Opinion ID: 509325
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Counsel's Competence

Text: 23 In evaluating the performance of trial counsel, we indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. at 2065. The petitioner first argues that his counsel failed to adequately challenge his exposure to enhanced sentencing under the ACCA. We disagree. In his motion to dismiss count seven of the second superseding indictment, defense counsel challenged the use of petitioner's 1949 conviction as a predicate offense under section 1202(a). He argued in his supporting memorandum that theft while armed, because it was not listed in section 1202(a) as a predicate offense, was insufficient to give rise to enhanced sentencing under the ACCA. Defense counsel also presented other arguments that were rejected by the district court; this, however, does not detract from the fact that defense counsel recognized and relied on the very argument that the petitioner now suggests was overlooked. We find that defense counsel's performance on this point was adequate. 24 The district court denied petitioner's motion to dismiss count seven, but reserved ruling on the issue of whether the 1949 conviction could be used as a predicate offense, in light of the government's assertion that it constituted a robbery and thus was within section 1202(a). Counsel was thus justified in discussing with the petitioner the possibility of sentencing under the ACCA. And although a life sentence under the Act may have been unlikely, it was not impossible. See United States v. Jackson, 835 F.2d 1195, 1197 (7th Cir.1987), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 1244, 99 L.Ed.2d 442 (1988). 25 Even if, as the petitioner suggests, his counsel erred in failing to correct the government's representation that count eight (possession of unregistered firearms) carried a maximum penalty of twenty years' incarceration, he did not fail to provide effective assistance by counseling the petitioner to enter into the guilty plea. Even assuming that the ACCA count would be dismissed, and correcting the maximum sentence possible under count eight to ten years rather than twenty, the petitioner faced a maximum sentence under all counts of the second superseding indictment of 102 years. The petitioner could not have mounted an effective defense to many of these charges. After his arrest, with the advice of counsel, the petitioner admitted that he was dealing in cocaine while serving both the work release and probationary portions of a sentence received for an earlier section 1202(a) conviction. He also admitted to having possessed two hand grenades and the firearms found on his business premises. Several government witnesses were available to testify about their surveillance of the petitioner and his coconspirator. Petitioner, in his motions to correct or reduce sentence or withdraw his plea of guilty, acknowledged the difficulty of his position: Defendant concedes that when the overstated and inapplicable features of the prosecution against him have been removed a not insubstantial series of short-term drug violations will remain; and as to them defendant concedes that he probably has little realistic hope of mounting an effective defense. Counsel's advice to petitioner to plead guilty rather than proceed to trial was well within the range of competence demanded of criminal attorneys.