Court Opinion

ID: 9393595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-10 19:00:52.93508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:54.115240
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-10973    Document: 28-1     Date Filed: 05/10/2023   Page: 1 of 5

                                               [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-10973
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       CHRISTY DALE SHELL,
                                                   Petitioner-Appellant,
       versus
       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                                                  Respondent-Appellee.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 4:19-cv-10204-KMM
                          ____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-10973     Document: 28-1      Date Filed: 05/10/2023    Page: 2 of 5

       2                      Opinion of the Court                22-10973

       Before ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Christy Shell is a federal prisoner serving a 235-month sen-
       tence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to
       distribute three controlled substances—fentanyl, the fentanyl ana-
       logue “furanyl fentanyl,” and another opioid called “U-47700”—in
       violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. She appeals the district court’s denial
       of her pro se 28 U.S.C § 2255 motion to vacate, which raised thirty
       grounds for relief. Relevant here, and construed “liberally,” see
       Tannenbaum v. United States, 148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998),
       Ground 27 of Shell’s § 2255 motion claimed that Shell’s counsel
       performed ineffectively by failing to investigate (1) whether the
       government’s searches of Shell’s car and her fiancé’s home violated
       the Fourth Amendment; (2) whether the government’s public sur-
       veillance of Shell violated the Fourth Amendment; and (3) whether
       the government’s failure to read Shell her Miranda rights violated
       the Fifth Amendment. The district court denied the ineffective as-
       sistance of counsel claim in Ground 27, concluding that Shell
       waived that claim by pleading guilty.
              We granted a certificate of appealability (“COA”) on the lim-
       ited issue of whether the district court’s conclusion that Shell
       waived Ground 27 of her § 2255 motion by pleading guilty was con-
       trary to our decision in Arvelo v. Secretary, Florida Department of
       Corrections, 788 F.3d 1345, 1348 (11th Cir. 2015). Shell argues that
       it was. Relying on Arvelo, Shell asserts that she did not waive her
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       22-10973                Opinion of the Court                         3

       ineffective assistance claim by pleading guilty and that the district
       court was thus required to address that claim on merits by applying
       the two-part ineffective assistance of counsel test from Strickland
       v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).
               In a § 2255 proceeding, we review a district court’s legal con-
       clusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error. Dell v.
       United States, 710 F.3d 1267, 1272 (11th Cir. 2013). “In conducting
       our review, we liberally construe pro se pleadings and hold them
       to ‘less stringent standards’ than we apply to formal pleadings that
       lawyers draft.” Bilal v. Geo Care, LLC, 981 F.3d 903, 911 (11th Cir.
       2020) (quoting Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007)). Still, “we
       cannot act as de facto counsel or rewrite an otherwise deficient
       pleading to sustain an action.” Id. And in evaluating whether a plea
       is knowing and voluntary, we apply “a strong presumption” that
       statements made by the defendant during her plea colloquy are
       true. United States v. Medlock, 12 F.3d 185, 187 (11th Cir. 1994).
       Further, because the scope of our review of an unsuccessful § 2255
       motion is strictly confined to the issues specified in the COA, Mur-
       ray v. United States, 145 F.3d 1249, 1251 (11th Cir. 1998), we do not
       consider the parties’ arguments relating to the merits of Shell’s in-
       effective assistance of counsel claim, only the procedural question
       whether she waived that claim by pleading guilty. We conclude
       that she did.
              We have repeatedly held that “[a] defendant who enters a
       plea of guilty waives all nonjurisdictional challenges to the consti-
       tutionality of the conviction” and thus may attack only “the
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  22-10973

       voluntary and knowing nature of the plea.” Wilson v. United
       States, 962 F.2d 996, 997 (11th Cir. 1992). Accordingly, although “a
       defendant does not waive an ineffective assistance of counsel claim
       simply by entering a plea,” Arvelo, 788 F.3d at 1348 (emphasis
       added), an ineffective assistance of counsel claim raised in a § 2255
       motion is waived by a guilty plea where the movant’s “claim of
       ineffective assistance is not about his decision to plead guilty,” Wil-
       son, 962 F.2d at 997; see Stano v. Dugger, 921 F.2d 1125, 1150–51
       (11th Cir. 1991) (en banc) (“The Court allows only challenges to
       the voluntary and intelligent entry of the pela if a convicted defend-
       ant can prove ‘serious derelictions’ in his counsel’s advice regarding
       the plea.” (quoting McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 774
       (1970)); see also McMillin v. Beto, 447 F.2d 453, 454 (5th Cir. 1971)
       (holding claim in habeas petition alleging “denial of effective assis-
       tance of counsel at arrest and during the following detention . . .
       may not now be raised, being [a] non-jurisdictional defect[] effec-
       tively waived by petitioner's guilty pleas”).
              Ground 27 of Shell’s § 2255 motion does not even mention
       Shell’s guilty plea, let alone allege that her counsel’s ineffectiveness
       prevented it from being knowing and voluntary. Liberally con-
       strued, Ground 27 contends only that Shell’s attorneys were inef-
       fective by failing to properly investigate pre-arrest issues. And the
       record of the plea colloquy also reflects that Shell was satisfied with
       her counsel’s representation and that she entered the plea know-
       ingly and voluntarily.
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       22-10973              Opinion of the Court                      5

               Because Shell’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim in
       Ground 27 does not challenge the validity of her plea, we agree
       with the district court that Shell waived that claim by pleading
       guilty.
             AFFIRMED.