Court Opinion

ID: 990731
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2013-07-03 23:25:49.668151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:49:47.918933
License: Public Domain

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.                                                                   No. 95-5090

ALBERT DELON REED, JR.,
Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of South Carolina, at Florence.
C. Weston Houck, Chief District Judge.
(CR-94-383)

Submitted: October 8, 1996

Decided: November 1, 1996

Before WIDENER, WILLIAMS, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________________________________________

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

Domenick J. Porco, Scarsdale, New York, for Appellant. Margaret
Seymour, United States Attorney, Alfred W. Bethea, Jr., Assistant
United States Attorney, Florence, South Carolina; Thomas E. Booth,
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington,
D.C., for Appellee.

_________________________________________________________________
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).

_________________________________________________________________

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Albert Delon Reed, Jr., appeals from his conviction and sentence
for possession of 193 grams of cocaine base and 441 grams of mari-
juana with intent to distribute. We affirm.

Reed raises three issues in his appeal. First he asserts that the dis-
trict court erroneously denied his motion to suppress evidence found
in his van during a police search. In support of this claim, Reed
argues that the officers lacked probable cause to conduct their search.
We find that, when viewing the totality of the circumstances sur-
rounding the search, there was a "fair probability" that drugs would
be found in Reed's van. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983).
Accordingly, we find that the search was supported by probable
cause. See id.

Reed next claims that he was denied effective assistance of counsel
and that the district court's refusal to grant him a continuance to
secure alternative counsel denied him a fair trial. To the extent that
Reed seeks to attack the effectiveness of his counsel, we find that
ineffectiveness is not clear from the record. Accordingly, the proper
forum for such a claim would be through a motion brought under 28
U.S.C. § 2255 (1994), amended by Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214. To the
extent that Reed seeks to use this claim to demonstrate that the district
court abused its discretion in refusing to grant him a continuance, we
find no abuse of discretion.

Reed's final claim is that his sentence--life imprisonment without
parole under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) (1994)--was so disproportion-
ate to his offense--a third drug felony involving 193 grams of
cocaine base and 441 grams of marijuana--that it constitutes a viola-
tion of the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment

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Clause. We have reviewed this claim under the guidelines set forth in
Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277 (1983), and find that the sentence is not
so disproportionate to the offense to constitute an Eighth Amendment
violation. Accordingly we affirm Reed's conviction and sentence.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal conten-
tions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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