in exchange for the 

prosecutor’s recommendation of a 180-day jail sentence. Before 

accepting his plea, the court warned Richards that if he failed to 

appear for sentencing, he would not get the benefit of his bargain 

with the state and instead would be subject to a potential maximum of five years in prison. Richards said he understood, and the 

court accepted his plea, but he then failed to appear for sentencing 

because he was arrested for new offenses stemming from a bank 

robbery. When sentencing eventually went forward after his conviction in the robbery case, the trial court imposed a five-year sentence, emphasizing its prior warnings to Richards and asserting that 

his “own conduct” resulted in the failure to appear.

Richards appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in imposing an enhanced sentence because his absence at sentencing 

was not willful. The state appellate court affirmed, citing Orange 

v. State, 983 So. 2d 4, 5–6 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2007), for the 

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20-14700 Opinion of the Court 3

proposition that a failure to appear caused by incarceration for new 

crimes after entering the plea constitutes a willful breach of an 

agreement to appear. 

Richards then sought postconviction relief under Rule 3.580, 

Fla. R. Crim. P., arguing that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance in three ways, two of which are relevant here: first, by failing 

to move to withdraw the plea agreement when the court announced it would not follow that agreement and instead imposed 

a five-year sentence; and second, by failing to advise him that he 

could contest the willfulness of his failure to appear, and to make 

such an argument to the trial court.1

A state postconviction court rejected these claims without 

an evidentiary hearing. As to the first claim, the court found that 

counsel had no basis to move to withdraw the plea. According to 

the court, under Quarterman v. State, 527 So. 2d 1380 (Fla. 1988), 

there was an express agreement concerning the consequences of 

failing to appear, so the trial court was permitted to impose an enhanced sentence without providing an opportunity for Richards to 

withdraw his plea. Therefore, according to the postconviction

court, “counsel had no basis to file a motion to withdraw [Richards’s] plea and there is no reasonable probability that such a motion would have been granted.”

1 We granted Richards a certificate of appealability (“COA”) as to these two 

claims but denied a COA for his claim that counsel was ineffective for failing

to request a transport order before the original sentencing. 

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4 Opinion of the Court 20-14700

As to the second claim, the state postconviction court found 

that it lacked merit because Richards “was arrested on new offenses 

after entering the agreement, which rendered his failure to appear 

willful.” The court noted that counsel and Richards informed the 

court of Richards’s mental-health issues at sentencing but that two 

doctors said he did not meet the M’Naghten test for insanity, making him criminally responsible for the new crimes. As a result, in 

the court’s view, there was no reasonable probability that the trial 

court would have found that Richards’s failure to appear was not 

willful.

After the postconviction court’s order was summarily affirmed on appeal, Richards petitioned a federal district court for a 

writ of habeas corpus. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court denied the petition, finding that the state court’s decision was reasonable and so entitled to deference. Richards now appeals. 

II.

We review the district court’s denial of a state prisoner’s 

§ 2254 petition de novo, but we review the state habeas court’s decision with deference. Reed v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 593 F.3d 

1217, 1239 (11th Cir. 2010); Wright v. Sec’y for Dep’t of Corr., 278 

F.3d 1245, 1254–55 (11th Cir. 2002). Where the final state court to 

adjudicate the merits of a petitioner’s claim simply affirms a lower 

court’s decision without explaining its reasoning, we “look 

through” to the last reasoned state-court decision and assume that 

the unexplained decision adopted that reasoning. Wilson v. Sellers, 

138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018). Here, we look through the appellate 

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20-14700 Opinion of the Court 5

court’s summary affirmance to the state postconviction court’s reasoned order denying Richards’s claims. 

An ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim requires a showing that counsel’s performance was deficient and that the deficient 

performance prejudiced the defense. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. 

Prejudice means a “reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s 

unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have 

been different,” which is a “probability sufficient to undermine 

confidence in the outcome.” Id. at 694.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), we may grant the writ of habeas 

corpus only if the state court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of” Strickland, 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). Under these standards, “[a] state court’s determination 

that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as 

fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the state 

court’s decision.” Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011). 

A.

We start with Richards’s argument that counsel was ineffective for failing to move to withdraw the plea when the trial court 

declared it would not be bound by the plea agreement. 

Florida courts permit what is commonly referred to as a 

“Quarterman agreement,” where a trial court allows a defendant 

to be released after the plea hearing, provided he agrees that, if he 

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6 Opinion of the Court 20-14700

fails to appear at the sentencing hearing, the court may impose a 

sentence greater than the one specified in the plea agreement. See, 

e.g., Ingram v. State, 291 So. 3d 1009, 1010–11 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 

2020). A plea agreement can be modified by the trial court during 

the plea colloquy if the defendant clearly and unequivocally understands and accepts those terms. Norman v. State, 43 So. 3d 771, 

773 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2010). But “a trial court may not unilaterally impose additional conditions of a plea agreement after it has 

formally accepted the plea agreement without the acquiescence of 

the defendant or his counsel.” Id.

Richards relies primarily on Smith v. State, 988 So. 2d 1258 

(Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2008), in which the appellate court held that 

terms added by the trial court providing for an enhanced sentence 

for failure to appear “were not part of the plea agreement.” Id. at 

1261. The court reasoned that Quarterman did not control because 

“[t]he trial court accepted Smith’s plea before articulating what 

would occur if Smith failed to appear at sentencing,” and there was 

no subsequent agreement to make the terms a condition of his 

plea, despite the defendant’s saying he understood them. In Richards’s view, his case is like Smith, and so he was entitled to an opportunity to withdraw his plea, making his counsel ineffective for 

failing to file a motion to withdraw. 

