Court Opinion

ID: 9487685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:23:42.498402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:25.661062
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
There is no good reason to remand the case for a determination of whether Nagib received ineffective assistance of counsel in his first appeal. Plainly he did. It makes no sense to spin this case out longer.
After Nagib’s appeal was dismissed as untimely, he filed a motion for postconvietion relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, arguing that his original lawyer had been guilty of ineffective assistance of counsel in failing to perfect the appeal. The district judge granted the motion on the ground that failure to perfect an appeal is ineffective assistance per se, so prejudice to the client need not be shown. The judge then resentenced Nagib so that he could file a timely appeal. Decisions by this court discussed in Judge Wellford’s opinion cast doubt on the soundness of the per se rule, and I shall assume that it is unsound. Nevertheless the judge acted correctly in allowing Nagib in effect to take an untimely appeal if there was ineffective assistance of counsel as a matter of fact in the first round. It might seem obvious that there was if the lawyer’s failure to take a timely appeal was prejudicial to Nagib — which is to say if Na-gib might have prevailed on appeal had that lawyer been competent — unless Nagib was somehow personally responsible for his lawyer’s dropping the ball, which seems highly implausible. I shall have to consider the possibility because of the emphasis that Judge Wellford’s opinion places on it, but I defer my discussion of it to the end of this opinion.
I suppose that it is conceivable that the lawyer was behaving strategically — that he filed an untimely appeal in the expectation that Nagib would somehow do better if he could postpone the date on which his appeal came before this court. But this is so highly implausible, given the risk of forfeiture, that I shall pursue it no further. Another speculation concerning a possible strategic dimension to the lawyer’s behavior has surfaced in the portion of the majority opinion that replies to this dissent. It is that Nagib’s lawyer made a “strategic decision to file a motion to reconsider the sentence on the very last day available under Rule 4(b).” This is a most implausible suggestion too. The previous opinion, the one dismissing Nagib’s appeal as untimely, had called the failure of Nagib’s lawyer to file a timely appeal not strategic, but “inexplicable.” 936 F.2d at 295. Judge Wellford’s opinion itself describes the action of Nagib’s lawyer as an “error,” as “ill-advised,” and as “ ‘drop[ping] the ball.’” The lawyer persuaded the district court that the appeal had been untimely because he was not knowledgeable about the federal rules of criminal procedure. We have no ground for disbelieving the lawyer, and if he is truthful there can be no basis for an inference that he was acting strategically.
Nor is there any basis for a conclusion that the lawyer’s assistance to Nagib, when viewed as a totality, might have been effective despite his having booted the appeal. The only issue before us is whether Nagib received ineffective assistance on appeal, and no one contends that ineffective assistance on appeal could be excused by the lawyer’s having rendered brilliant though unavailing assistance at trial. If appellate counsel renders ineffective assistance, he deprives his client of the client’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel, Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 396, 105 S.Ct. 830, 836, 83 L.Ed.2d 821 (1985); Hollenback v. United States, 987 F.2d 1272, 1275 (7th Cir.1993); Gray v. Greer, 800 F.2d 644, 646 (7th Cir.1986), regardless of how skillfully he conducted the defense at trial; and the proper remedy is to allow a new appeal. Page v. United States, 884 F.2d 300, 302 (7th Cir.1989).
It is apparent that Nagib was prejudiced by his lawyer’s failure to perfect the original appeal. It is true that when that appeal was before a panel of this court (along with the *624appeal of a eodefendant), the panel, after finding the appeal untimely, remarked, “Lest all of this be a prelude to a collateral attack based on ineffective assistance of counsel, we add that the appeal was going nowhere on the merits. We would not have reversed even were we possessed of jurisdiction.” United States v. Dumont, 936 F.2d 292, 295 (7th Cir.1991). This was dictum and, with all due respect, it is incorrect. For at Nagib’s trial the district judge had admitted prior “bad acts” evidence without making any finding that the evidence was both probative and not unduly prejudicial. The omission was potentially a serious one because, as the judge himself acknowledged, the case against Nagib was a close one. And the point was raised in Nagib’s original appeal; more on this later.
Yet the fact that Nagib was prejudiced by his lawyer’s failure to perfect the original appeal does not by itself establish ineffective assistance of counsel. Ineffective assistance has two elements. Prejudice is the second. The first is that the lawyer failed to come up to minimum standards of competent representation. It is tempting to elide careful inquiry into the presence of this element in a case such as this where the lawyer files an untimely appeal. (Judge Wellford does not discuss it.) But suppose the appeal had been timely but had raised the wrong grounds. A defendant cannot appeal, lose, and then file another appeal with better grounds. Even the fact that an appeal fails to raise what in hindsight was the appellant’s strongest ground for reversal is not ineffective assistance per se. Appellate lawyers have to make choices about which grounds to raise. Courts have frequently warned against a blunderbuss approach. E.g., Jones v. Barnes, 463 U.S. 745, 751-53, 103 S.Ct. 3308, 3312-13, 77 L.Ed.2d 987 (1983); United States v. Schimmel, 950 F.2d 432, 434 (7th Cir.1991). If a lawyer makes a reasonable selection from among the potential grounds of appeal, the fact that the selection turns out to be mistaken does not convict him of ineffective assistance. Jones v. Barnes, supra; Bond v. United States, 1 F.3d 631, 635 n. 2 (7th Cir.1993); Page v. United States, supra, 884 F.2d at 302-03; Jameson v. Coughlin, 22 F.3d 427, 430 (2d Cir.1994).
