Opinion ID: 6345771
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mr. Swan’s arguments

Text: Mr. Swan takes issue with excluding the delay attributable to the withdrawal of his first court-appointed attorney, Melanie Gavisk. See COA Appl. at 5. Ms. Gavisk entered an appearance on January 2, 2019, but on January 28 she filed a motion to withdraw based on a confidential conflict of interest with another client. Mr. Swan questions whether Ms. Gavisk should have been appointed initially if she had a conflict, and he argues that her withdrawal was not his fault. Because Ms. Gavisk stated in her motion to withdraw that she had only recently discovered the conflict, see ROA, Vol. 1 at 54, Mr. Swan’s argument fails to persuade us that reasonable jurists would find the district court’s disposition of the Speedy Trial Act theory of ineffective assistance debatable. And even if we assume this delay was not attributable to Mr. Swan, the seven-month overall delay was still not presumptively unreasonable under the Sixth Amendment Barker analysis. Mr. Swan also questions why his third court-appointed attorney, Craig Silva, had more time for trial preparation than his other appointed attorneys. See COA Appl. at 7. But Mr. Swan fails to account for an April 30, 2019 status conference to reschedule the trial. See ROA, Vol. 3 at 668-75. At that conference, the district court considered Mr. Silva’s estimate that he would need until July to prepare, id. at 670, and it addressed various difficulties in scheduling the trial for earlier in July, see id. at 671-72 (discussing criminal trials already set, unavailability of prosecution witnesses, defense counsel’s 8 Appellate Case: 21-8071 Document: 010110691385 Date Filed: 06/01/2022 Page: 9 medical appointment). Reasonable jurists would not debate that affording Mr. Silva three months to prepare for trial violated the Speedy Trial Act or the Sixth Amendment. We deny a COA on Mr. Swan’s speedy trial ineffective assistance claim. 2. Counsel’s Failure to Challenge Denial of Suppression Motion a. Probable cause for GPS warrants Mr. Swan claimed appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the district court’s order denying his suppression motion. The district court first concluded that Mr. Swan had not shown deficient performance because there was a substantial basis to find probable cause for the warrants that allowed law enforcement to attach the GPS tracking devices to his vehicles. See id., Vol. 5 at 105-06.6 The court therefore concluded that appellate counsel’s failure to challenge the order was not deficient performance. But even if probable cause was lacking, the district court observed that Mr. Swan had not challenged its application of the good faith exception identified in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984).7 ROA, Vol. 5 at 106. Thus even if counsel’s failure to raise the probable cause issue on appeal could be considered deficient performance, Mr. Swan had not shown Strickland prejudice. 6 See United States v. Perrine, 518 F.3d 1196, 1201 (10th Cir. 2008) (setting out deferential substantial basis standard for review of an issuing judge’s probable cause determination). 7 In Leon, 468 U.S. at 922-23, the Supreme Court recognized an exception to the suppression remedy if an officer acted with an objective good faith belief that a judge properly issued the warrant. 9 Appellate Case: 21-8071 Document: 010110691385 Date Filed: 06/01/2022 Page: 10 Mr. Swan argues that because there had been no illegal conduct observed when the first GPS device was attached to the Yukon, there was no probable cause for the second warrant that allowed a GPS device to be attached to the Suburban. This argument overlooks that the affidavit supporting the application for the second warrant stated that use of the first GPS device revealed activity consistent with drug trafficking. See ROA, Vol. 1 at 145. Mr. Swan fails to establish that reasonable jurists would debate whether appellate counsel was ineffective in failing to challenge the denial of the suppression motion on this basis. And he wholly fails to address the district court’s alternative § 2255 conclusion regarding its ruling on the Leon good faith exception. b. Traffic stop Mr. Swan fares no better in arguing that appellate counsel was ineffective in failing to challenge the district court’s denial of the suppression motion based on the legality of the traffic stop. In its order denying the suppression motion, the court determined that the initial stop was justified by both a suspected traffic violation confirmed by dashcam video of the stop (the Suburban’s tinted rear window obscured the temporary registration permit) and reasonable suspicion that Mr. Swan possessed controlled substances. See id. at 161-65. The court therefore determined appellate counsel was not ineffective in failing to challenge the constitutionality of the stop. In seeking a COA, Mr. Swan addresses only the traffic violation, arguing the stop was illegal because the officer who stopped him knew the vehicle was registered to him, so the inability to read the tag was an unlawful reason to stop him. Mr. Swan appears to be suggesting that the officer’s inability to read the registration tag was not the true 10 Appellate Case: 21-8071 Document: 010110691385 Date Filed: 06/01/2022 Page: 11 motivation for the stop. But subjective motives do not bear on the “constitutional reasonableness” of a traffic stop. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996); see United States v. Botero-Ospina, 71 F.3d 783, 787 (10th Cir. 1995) (en banc). And, as the district court explained, because “the traffic stop was justified from its inception, any pretextual nature of the stop did not impact [Mr.] Swan’s Fourth Amendment rights.” ROA, Vol. 5 at 107. More importantly, Mr. Swan fails to challenge the alternative basis for the stop—reasonable suspicion he possessed illegal drugs. He therefore has not shown he is entitled to a COA to challenge appellate counsel’s effectiveness concerning the traffic stop. 3. Counsel’s Failure to Challenge the Sufficiency of the Evidence In his § 2255 filings, Mr. Swan claimed that on direct appeal, appellate counsel should have challenged the sufficiency of the evidence. The district court denied relief on this claim because, when viewed in the light most favorable to the Government, the evidence was sufficient for the jury to find Mr. Swan guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (holding that sufficient evidence exists to support a conviction if, “after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt”). Mr. Swan makes three arguments in his brief to this court. First, he observes, correctly, that there was no fingerprint or DNA evidence.8 “But Jackson does not require such evidence to sustain a criminal conviction.” Matthews v. 8 There was testimony that no tests for fingerprints or DNA were run on items found in the Suburban (cell phones, gun, ammunition, drug packaging, scales, lockbox), 11 Appellate Case: 21-8071 Document: 010110691385 Date Filed: 06/01/2022 Page: 12 Workman, 577 F.3d 1175, 1185 (10th Cir. 2009). “[T]he focus of a Jackson inquiry is not on what evidence is missing from the record, but whether the evidence in the record, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, is sufficient for any rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. Second, Mr. Swan asserts that he was not the person seen getting in and out of the Suburban in Aurora. This appears to concern the testimony of an officer who observed the driver of the Suburban exit the vehicle at the Aurora apartment complex and then get back in some ten minutes later. Because it was dark and the officer was about 20 feet away, he could not tell if the driver was Mr. Swan. See ROA, Vol. 3 at 380-83. Other evidence, however, showed that Mr. Swan was the sole occupant of the Suburban as it traveled south from Cheyenne to the Aurora apartment complex and back to Cheyenne, where police stopped it and arrested Mr. Swan. See id. at 394-97 (mobile surveillance officer testifying that about one hour before the Suburban arrived at the Aurora apartment complex, it drove up next to him on the highway traveling southbound and Mr. Swan was the only occupant); id. at 328-29 (testimony of officer who monitored GPS tracking that Mr. Swan’s car went directly from Aurora apartment to Cheyenne with only a brief roadside stop); id. at 243 (Cheyenne police officer testifying that Mr. Swan was the driver and sole occupant of the Suburban when it was pulled over). ROA, Vol. 3 at 267-68, 276-77, 280, 284-85, 353-54, 365, and that at the time of trial, a fingerprint analysis of the original packaging of the methamphetamine had not been finished, id. at 482. 12 Appellate Case: 21-8071 Document: 010110691385 Date Filed: 06/01/2022 Page: 13 Third, Mr. Swan argues there was no proof he used either of two cell phones seized from his car, so the jury should not have been allowed to see the cell phone messages. This argument lacks merit. The messages on one of the cell phones supported that the cell phone user was engaged in drug trafficking. See id. at 526-28. As already noted, sufficient evidence showed that throughout the trip from Cheyenne to Aurora and back again, Mr. Swan was the sole occupant of the Suburban, and that during the trip, a number of the messages at issue were sent or received. See id. at 339-40, 349-50. The phone was on the dashboard and plugged in. See id. at 248-49. A photo of Mr. Swan was on the phone, see id. at 423, 454, and the phone contained evidence of communications between the phone and a person Mr. Swan later telephoned while he was in custody, see id. at 334, 452. At trial, the court ruled that the Government established by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Swan had used the phone, so admission of the messages was proper. See United States v. Brinson, 772 F.3d 1314, 1320 (10th Cir. 2014) (“Proponents of the evidence need only show by a preponderance of the evidence that the opposing party had made the statement.”). In sum, because Mr. Swan’s three arguments lack merit, reasonable jurists would not debate the district court’s denial of Mr. Swan’s claim that appellate counsel was ineffective in failing to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence.