Opinion ID: 1199736
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: whether counsel's conduct was deficient

Text: On AEDPA review, we may only issue a writ of habeas corpus when the state court unreasonably applies clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); see also Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 127 S.Ct. 649, 654, 166 L.Ed.2d 482 (2006); Clark v. Murphy, 331 F.3d 1062, 1069 (9th Cir.2003). For an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the clearly established Federal law that governs is Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), which sets forth a two-step inquiry. In order to establish ineffective representation, the defendant must overcome a highly demanding standard and prove both incompetence and prejudice. Kimmelman, 477 U.S. at 381-82, 106 S.Ct. 2574. [1] The majority finds that counsel was deficient on two grounds: Moore's statement to the police should have been suppressed, first, because it was involuntary and, second, because it was obtained in violation of Miranda. Oddly, the district court's finding that Moore's confession was involuntary is not challenged by the state on appeal, and I agree with the majority that the question of voluntariness therefore is not properly before us. See Maj. Op. at 1138-39. I note that, were the issue preserved, a persuasive argument could be made that the confession was in fact given voluntarily. However, since the state-inexplicably [2]  has not pressed this issue on appeal, I proceed on the assumption that Moore has demonstrated that his confession was involuntarily given. [3] Even conceding that the state has failed to challenge the involuntariness finding, I cannot concede that counsel's failure to move to suppress necessarily constitutes deficient conduct. It cannot be, as the majority today holds, that because counsel could have filed such a motion, he must have filed the motion. This proposition runs directly counter to clearly established Supreme Court precedent, namely McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 25 L.Ed.2d 763 (1970). The Court in McMann considered those situations involving the counseled defendant who allegedly would put the State to its proof ... except for a prior confession that might be offered against him.... At least the probability of the State's being permitted to use the confession as evidence is sufficient to convince him that the State's case is too strong to contest and that a plea of guilty is the most advantageous course. Id. at 767-69, 90 S.Ct. 1441. Of these situations, the Court had this to say: [A defendant's] later petition for collateral relief asserting that a coerced confession induced his plea is at most a claim that the admissibility of his confession was mistakenly assessed and that since he was erroneously advised ... his plea was an unintelligent and voidable act. The Constitution, however, does not render pleas of guilty so vulnerable. ... In our view a defendant's plea of guilty based on reasonably competent advice is an intelligent plea not open to attack on the ground that counsel may have misjudged the admissibility of the defendant's confession. Whether a plea of guilty is unintelligent and therefore vulnerable when motivated by a confession erroneously thought admissible in evidence depends as an initial matter, not on whether a court would retrospectively consider counsel's advice to be right or wrong, but on whether that advice was within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in criminal cases. Id. 769, 770-71, 90 S.Ct. 1441 (second and third emphasis added). McMann is on all fours with Moore's claim. [4] Moore asserts that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to file a motion to suppress Moore's confession and that he would not have pled no contest to felony murder if he had received competent assistance from counsel. Although filing the suppression motion might seem like a good tactical move now, accepting the state's plea bargain was the strategic thing to do, knowing what counsel knew at the time. Indeed, counsel's obligation to explain the risks of trial in light of a plea offer is far more nuanced than the majority's new mandatory scorched-earth-litigation strategy. Moore's trial counsel has carefully explained by affidavit his reasons for not filing the motion to suppress: I did not fail to review [Moore's] statement to the police. I read it many times and discussed it at length and in detail with Mr. Moore. He affirmed to me that it was true, and that it was accurate. I did not file a Motion to Suppress. My reasons for doing this were two-fold. First of all, [Moore's] interview with the police, which was taped and transcribed... makes it abundantly clear that Mr. Moore was not in custody. He never believed that he was in custody and admitted to me that he realized he was not in custody when he and his brothers and another friend voluntarily came to the police department to give the recorded statement.... [I]n the second place, he had previously made a full confession to his brother [Raymond] and to Ms. [Debbie] Ziegler, either one of whom could have been called as a witness at any time to repeat his confession in full detail.... Counsel explained to Moore, as any competent counsel would, that there was a possibility that the state might charge Moore with aggravated murder because [t]he victim in this case had been assaulted, bloodied, bound with duct tape, placed in the trunk of