Court Opinion

ID: 9497324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:48:44.717261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:07.915872
License: Public Domain

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Were the question whether an evidentia-ry hearing should have been held to determine whether Howard was denied due process because of an inadequate inquiry regarding his competence at the time of his plea, I might well concur. I share the majority’s concern about the inadequacy of *884the district court’s inquiry. My problem is with blaming the lawyer.
The judge learned that Howard was taking Percocet, and probably should have inquired more thoroughly about whether Howard understood what he was doing. Anyone who has had teeth pulled or broken bones treated has taken narcotic painkillers and knows that they sometimes dull the wits. They can also sharpen them, if the pain is so excruciating that the narcotics enable the mind to focus on something other than the pain. The judge learned that Howard was on narcotic painkiller medication stronger than what one gets for root canals and extractions. Howard had been repeatedly hospitalized for fifteen years for complications resulting from compound fractures to his leg in a motorcycle accident, and the Percocet evidently was for his leg pain.
The majority concedes, though, that “we do not address whether Howard’s plea should be vacated because of his alleged incompetency or because the district court may not have sufficiently inquired into his competency.”1 What the judge did or should have done at the change of plea is not before us. The question before us is whether Howard’s lawyer rendered assistance below the Strickland standard by letting Howard take the deal while he was possibly impaired by his painkilling drugs. What the lawyer did is an altogether different issue from what the judge did.
To obtain relief for ineffective assistance of counsel, Howard has to establish two things: deficiency in what his lawyer did, and prejudice. This showing is his burden, and he is not entitled to an evidentia-ry hearing in the absence of any showing, merely because of a speculative possibility. Even construing his papers liberally, he does not allege either deficiency or prejudice. In his petition, he says that he was under the influence of the narcotic drug. He does not claim that there was any time that his lawyer could have presented the plea agreement to him and had him enter a plea when he was not under the influence of the narcotic medication for his old motorcycle injury.
Howard’s problem with his lawyer was counsel’s sentencing prediction, not Howard’s supposed incompetence. The only accusation Howard makes against his lawyer in his petition is that “Counsel improperly advised Petitioner of the extent of his exposure under the plea of guilty.” That is not before us, nor would such a challenge be successful.2 He also accuses his lawyer of failing to appeal, and failing to argue unconstitutionality of the drug laws regarding cocaine and methamphetamine, but those claims, too, are not before us.
What we must look for, in an ineffective assistance claim based on petitioner’s incompetence at the time of the plea, is an allegation that the petitioner would not have pleaded guilty3 but for counsel’s alleged error in allowing him to do so while mentally incompetent.4 That is something Howard never claims. He does not say so in his petition, and does not say so in any of his other papers. Without it, he has no allegation of prejudice from the alleged *885ineffective assistance. This is fatal to his petition.
What Howard does say is that “the maximum sentence petitioner should have been exposed to as a result of his guilty plea was 240 months,” not the 292 months he got. And he says that “had counsel not misrepresented to petitioner the exposure [to 292 months] Petitioner would not have pleaded guilty.” Howard never says he would not have pleaded guilty but for his medication-induced impairment, just that he would not have pleaded guilty had he realized his sentence could be 292 months. Construing his papers as though he had claimed he would not have pleaded guilty but for the narcotics is not a “liberal” reading, it is reading what he said as though he had said something quite different.
The case does not need an evidentiary hearing with no allegation of prejudice, so nothing more needs to be considered. But the majority goes further (as it must to grant a hearing), and makes what I think is a mistake. The majority opinion says that the late timing of the proffer of the plea, combined with Howard’s uncontro-verted drug use and allegations of incompetence, is sufficient to justify an eviden-tiary hearing. It rests this conclusion on the proposition that Howard’s attorney may have given ineffective assistance by not stopping the proceedings to investigate his client’s competency once Howard stated he was under the influence of drugs. That strikes me as an insupportable proposition, inadequately reflecting the practicalities of what defense lawyers must deal with.
Howard complains in his brief to the district court, which the majority treats as though it was part of his sworn petition, that he had no adequate time to study the plea agreement and relied on counsel’s advice, and that his lawyer initially predicted a sentence of 120 to 180 months, probably toward the lower end because of his medical condition.5 He claims it was ineffective assistance “for counsel to put petitioner in the position of making a rushed judgment,” especially when he was under the influence of his medication, and to “mislead” him about his sentencing exposure. But these complaints cannot suffice to allege ineffective assistance unless counsel had some more desirable alternative. There is nothing in the record, nothing in the allegations, nothing anywhere, to suggest that he did.
First, there is nothing to suggest that the plea agreement was available at any earlier time. This change of plea was made with the jury waiting in the anteroom, on the scheduled first day of trial. It cut Howard’s exposure to a maximum of 365 months, harsher than what Howard says his lawyer predicted, but probably better than what he was facing without the deal, 360 months to life. The judge asked Howard, “Is this what you want to do? If you don’t, Mr. Howard, the jury is right outside the door.” There is nothing at all to suggest that the deal was available at any earlier time, or that, with the jury waiting to come in, that it could be deliberated upon until any later time. There is nothing in the record to suggest that Howard’s lawyer, rather than the prosecutor, was responsible for the last minute pressure to make a deal or go to trial.
Nor is there anything in the record to suggest that there would have been any better time for Howard to deliberate about the deal. He was taking strong prescrip*886tion medicine that allegedly dulled his wits for pain. Without it, assuming his pain was severe enough to justify a prescription for these powerful painkillers, the pain presumably would have impaired his ability to deliberate. A person in excruciating physical pain may be as unable to make sensible judgments for himself as may one whose pain and wits are both dulled by pain medication. The need to make a grave decision in a hurry while impaired was a bad situation, but there is nothing to suggest that the bad situation was Howard’s lawyer’s fault.
The majority cites Miles v. Stainer, but Miles does little to support the majority opinion. Miles holds that “assuming ar-guendo that [counsel] had reason to doubt his competency on the day of the guilty plea, we are not willing to say that he failure to bring the matter to the court’s attention — which would jeopardize the plea bargain, against her client’s wishes — is a transgression that violates Strickland’s strong presumption of reasonable conduct.” 6 Miles is distinguishable, because counsel in that case had discussed the defendant’s options with him at a time when he was competent. But in this case, there is nothing in the record to suggest either that the option of the plea bargain existed at an earlier time, or that there was any earlier time when the defendant was not impaired.
Not infrequently, in criminal and civil litigation, one’s adversary makes a take-it- or-leave-it offer with ten minutes to decide. The ten minutes may not be enough time for a grave and complex decision. It may be a bad time, for all sorts of reasons including physical or other impairment to decide during the ten minutes. But through no fault of one’s own attorney, sometimes it is the only time. Without something in the record to hang the blame for this on Howard’s lawyer, we cannot properly call what he did ineffective assistance.

. Op. at 877 fn. 5.

. See United States v. Keller, 902 F.2d 1391, 1394 (9th Cir.1990) (holding that erroneous predictions regarding a sentence are deficient only if they constitute a "gross mischaracteri-zation of the likely outcome” of a plea bargain combined with "erroneous advice on the probable effects of going to trial”).

. Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 60, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985).

. Miles v. Stainer, 108 F.3d 1109, 1113 (9th Cir.1997).

. Howard alleges that counsel assured him and his parents that he would receive 120 to 180 months. Counsel stated at the plea hearing, however, that ”[i]t looks like it comes down to 188 months.”

. Miles, 108 F.3d at 1113.