Court Opinion

ID: 9400798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-09 15:00:51.521687+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:47.976901
License: Public Domain

21-2304-cr
     United States v. Lauria (Rodriguez)

                              UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                  FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                           SUMMARY ORDER
     RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
     SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY
     FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1.
     WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST
     CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION
     “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON
     ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

 1          At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held
 2   at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New
 3   York, on the 9th day of June, two thousand twenty-three.
 4
 5   PRESENT:
 6              PIERRE N. LEVAL,
 7              REENA RAGGI,
 8              MYRNA PÉREZ,
 9                    Circuit Judges.
10   _____________________________________
11
12   UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
13
14                                Appellee,
15
16                      v.
17
18   ANTHONY LAURIA,                                               No. 21-2304-cr
19
20                                Defendant,
21
22   BRIAN RODRIGUEZ,
23
24                                Defendant-Appellant.
25   _____________________________________
26
27   APPEARING FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: Bernard Kleinman, Law Office of Bernard V.
28                                      Kleinman, PLLC, Somers, New York.
29
 1   APPEARING FOR APPELLEE:                              Lindsey Keenan, Assistant United States
 2                                                        Attorney (Karl Metzner, Assistant United
 3                                                        States Attorney, on the brief) for Damian
 4                                                        Williams, United States Attorney for the
 5                                                        Southern District of New York, New York,
 6                                                        New York.
 7
 8          Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of

 9   New York (Nelson S. Román, Judge).

10          UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

11   DECREED that the judgment of the district court entered on July 16, 2021, is AFFIRMED.

12          Defendant Brian Rodriguez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit Hobbs

13   Act robbery, wire fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen goods and one count of brandishing

14   a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence and aiding and abetting the same based

15   primarily on his participation in two armed robberies of Verizon Wireless stores. See 18 U.S.C.

16   §§ 371, 924(c)(1)(A)(ii) & 2. Sentenced to a total prison term of 132 months, Rodriguez appeals

17   his § 924(c) firearm conviction, arguing that (1) his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance;

18   and (2) the district court erred in accepting his plea, which lacked a sufficient basis in fact. We

19   assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and record of the underlying proceedings, which we

20   reference only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

21   1.     Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Claim

22          Rodriguez argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate whether the

23   gun used in the commission of the subject robberies was a “firearm” within the meaning of

24   § 924(c), as opposed to, for instance, a toy gun or BB gun. See 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3) (defining

25   “firearm”). The Supreme Court has confirmed that “the two-part Strickland v. Washington test

26   applies to challenges to guilty pleas based on ineffective assistance of counsel,” Hill v. Lockhart,

                                                      2
 1   474 U.S. 52, 58 (1985), which requires a defendant to demonstrate both that his attorney’s

 2   “representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness” and that these deficiencies

 3   were “prejudicial to the defense,” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688, 692 (1984). “To

 4   satisfy the second prong of Strickland in the context of plea negotiations, the defendant must show

 5   that there is a reasonable probability that were it not for counsel’s errors, he would not have pled

 6   guilty and would have proceeded to trial.” United States v. Arteca, 411 F.3d 315, 320 (2d Cir.

 7   2005).

 8            Rodriguez contends that a reasonably competent attorney would have conducted the above-

 9   described investigation and thereby uncovered evidence that the gun in question was not a

10   “firearm.” Rodriguez maintains that if he had been aware of such evidence, he would not have

11   pleaded guilty to the § 924(c) charge given its harsh mandatory consecutive sentence. See 18

12   U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii) (providing mandatory 7-year prison term to run consecutively to term

13   imposed on underlying violent crime); see also Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. at 59 (“[W]here the

14   alleged error of counsel is a failure to investigate or discover potentially exculpatory evidence, the

15   determination whether the error ‘prejudiced’ the defendant by causing him to plead guilty rather

16   than go to trial will depend on the likelihood that discovery of the evidence would have led counsel

17   to change his recommendation as to the plea.”).

18            We decline to consider this argument on direct appeal.         As the Supreme Court has

19   instructed, “in most cases a motion brought under [28 U.S.C.] § 2255 is preferable to direct appeal

20   for deciding claims of ineffective assistance.” Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500, 504

21   (2003). As we explained in United States v. Salameh, 152 F.3d 88 (2d Cir. 1998), this is because

22   the constitutional sufficiency of counsel in the district court proceeding is “usually unripe” for

                                                       3
 1   review on appeal, id. at 160. Counsel in the trial court rarely accuse themselves of constitutional

 2   inadequacy; accordingly, the trial court proceedings usually do not contain a record on this issue

 3   that would be adequate for review on appeal. This court has therefore held that “[w]e may

 4   entertain an ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim on direct appeal in a narrow category of

 5   cases where: (1) . . . the defendant has a new counsel on appeal; and (2) argues no ground of

 6   ineffectiveness that is not fully developed in the trial record.” United States v. Gahagen, 44 F.4th

 7   99, 107 (2d Cir. 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted). While Rodriguez does have new

 8   counsel on appeal, the record before this court is bereft of any reference to potential exculpatory

 9   evidence or to what, if any, investigatory efforts were made by Rodriguez’s trial counsel as to the

10   charged firearm. Indeed, Rodriguez’s appellate counsel confirmed as much at oral argument.

11   See Oral Arg. Tr. 5:9–12 (confirming there exists no “evidence that [trial] counsel had not satisfied

12   himself that [gun in question] was a firearm”).

13           Rodriguez’s ineffective assistance claim thus does not fall within the “narrow category” of

14   claims that can be resolved on direct appeal, United States v. Gahagen, 44 F.4th at 107, and we

15   decline to address it.

16   2.      Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(b) Claim

17           Rodriguez argues that his guilty plea to the § 924(c) charge was not supported by the

18   evidence because Rodriguez did not personally brandish the gun in question, and he cannot be

19   guilty of that substantive crime on the theory of co-conspirator culpability recognized in Pinkerton

20   v. United States, 328 U.S. 640 (1946). See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(b)(3). Because Rodriguez did

21   not raise a Rule 11 objection to his plea before the district court, our review is limited to plain

                                                       4
 1   error. See United States v. Adams, 955 F.3d 238, 245 (2d Cir. 2020). We find no error, plain or

 2   otherwise.

 3          Rodriguez was not charged with a § 924(c) violation based on a Pinkerton theory; rather,

 4   Rodriguez was charged as an aider-and-abettor. See 18 U.S.C. § 2. “An active participant in a

 5   [crime of violence] has the intent needed to aid and abet a § 924(c) violation when he knows that

 6   one of his confederates will carry a gun.” Rosemond v. United States, 572 U.S. 65, 77 (2014).

 7   Accordingly, when Rodriguez allocuted before the district court that he “conspired together with

 8   Anthony Lauria and Anthony Molina in robbing a cell phone store in Mahopac, New York,” that

 9   he “knew that a firearm would be used in furtherance of the conspiracy,” and that “a firearm was,

10   in fact, brandished during the robbery,” App’x 97, he supplied a sufficient factual basis for his

11   conviction under §§ 924(c) and 2.

12   3.     Conclusion

13          We have considered Rodriguez’s remaining arguments and reject them as without merit.

14   Accordingly, the judgment of conviction entered by the district court is AFFIRMED.

15
16                                               FOR THE COURT:
17                                               Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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