a car, taken to an isolated rural location, marched into the woods while still bound, and shot. Furthermore, the victim had an extremely large protruding abdominal hernia for which he always wore a truss. I discussed with Mr. Moore the possibility that if he were ever charged with aggravated murder that the jury might, after taking into account all of the facts of the case, conceivably find that he had engaged in torture of a helpless and somewhat disabled victim. For this and other reasons, counsel feared severe consequences if his client went to trial: Mr. Moore always claimed his actual shooting of the victim was an accident, but there was never the smallest doubt that it occurred during a kidnap[sic] which began with an assault. We discussed at length the felony murder rule. We also discussed at length the fact that he had not yet been indicted for any conduct and that it was possible that when an indictment came down from the grand jury, it could be for any charge up to ... aggravated murder.... I discussed at great length with Mr. Moore the definitions of aggravated murder, murder, and felony murder. I did tell Mr. Moore that if he were charged with aggravated murder and if the jury decided that murder had been committed under [OR. REV. STAT. § ]163.095(e), in the course of or as a result of intentional maiming or torture, that it was not impossible that he might be convicted of aggravated murder.... I frankly believed if we went to trial he would be found guilty of assault, kidnapping, and murder (as was his codefendant, Roy Salyer, who chose trial as an option),[ [5] ] but I did not presume to tell Mr. Moore what he should do. I only told him what I thought the result would be of the various choices he had before him. I explained to Mr. Moore that if he chose not to accept the offer which the State had made to him, I expected that the district attorney would charge him with assault in the first degree, kidnapping, and murder,[ [6] ] and would go to trial on those charges. At no time during our association did I ever tell Mr. Moore what he should do. I only explained to Mr. Moore as carefully as I could what I thought the result would be of his actions if he chose one option or another. A conviction of aggravated murder, of course, would have subjected Moore to the possibility of the death penalty or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. See OR. REV. STAT. § 163.105(1)(a). Given the strength of the evidence facing Moore, it is not surprising to learn that counsel and Moore decided to attempt to secure the best possible resolution of the case or that counsel, who had nearly three decades of criminal defense experience, thought the plea was the best we could do under the circumstances. These strong and obvious strategic reasons to take the plea and forego the suppression motion are protected under Strickland, see 466 U.S. at 681, 104 S.Ct. 2052 ([S]trategic choices must be respected in these circumstances if they are based on professional judgment.), especially because Moore was so obviously seeking to save himself the expense and agony of a trial and perhaps also to minimize the penalty that might be imposed.  McMann, 397 U.S. at 767-68, 90 S.Ct. 1441 (emphasis added). The majority's opinion sweeps all of these factors away. Had the majority been advising Moore at the time, they might have come to a different conclusion. But even accepting the majority's morning-after conclusion that counsel misjudged the admissibility of the defendant's confession, McMann, 397 U.S. at 770, 90 S.Ct. 1441, Moore is not entitled to habeas relief. See id. at 770-71, 90 S.Ct. 1441. The majority limits its consideration of counsel's explanation to a mere two paragraphs of the trial counsel's affidavit and refuses to consider many of the reasons that trial counsel gave for pursuing the plea bargain instead of going forward with a trial preparation strategy. The majority erroneously believes that trial counsel offered only two reasons to justify his advice to Moore: (1) because he concluded Moore was not in custody at the time of the confession and (2) because Moore had given a full confession to two other people. See Maj. Op. at 1130, 1137, 1138, 1140-41 & n. 12. The majority summarily concludes that there is no evidence that Moore wanted to press the case to early resolution and, therefore, trial counsel could not have made a reasoned strategic choice to not file the suppression motion so as not ... to upend plea negotiations. Weaver v. Palmateer, 455 F.3d 958, 972 (9th Cir.2006); see Maj. Op. at 1140-41. The extensive portions of the affidavit already quoted make clear that counsel's advice to forego the motion and take the plea was based on numerous considerations other than these two factors. But see Maj. Op. at 1141-43. And other portions of the affidavit demonstrate that plea negotiations were front and center in both Moore's and trial counsel's mind. Trial counsel reported that Moore indicated his willingness to testify against a co-defendant, which is surely the type of consideration defense counsel weighs during plea negotiations. Two entire paragraphs of the affidavit, paragraphs 13 and 14, discuss how Moore was more worried about the plea agreement that was offered to his brother, Lonnie Woolheiser, than he was about his own plea agreement. [7] Another entire paragraph establishes that trial counsel discussed at great length whether it was in [Moore's] best interest to try to press the case