Opinion ID: 801822
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Drug Case

Text: On October 2, 2001, Mr. Ulrey was riding in the passenger seat of a Chevrolet Blazer driven by his cousin, Richard Ruybal. The Blazer belonged to third parties Harold 16 and Pattie Courtney. An Arvada Police Department officer stopped the vehicle for a traffic violation and discovered that Mr. Ruybal had an outstanding arrest warrant. He took Mr. Ruybal into custody and found a loaded handgun on his person, concealed in a crotch holster. Two more officers arrived on the scene, and Mr. Ulrey was taken into custody. A loaded handgun, later found to be stolen, was discovered beneath the passenger seat where Mr. Ulrey was sitting. A search of two backpacks located in the vehicle uncovered methamphetamine and a disassembled methamphetamine lab. One of the backpacks contained Mr. Ulrey’s driver’s license. Mr. Ruybal was subsequently convicted of one count of possession of a schedule II controlled substance and one count of being a special offender. He received an eight-year sentence. Thereafter, Mr. Ulrey, having been likewise charged, pleaded guilty in the global plea agreement to possession of a schedule II controlled substance and a specialoffender enhancement for gun possession. Mr. Ulrey’s offer of proof with respect to this case consists of the putative testimony of five witnesses, whose statements, according to Mr. Ulrey, tend to show that the possession charge was unsubstantiated. He faults plea counsel for failing to follow up with these witnesses and failing to take account of the outcome of Mr. Ruybal’s trial. The CCA rejected Mr. Ulrey’s claim. It found that the interviews of two of the proffered witnesses were provided to plea counsel and “merely showed that the backpack in which drugs were found might not have been defendant’s, and that other persons had access to the vehicle besides defendant and his cousin.” ROA, Vol. 1, at 619. This “was 17 consistent with the information defendant already had.” Id. at 620. The other three witnesses “would have testified that defendant lost his wallet and was looking for it at the home of the vehicle owner and that persons other than defendant also had access to the backpacks.” Id. This information, too, “was already known to defendant before he pleaded guilty.” Id. The CCA further found, based on plea counsel’s testimony at the Rule 32(d) hearing, that counsel adequately investigated the facts of this case and reasonably concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict. See id. at 620–21. Finally, with respect to Mr. Ruybal, the CCA noted that he had been convicted of “the same counts to which defendant agreed to plead guilty” and that Mr. Ulrey “does not assert that he could have called his cousin to testify that all the weapons belonged to him, or that the cousin would voluntarily have testified.” Id. at 621. The CCA concluded that Mr. Ulrey had failed to “assert sufficient facts to support his contention that plea counsel’s investigation, on which she based her recommendation, was inadequate.” Id. The CCA’s factual findings are presumed correct. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e). And an independent review of Mr. Ulrey’s offer of proof confirms that the proffered witnesses’ testimony would have been tepid at best. Rebecca Anderson would have testified that one of the backpacks belonged to Mr. Ruybal. State R., Vol. II, at 341. Daniel Courtney would have testified that one of the backpacks belonged to Mr. Ruybal and that he could not specifically identify the other as belonging to Mr. Ulrey. Id. at 342. Khampa Keodonexay would have testified that Mr. Ulrey lost his wallet the day before the incident and that other people had access to the backpacks. Id. Keith Werkheiser 18 would have testified that he helped Mr. Ulrey look for his wallet the previous day. Id. at 342–43. And Mr. Ulrey’s mother would have testified that a month before the incident, she observed “several types of backpacks” at Daniel Courtney’s apartment. Id. at 343. None of this evidence, however, undercuts counsel’s presumptively reasonable judgment that the evidence was sufficient to convict and that it was better for Mr. Ulrey to plead guilty rather than proceed to trial. The CCA’s conclusion to the same effect was not an unreasonable application of Strickland or Hill. Mr. Ulrey points us to Mr. Ruybal’s sentence of eight years, in contrast to the twenty years he received on the same charges. He contends that reasonable counsel, aware of Mr. Ruybal’s shorter sentence, would not have advised him to plead guilty to a longer one. But Mr. Ulrey mistakes what happened here. He entered a global plea agreement, and his attorney and the prosecution agreed to a sentencing range—thirty to fifty years—that encompassed all three cases. It was the trial court that subsequently imposed a separate sentence of twenty years for the possession offense, to run concurrently with his thirty-eight-year sentence for attempted murder and his twenty-year sentence for attempted assault. The relevant question, then, is whether counsel unreasonably advised Mr. Ulrey to plead guilty to the possession charge as part of the global plea agreement. In that regard, nothing that Mr. Ulrey has offered suggests that counsel’s recommendation was unreasonable. Furthermore, even if that recommendation was unreasonable, Mr. Ulrey would have to establish prejudice under Hill. To do so, he would have to show a reasonable 19 probability that, but for counsel’s erroneous advice, he would have rejected the global plea agreement—or, at least, would not have pleaded guilty to possession as part of the global plea agreement—and would have insisted on going to trial on a separate possession charge. See Hill, 474 U.S. at 59. But in light of Mr. Ruybal’s conviction and the weak defense testimony that Mr. Ulrey proffers, the prospect of success at trial would have been dim, and we think it highly unlikely, and thus not reasonably probable, that he would have insisted on a trial in place of his guilty plea.6 Accordingly, we agree with the district court that the CCA’s decision to reject this ineffective-assistance claim was not unreasonable and that Mr. Ulrey is not entitled to habeas relief on this ground. We further find that this conclusion is not debatable among jurists of reason.