Opinion ID: 801822
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Attempted-Assault Case

Text: On the evening of May 13, 2001, and into the wee hours of the following morning, three individuals—Jake Kroes, Michael Blackwell, and Amanda Applehans—observed Mr. Ulrey, in a black Volkswagen Jetta, drive by their location on a residential street in Arvada, Colorado. Mr. Blackwell suspected Mr. Ulrey of stealing his uncle’s vehicle and yelled to Mr. Ulrey to stop. Mr. Ulrey kept driving, but later turned around and again drove by the threesome, this time with his headlights off. Mr. Blackwell and Ms. Applehans jumped into Mr. Kroes’s Ford Mustang, and the three followed Mr. Ulrey through the dark streets. A few blocks later, Mr. Ulrey executed a U-turn. As he passed the Mustang traveling in the opposite direction, he trained his handgun on the vehicle and squeezed off a single shot. A bullet lodged in the Mustang’s radiator, but no one was injured. Mr. Ulrey was later charged with and pleaded guilty in the global plea agreement to attempted first-degree assault and a crime-of-violence enhancement. Mr. Ulrey’s ineffective-assistance claim with respect to this case rests on the offer of proof he made in state court. He points to seven witnesses whose statements to police or putative testimony “confirmed” that he had a “volatile relationship” with Mr. 14 Blackwell and that the three individuals in the Mustang “were chasing him with the intent to harm him.” Appl. for COA at 16. Mr. Ulrey argues that plea counsel, Ms. Heller, should have followed up with these witnesses, and had she done so, she could have articulated a viable self-defense theory at trial. Ergo, he contends, Ms. Heller was ineffective for advising him to plead guilty. The CCA rejected this claim, reasoning as follows: [A]ll seven witnesses were interviewed previously by an investigator hired by defendant’s first defense attorney [who was retained prior to Ms. Heller]. Hence, the information they possessed was already known to both defendant and plea counsel. There is no evidence that plea counsel did not read the police reports and the investigative report provided by prior defense counsel, as defendant asserts. Further, defendant does not assert that any of these witnesses would testify differently or with information different from that which they disclosed in the interviews, even if plea counsel had personally interviewed them. Additionally, the proffered testimony of the seven witnesses only shows that defendant and one of the people in the car that defendant shot at had a volatile relationship and had experienced a recent altercation. Defendant himself was aware of the relationship and the altercation, and the statements of the witnesses would not have altered or enhanced defendant’s perception of the need to defend himself. ROA, Vol. 1, at 618–19. The CCA concluded that plea counsel was not ineffective for failing to interview the proffered witnesses and that their putative testimony “would [not] have caused defendant to proceed to trial.” Id. at 619. The CCA’s factual findings are presumptively correct. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e). And an independent review of Mr. Ulrey’s offer of proof confirms the CCA’s characterization of the putative witness testimony. See State R., Vol. II, at 339–40. The 15 most that Mr. Ulrey can muster is that he had a volatile relationship with Mr. Blackwell and that the occupants of the Mustang intended to harm him. Neither fact, however, would justify Mr. Ulrey’s use of deadly force—firing a handgun—in the circumstances. See People v. Brown, 218 P.3d 733, 739 (Colo. App. 2009) (discharge of firearm, even though no person was injured, was use of deadly force). Mr. Ulrey does not allege, nor is there any evidence to suggest, that he was “in imminent danger of being killed or of receiving great bodily injury.” Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-1-704(2)(a). Simply put, selfdefense would have been a dubious theory at trial. Like the CCA, we must presume that plea counsel’s conduct was reasonable and represented “sound trial strategy”—or in this case, sound avoidance-of-trial strategy. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689 (quoting Michel v. Louisiana, 350 U.S. 91, 101 (1955)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Neither Mr. Ulrey’s arguments nor anything in the record supplies any basis for rebutting that presumption. It appears Ms. Heller “made a strategic decision that it was not viable to pursue [a self-]defense theory,” Cummings v. Sirmons, 506 F.3d 1211, 1225 (10th Cir. 2007), and for that reason, we conclude that the CCA reasonably rejected Mr. Ulrey’s ineffective-assistance claim. We thus agree with the district court that Mr. Ulrey is not entitled to habeas relief on this ground, and we further believe that reasonable jurists would not debate this conclusion.