to early resolution. (emphasis added). The majority's assertion that there is no suggestion, let alone any evidence, that Moore expressed a desire to plead guilty and avoid trial, or to forego the filing of his meritorious suppression motion, prior to counsel's decision not to file [a suppression] motion, Maj. Op. at 1143 n. 16, ignores the reality of the record evidence. [8] This kind of meticulous, informed representation, provided by an attorney who had decades of criminal defense experience, does not show that counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052; McMann, 397 U.S. at 767-71, 90 S.Ct. 1441. More importantly for purposes of this appeal, the state court's decision that it did not constitute deficient representation was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the holdings of the Supreme Court. The majority's attempt to parse counsel's advice on whether to take the plea into two distinct decisions  first, whether to file a motion to suppress the confession, and second, whether to accept the offered plea bargain  reflects an almost willful ignorance of the record evidence and the realities of criminal defense representation. See Maj. Op. at 1140-44. As counsel's declaration makes clear, see Maj. Op. App. B, the decision not to file the suppression motion and the decision to take the plea necessarily informed each other. In fact, trial counsel's affidavit demonstrates that the two decisions  whether to file a motion to suppress and how to advise Moore on the plea  were made contemporaneously. Moore was never indicted, but he pled no contest to an information negotiated as part of the plea. Counsel simply could not have moved to suppress a confession at any time before the plea, unless the majority means to find counsel ineffective for not threatening to file such a motion in the plea negotiations. The net effect of the majority's approach is pernicious: Instead of deciding whether counsel's conduct fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, the majority asks whether the motion had merit and collapses the entire first step of Strickland into the question of prejudice. see Maj. Op. at 1138 ([O]ur inquiry with respect to deficient performance substantially overlaps with our inquiry regarding prejudice.). In doing so, it largely ignores the obvious strategic reasons detailed in counsel's affidavit that counsel had to advise Moore to take the plea, and the dispositive question becomes whether the motion to suppress had merit. Paired with the majority's unprecedented reading of Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991), see Maj. Op. at 1146 ( Fulminante stands for the proposition that the admission of an additional confession ordinarily ... is therefore prejudicial.), which I address in detail infra, the implication is that if the motion had merit, then counsel was obligated to bring it, irrespective of any other considerations or strategy. It forces defense counsel to file any motions to suppress a confession that a panel of federal judges later might determine to be meritorious, lest the court of appeals find that counsel failed to recognize the clear merit of that motion or to assess properly the damaging nature of the tape-recorded formal confession. Maj. Op. at 1140. The majority's application of the Strickland standard does not accord with the realities of defending a criminal defendant. Defense counsel must balance competing factors when selecting a defense strategy: for example, the likelihood of success on the motion to suppress, the likelihood of prevailing at trial given the other available evidence, the deal that the state is offering, the potential penalties that a defendant can avoid by taking an offered deal, and, of course, the defendant's own wishes. Strickland gave wide latitude to counsel to avoid unhelpful judicial nosiness in plea negotiations: No particular set of detailed rules for counsel's conduct can satisfactorily take account of the variety of circumstances faced by defense counsel or the range of legitimate decisions regarding how best to represent a criminal defendant. Any such set of rules would interfere with the constitutionally protected independence of counsel and restrict the wide latitude counsel must have in making tactical decisions. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688-89, 104 S.Ct. 2052. A requirement that defense counsel file any potentially meritorious pre-trial motions or risk being found incompetent on collateral review will skew plea negotiations where the considerations promoting negotiation include whether the defendant will file a motion to suppress. If, in response to the majority's new rule, counsel must file all motions, defense counsel loses a bargaining chip and will almost certainly face a much less cooperative prosecutor. And if defense counsel loses the motion to suppress, counsel will be in a much weaker bargaining position when he returns to the negotiation table. In those cases, the post-motion deal will nearly always be worse than the pre-motion deal. [9] The majority would leapfrog over all of those considerations  if the motion to suppress had merit, then counsel must bring it (even if counsel does not think it will serve the client's best interests). Strickland and its progeny simply do not allow this new presumption of deficient conduct whenever a potentially meritorious suppression motion might have been filed  least of all in habeas proceedings governed by AEDPA.