Because the government has not contested jurisdiction, neither party has bothered to advise us what grounds Nagib’s original counsel raised in the untimely appeal. Suppose he had failed to raise the “bad acts” issue. Then we would have to study Nagib’s brief in that appeal and make a judgment whether his lawyer was incompetent or merely mistaken in omitting his client’s best ground. Gray v. Greer, supra, holds that in making such a determination the reviewing court must examine the trial record. 800 F.2d at 647. That was a habeas corpus ease, and the reviewing court in question was the federal district court. Where, as in this ease, the court of appeals is making a decision concerning the adequacy of counsel in the court of appeals itself, there is no point in asking the district court to make the decision. It cannot know as well as we what constitutes incompetent representation in our court. If the lawyer was merely mistaken, Nagib would not be entitled to a second appeal on a different ground merely because the first appeal was untimely. That would give a defendant whose lawyer had filed an untimely appeal more rights than other defendants. Put differently, if the only act constituting ineffective assistance of counsel were failing to perfect the appeal, all that in logic the defendant would be entitled to would be a second appeal on the same brief.
Although Nagib’s original appeal brief has not been submitted to us, it is, of course, a document in our possession of which we can take judicial notice. I have looked at it. The very first argument is that the district judge should have excluded the bad acts evidence, and in making this argument the brief points out that the judge failed to make the required balancing of probative value and prejudicial effect. I think it follows ineluctably that Nagib has a good claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. His lawyer filed an untimely brief. That was incompetent representation. But for that incompetence, Nagib would have presented to this court a meritorious claim for a remand.
The dictum in the previous opinion is no obstacle to this conclusion. The original panel would not have dealt so cavalierly with *625Nagib’s grounds for appeal had it thought itself authorized and obliged to decide the merits of the appeal.
The original brief failed to raise a second issue that Nagib presses on his current appeal, concerning the exclusion of a statement by -Nagib’s coconspirator arguably exculpating Nagib. This is a weaker ground than the bad acts ground, and I would be disinclined to rule that Nagib’s original counsel had been guilty of ineffective assistance in failing to include it in his brief. Therefore he cannot raise it in his new appeal. But this bar does not apply to his strongest ground, the admission of the bad acts evidence.
If I am right so far, the only question that remains is whether a remand is necessary to determine whether Nagib was personally responsible for the untimeliness of the first appeal. If he was, Nagib cannot get to first base with this appeal. Even if his lawyer rendered ineffective assistance in the first round, Nagib cannot take an untimely appeal unless his lawyer was responsible for making the appeal untimely; there is no right under the Sixth Amendment to protection from oneself. And failure to take a timely appeal cannot automatically be blamed on the lawyer. United States v. Mosley, 967 F.2d 242, 244 (7th Cir.1992); Castellanos v. United States, 26 F.3d 717, 719 (7th Cir.1994). Judge Wellford is right to point that out. The client may have made it impossible for the lawyer to file a timely appeal. But not in this case. As the Dumont opinion explains, instead of filing the notice of appeal within ten days Nagib’s lawyer filed a motion for reconsideration. Unbeknownst to that lawyer, such a motion is no longer authorized in federal criminal cases. The lawyer explained, as I have said, that he didn’t know the federal criminal rules. It is inconceivable to me, and it is not argued by anyone, that Nagib, knowing the rules better than his lawyer, told the lawyer to go ahead and file a paper in the district court that could have the sole effect of destroying Nagib’s right to appeal.
Even though no one has argued that Nagib participated in his lawyer’s booting of the first appeal, even though the first panel said that “Nagib has only his lawyer to blame,” 936 F.2d at 295, and even though that lawyer has acknowledged that the failure to file a timely appeal was due to his ignorance of federal law, Judge Wellford speculates that Nagib may have “first instructed his lawyer to appeal ... after consenting to his counsel’s strategic decision to file a motion to reconsider the sentence on the. very last day available.” I pointed out earlier that there is no basis for a conjecture that the lawyer made a “strategic decision” about anything. How then could Nagib have consented to the decision? What possible basis is there for conjecturing that Nagib “knew about Rule 35 motions or the time limits for appeal”? Anything is 'possible. The moon may be made out of green cheese after all. But the law does not insist on metaphysical certainty, even when the issue is the imposition of capital punishment on a person who denies that he is guilty.
The law’s delay is an old story. Nagib was indicted more than five years ago. He may well be entitled to a new trial. Fagan v. Washington, 942 F.2d 1155, 1157 (7th Cir.1991); Jameson v. Coughlin, supra, 22 F.3d at 430. It is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. The majority is asking for a degree of certainty that is inconsistent with the efficient and expeditious conduct of federal judicial business. We should remand this case with instructions that the district judge reexamine his ruling on the admission of the bad acts evidence under the correct legal standard and that, if he concludes that the evidence should have been excluded, he grant Nagib a new trial.