Court Opinion

ID: 9388310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-20 16:00:57.545224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:19.714071
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        APR 20 2023
                                                                      MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                       No.    21-16264

                Plaintiff-Appellee,             D.C. No. 4:17-cr-00025-JD-1

 v.
                                                MEMORANDUM*
RUSSELL MCCLOUD,

                Defendant-Appellant.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of California
                    James Donato, District Judge, Presiding

                            Submitted April 18, 2023**
                             San Francisco, California

Before: CALLAHAN and BUMATAY, Circuit Judges, and BOLTON,*** District
Judge.

      Russell McCloud seeks review of the district court’s denial of his petition to

vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. We review the district court’s legal

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
             The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
      ***
             The Honorable Susan R. Bolton, United States District Judge for the
District of Arizona, sitting by designation.
conclusions de novo and factual findings for clear error. United States v. Zuno-Arce,

339 F.3d 886, 888 (9th Cir. 2003). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2253,

and we affirm.

      1. McCloud first claims that government misconduct rendered his guilty plea

involuntary and unknowing. To enter a plea voluntarily and knowingly, “[a]

defendant must have notice of the nature of the charges against him” and “must

understand the consequences of his plea.” Tanner v. McDaniel, 493 F.3d 1135, 1147

(9th Cir. 2007) (simplified). McCloud does not deny that he had notice of the

charges against him or that he was aware of the general consequences of entering a

guilty plea. Rather, he claims his plea agreement was not knowing and voluntary

because prosecutors failed to disclose impeachment material and misrepresented

facts at the suppression hearing.

      McCloud’s arguments lack support in law and in the record. First, prosecutors

do not have a duty to disclose impeachment evidence to a defendant before he enters

a guilty plea. See United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 629 (2002) (holding that the

Constitution does not require “preguilty plea disclosure of impeachment

information”). McCloud argues that Ruiz was a “fast track” case and does not apply

in other cases. We disagree. The Supreme Court did not limit its constitutional

ruling in Ruiz to only “fast track” cases.

      And the failure to disclose the impeachment material here did not make

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McCloud’s guilty plea unknowing or involuntary. As the Supreme Court said, “the

law ordinarily considers a waiver knowing, intelligent, and sufficiently aware if the

defendant fully understands the nature of the right and how it would likely apply in

general in the circumstances—even though the defendant may not know the specific

detailed consequences of invoking it.” Id. (emphasis in original). Here, McCloud

was aware that the police reports may have contained potential impeachment

material. During the suppression hearing, police officers testified that they were

investigating a robbery at the time that they stopped McCloud and subsequently

discovered a firearm in his car. McCloud’s initial attorney suspected they were not

investigating the robbery at the time and informed McCloud that he would seek the

police reports for impeachment purposes. McCloud then chose to plead guilty

without receiving the reports.     So the lack of disclosure here did not render

McCloud’s plea involuntary or unknowing.

      Second, the prosecutor’s inaccurate statements about the robbery

investigation at the suppression hearing did not induce McCloud to plead guilty.

Even if the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to stop McCloud based on their

investigation, they had other justifications for the traffic stop and subsequent search

of McCloud’s car. The officers were justified in stopping McCloud either after

observing him make an illegal U-turn or after discovering that his vehicle

registration was expired. See United States v. Willis, 431 F.3d 709, 714 (9th Cir.

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2005). They were also justified in further investigating when they noticed a

marijuana cigarette in McCloud’s center console. And the officers had a reasonable,

good-faith belief that McCloud was on probation and subject to a search. See

Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 846 (2006); see also Herring v. United States,

555 U.S. 135, 144 (2009) (stating police conduct must be deliberate to trigger

exclusionary rule).    McCloud’s argument that the officers unconstitutionally

prolonged the stop by looking up his probation status lacks merit. Officers may

conduct “ordinary inquiries” at a traffic stop, such as “checking the driver’s license,

determining whether there are outstanding warrants against the driver, and

inspecting the automobile’s registration and proof of insurance.” Rodriguez v.

United States, 575 U.S. 348, 355 (2015). So the officers here were constitutionally

allowed to run a records check on McCloud. In view of the other grounds for the

stop and the search, McCloud has not shown how the prosecutor’s

misrepresentations or omissions regarding the robbery induced his guilty plea.

      Finally, to the extent McCloud challenges his sentence on due process

grounds, those claims are waived by his plea agreement. See United States v. Bibler,

495 F.3d 621, 623–24 (9th Cir. 2007).

      2. McCloud asserts that his initial attorney was ineffective. To vacate his

conviction because of ineffective assistance of counsel, McCloud must prove (1)

“that [his] counsel’s performance was deficient” and (2) “that the deficient

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performance prejudiced [him].”       Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687

(1984). He fails on both fronts.

      McCloud argues that his first lawyer’s performance was deficient because he

did not file a reply in support of his motion to suppress and because he did not

respond to the prosecutor’s false statements at the suppression hearing. But filing a

reply is optional and is thus “not so essential to the fundamental fairness of the

appellate process” that an attorney’s failure to do so can be considered deficient.

United States v. Birtle, 792 F.2d 846, 848 (9th Cir. 1986). Similarly, lawyers need

not seize every opportunity to raise arguments at a hearing. Indeed, “judicious

selection of arguments . . . is a core exercise of defense counsel’s discretion,” and is

deserving of a strong presumption that such selection results from strategy and not

neglect. Yarborough v. Gentry, 540 U.S. 1, 8 (2003).

      McCloud’s counsel also did not provide deficient assistance by not moving to

compel disclosure of the police reports. Because other reasons justified the stop and

the search, his counsel reasonably assessed that moving to compel disclosure would

not do much, if anything, to suppress the evidence. Moreover, moving to compel

discovery would have jeopardized McCloud’s plea agreement. And McCloud’s later

attorneys reached the same conclusion regarding the suppression motion, further

undermining McCloud’s argument that his counsel’s actions fell below objectively

reasonable legal standards.

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      Furthermore, McCloud failed to show that if his counsel had provided better

legal assistance, he “would either have gone to trial or received a better plea

bargain.” United States v. Rodriguez-Vega, 797 F.3d 781, 788 (9th Cir. 2015)

(simplified).   The other justifications for the stop and search show that the

suppression hearing would have led to the same result and thus there was no

reasonable probability that he would not have pleaded guilty. And McCloud’s self-

serving declaration is not enough in itself to show prejudice. See Lee v. United States

137 S. Ct. 1958, 1967 (2017) (“Courts should not upset a plea solely because of post

hoc assertions from a defendant about how he would have pleaded but for his

attorney’s deficiencies.”).

      AFFIRMED.

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