But “[i]t is a fundamental principle that state courts are the 

final arbiters of state law, and federal habeas courts should not second-guess them on such matters.” Callahan v. Campbell, 427 F.3d 

897, 932 (11th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted); see also 

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Harrington, 562 U.S. at 102–02 (stating that federal habeas review 

is “not a substitute for ordinary error correction through appeal”). 

In Callahan, we rejected the appellant’s argument that the state 

court unreasonably applied Strickland because it was dependent on 

the conclusion that the state court made an erroneous determination of state of law. 427 F.3d at 931–32. We explained that, where 

“the state court has told us that if [defendant’s trial counsel] did 

make the objection it would not have been successful” under state 

law, the defendant “cannot be prejudiced by his counsel’s failure to 

make a losing objection.” Id.

Here, the state court did not unreasonably apply Strickland

because, as in Callahan, Richards’s argument depends on a conclusion that the state court misinterpreted state law. See id. The state 

court expressly found that Richards was subject to a valid Quarterman agreement, which is purely a matter of state law. Even if we 

might have decided the matter differently had it been our call to 

make, we cannot say the state court’s decision was based on an unreasonable determination of what occurred during the plea hearing. See 28 U.S.C § 2254(d)(2). Richards points to Smith, but that 

case is factually distinguishable because, in contrast to Smith, the 

trial court here expressly articulated the Quarterman terms before 

accepting Richards’s guilty plea. See Norman, 43 So. 3d at 773; cf. 

Smith, 988 So. 2d at 1259–61. 

Because the state court has told us that, under state law, 

Richards was not entitled to withdraw his plea despite the enhanced sentence for failing to appear, it cannot be unreasonable to 

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also determine there was no probability of a different result had 

counsel filed a motion to withdraw. See Callahan, 427 F.3d at 931–

32. 

B.

Nor did the state court unreasonably conclude that Richards 

could not establish Strickland prejudice based on counsel’s failure 

to advise him that he could contest the willfulness of his failure to 

appear, and to make such an argument to the trial court. Richards 

asserts that, had counsel properly advised him, he would have presented expert testimony at sentencing that mental illness contributed to his arrest. The expert’s report stated, among other things, 

that (1) Richards was sane when he robbed the bank, but his mental 

illness likely was a significant contributor to his actions and should 

be viewed as a mitigating factor; (2) he was admitted for psychiatric 

reasons on several occasions; and (3) he has bipolar disorder.

Under Florida law, “where timely appearance for sentencing 

is made a condition of a plea agreement, a non-willful failure to 

appear will not vitiate the agreement and permit the trial court to 

impose some greater sentence.” Johnson v. State, 501 So. 2d 158, 

160-61 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1987). In other words, the violation of a 

Quarterman agreement must be “willful” for the court to impose 

an enhanced sentence. Ingram, 291 So. 3d at 1011–12. A trial court 

must offer “an opportunity to explain why [the defendant] failed to 

timely appear at sentencing” and then make a factual determination as to whether the failure to appear was willful. Lowery v. 

State, 22 So. 3d 745, 749 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2009). 

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Generally, Florida courts treat the failure to appear as willful 

“if the defendant was incarcerated because he had committed a 

new offense after entering into the agreement.” Orange, 983 So.

2d at 5–6. Nevertheless, a defendant’s mental illness may affect the 

willfulness determination. See Marcano v. State, 814 So. 2d 1174, 

1176–77 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2002) (“[M]ental illness can render violations of probation not willful and substantial.”). More broadly, 

Florida utilizes the M’Naghten test, under which a defendant is not 

criminally responsible for his conduct if he can prove he did not 

know of the nature of consequences of his act or was unable to 

distinguish right from wrong. Patton v. State, 878 So. 2d 368, 375 

(Fla. 2004). 

Here, it was not unreasonable for the state postconviction 

court to determine there was not a reasonable probability that additional expert testimony on Richards’s mental-health status would 

have resulted in the state trial court’s finding that his failure to appear was non-willful. 

At the sentencing hearing, defense counsel addressed Richards’s arrest and mental health, pointing out that a doctor who had 

performed a psychological evaluation found that Richards suffered 

from, and had been in intensive treatment for, bipolar disorder at 

the time that the new offenses occurred. Richards then personally 

addressed the court regarding his failure to appear. As explanation 

for the new offenses, Richards stated that he had been receiving 

mental-health treatment since 1998 but had stopped taking his 

medication. As a result, he “began hearing voices and hallucinating 

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and ended up going into the bank with a note and no weapon and 

asking them for money.” He was evaluated for that criminal case, 

and two doctors found that he suffered from mental duress but did 

not meet the M’Naghten test. Richards emphasized that he “had 

no intentions of any of this ever happening, disrespecting the Court 

or making this drag on for a year-and-a-half,” and that he had 

“wanted to get this resolved as bad as anybody else.”

The record of the sentencing hearing shows, in sum, that 

Richards received “an opportunity to explain why [he] failed to 

timely appear at sentencing.” Lowery, 22 So. 3d at 749. More to 

the point, the record shows Richards informed the trial judge that 

his criminal conduct was not intentional because he was “hearing 

voices and hallucinating” after he had stopped his medication, even 

if he did not meet the M’Naghten test. The expert testimony Richards asserts he would have provided but for counsel’s error—that 

he was sane, but that mental illness contributed to his criminal conduct—is largely cumulative of the information presented at sentencing. On this record, therefore, we cannot say it was unreasonable to conclude that any deficiency in counsel’s performance on 

the issue of willfulness did not create a reasonable probability of a 

different result. 

Because, at worst, “fairminded jurists could disagree on the 

correctness of the state court’s decision,” Harrington, 562 U.S. at

101, Richards has not shown he is entitled to federal habeas relief 

under § 2254(d). We therefore affirm the denial of his petition. 

AFFIRMED. 

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