Opinion ID: 185722
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: The amicus contends principally that Kriegsheim's flawedadvice constituted ineffective assistance of counsel withoutregard to whether he acted in good faith. The Governmentconcedes that the district court -- at its urging -- applied thewrong legal standard, and asks the court to remand thematter to the district court for further factual development. An attorney deprives a defendant of his constitutional rightto representation only if his performance falls below anobjective standard of reasonableness and likely affects theoutcome of the case. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668,688, 691-92 (1984). This circuit has held that a lawyer whoadvises his client whether to accept a plea offer falls belowthe threshold of reasonable performance if the lawyer makesa plainly incorrect estimate of the likely sentence due toignorance of applicable law of which he should have beenaware. United States v. Gaviria, 116 F.3d 1498, 1512 (1997). The Government, apparently due to its own inexcusableignorance of applicable law, failed in its motion opposing __________ Booze only the quantity of cocaine that had been within the scopeof the conspiratorial agreement [he] joined. Anderson, 39 F.3d at352. Booze's habeas petition to apprise the district court of thestandard set forth in Gaviria. Instead pointing to casesfrom the Seventh Circuit, the Government argued that alawyer's recommendation regarding a plea offer falls below anobjective standard of reasonableness only if the lawyer didnot 'attempt to learn the facts of the case and make a goodfaith estimate of a likely sentence.'  Opposition at 12 (quoting United States v. Martinez, 169 F.3d 1049, 1053 (7th Cir.1999)). The district court unfortunately relied upon thereason given by the Government to deny Booze's motion. The decision of the district court, based as it is upon thewrong legal standard, must be vacated because applying thecorrect legal standard could yield a shorter sentence --assuming, that is, the five-year offer was made. If the offerwas made and spurned as alleged, then Kriegsheim's advicemay have caused Booze to be sentenced to 171/2 rather than tofive years in prison. The issue remaining between the parties is whether thecourt should remand the case to the district court for anevidentiary hearing to determine whether the Governmentmade the alleged plea offer. The amicus resists that course,arguing that the Government, by opposing Booze's s 2255motion in the district court without ever disputing that itmade the offer, has waived the factual contention it now seeksto raise in an evidentiary hearing. As the amicus points out,the Government in its motion in opposition did not argue inthe alternative, that is, did not suggest that if the courtrejected its claim that Kriegsheim's performance was reasonable as a matter of law, then the court should hold anevidentiary hearing to determine whether the offer was made. The question, then, is whether the Government may beheard to ask this court to order an evidentiary hearing eventhough it failed to make that request of the district court. __________  The omission is all the more egregious because the Governmentcited Gaviria elsewhere in the same section of the motion in whichit set forth the wrong standard. Apparently government counseleither cited the case without reading all of it or knowingly ignoredits holding. This court follows the general rule [that] ... issues and legaltheories not asserted at the district court level ordinarily willnot be heard on appeal; but the court also acknowledgesthat the rule should not be applied where the obvious resultwould be a plain miscarriage of justice. United States v.TDC Mgmt. Corp., No. 01-5150, slip op. at 7 (D.C. Cir. May 3,2002); see also Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 121 (1976); Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U.S. 552, 558 (1941). Here theGovernment has indeed presented on appeal an issue --whether Booze was in fact offered the plea he claims -- it didnot assert before the district court. We shall exercise ourdiscretion to consider that issue lest a plain miscarriage ofjustice be the result. Consider: Booze is asking us to let him out of prisonbecause he would have accepted the alleged plea offer of fiveyears if only his lawyer had competently advised him. Suppose no such offer was made? To grant Booze's requestwould be to cut short Booze's 171/2-year sentence due solely tothe Government's oversight in failing to ask the district courtin the alternative for an evidentiary hearing. That would bean injustice to the public the criminal justice system issupposed to serve. The other argument advanced by the amicus need notdetain us long. The amicus maintains that Kriegsheim'ssuccessor as Booze's attorney also provided him ineffectiveassistance, this time by preparing inadequately for the resentencing hearing required by our earlier remand. The districtcourt ruled correctly, however, that Booze failed to demonstrate that his representation at that hearing was in any wayprejudicial to him. The amicus suggests only that a betterprepared lawyer could have argued more effectively thatsome of the drug transactions conducted by Michael Booze'sbrothers should not have been attributed to him. Even abetter prepared lawyer would have been making an argumentthat runs counter to the law of conspiracy; therefore, he hadno reasonable prospect of getting Booze a lower sentence. See Booze I, 108 F.3d at 384 (labeling Booze's contentionthat he should not be held accountable for drug amounts that he had not personally handled as a position that ...reflected a lack of familiarity with the principles of conspiracylaw).