Opinion ID: 170952
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reference to hiring counsel

Text: Next, Defendant argues that the court erred in admitting a recording of a conversation wherein he stated that he was going to need a lawyer. [4] Defendant also objects to the prosecutor's use of this evidence in closing arguments to argue that Defendant's immediate assumption that he was going to be charged with a crime and would need the assistance of an attorney was inconsistent with his defense of unwitting reliance on a third party to prepare the § 2255 motion. We conclude, however, that Defendant has waived review of this issue. Although we review for plain error a defendant's failure to make the timely assertion of a right, we do not review a claim of error that has been waived by a defendant's intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733-34, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, for instance, we will not review evidence admitted pursuant to stipulation unless the defendant can show that the stipulation constituted ineffective assistance under the test set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). United States v. Aptt, 354 F.3d 1269, 1284 (10th Cir.2004). In Lawn v. United States, 355 U.S. 339, 350-55, 78 S.Ct. 311, 2 L.Ed.2d 321 (1958), the Supreme Court held that the defendants had consciously and intentionally waived any objection to the admission of evidence when defendants' counsel used the exhibits at issue for his own purposes and then affirmatively stated that he had no objection to the evidence. In this case, Defendant's counsel specifically told the court before trial that the defense's only objection to any of the recorded conversations was the armed career criminal reference. Then, Defendant as well as the prosecution relied on the recording in which Defendant discussed hiring an attorney. [5] Although this sequence of events differs somewhat from that in Lawn, we nonetheless find Lawn controlling. As in Lawn, Defendant not only affirmatively represented that he had no objection to the admission of the evidence at issue, but he also relied on the evidence himself. As the Seventh Circuit has suggested, when a defendant's attorney  affirmatively use[s] the evidence to which he now objects as part of his theory of the case, an appellate court will be hard-pressed to interpret this as an accidental or negligent failure to raise an objection rather than a conscious waiver of the objection. United States v. Cooper, 243 F.3d 411, 417 n. 3 (7th Cir.2001). The record on appeal contains nothing from which we would conclude that defense counsel's decision to rely on the disputed evidence for his own purposes fell outside the wide range of reasonable professional assistance, see Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, and we thus find the admission of this evidence unreviewable on appeal, see Aptt, 354 F.3d at 1284-85. In so holding, we do not decide the question of ineffective assistance of counsel. We simply conclude, based on the record on appeal, that counsel's actions constituted a valid waiver of Defendant's objection to the evidence. See id. As in Aptt, Defendant's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel is a matter best considered together with any other ineffective assistance claims [he] might care to raise on collateral attack, id. at 1285, where the district court can develop a factual record, if necessary, and counsel may offer his reasons for the decision he made at trial, United States v. Nelson, 450 F.3d 1201, 1213 (10th Cir.2006). As for Defendant's related objection to the prosecutor's use of this evidence during closing arguments, we conclude that any error in the prosecutor's statements was not plain, given Defendant's waiver of any objections to the admission of this evidence and his own reliance on the evidence during closing arguments to support a different inference from that suggested by the prosecutor.