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

Heading: Time Spent by Plea Counsel on All Three Cases

Text: Mr. Ulrey wages a final assault on plea counsel’s performance by arguing that she spent insufficient time—a total of 46.4 hours—on his three cases.10 He acknowledges, however, that “there is no set standard for what amount of time is required to find [effective] representation.” Appl. for COA at 12. The CCA rejected this claim, noting, “[D]efendant does not cite to any case law, nor have we found any, that requires defense counsel or an investigator to devote a specific amount of time to the investigation of a claim. Further, plea counsel was an experienced criminal defense attorney who had been practicing in that area for eighteen years.” ROA, Vol. 1, at 630. The CCA’s decision was not an unreasonable application of Strickland or Hill. No doubt, “[t]he inadequacy of representation, resulting from insufficient time to prepare, is unquestionably a violation of defendant’s constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel.” United States v. Golub, 694 F.2d 207, 220 (10th Cir. 1982). What amount of time is sufficient, however, will vary widely. See Williams v. Washington, 59 F.3d 673, 680 (7th Cir. 1995) (“[C]ounsel is not required to spend any specific number of hours 10 In addition to plea counsel herself, plea counsel’s investigator billed 40.7 hours—10.9 hours, 4 hours, and 25.8 hours in each of the three cases, respectively. 27 preparing for trial, whether those preparations relate to investigation, witness interviews or other preparatory matters.”). A full-blown criminal trial will generally require more of defense counsel than a guilty plea. Also, an attorney’s level of experience is a relevant factor. Although it is incumbent upon counsel to conduct a “thorough investigation of law and facts,” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690, “reasonably diligent counsel may draw a line when they have good reason to think further investigation would be a waste,” Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 383 (2005). “In other words, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691. Strickland’s standard is a general one, meaning that we, on habeas review, give the CCA more leeway to reasonably adjudicate an ineffective-assistance claim. See Byrd, 645 F.3d at 1168. We cannot say the CCA’s decision here was contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. No decision of the Supreme Court—“the exclusive touchstone for clearly established federal law,” House v. Hatch, 527 F.3d 1010, 1015 (10th Cir. 2008)—sets a definitive floor on the time that reasonable plea counsel must spend in investigation, and we have not found plea counsel’s performance otherwise deficient. We conclude that the district court’s decision to deny habeas relief on this ground was proper and not debatable among reasonable jurists.11 11 In his COA application, Mr. Ulrey makes several other claims of ineffective assistance of plea counsel, none of which was presented to the CCA or in his habeas application in federal district court. The claims are thus doubly barred. First, Mr. Ulrey does not argue that he “fairly present[ed]” these claims at any point to the Colorado state (continued...) 28