United States v. Garcia

United States of America, Plaintiff, v. Trinidad Jesus Garcia, Defendant.

Case No. 15-cr-260(11) (PAM/TNL)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA

August 13, 2020

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

This matter is before the Court on Defendant's Motion to Vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. For the following reasons, the Motion is denied.

BACKGROUND

In September 2015, Defendant Trinidad Jesus Garcia was indicted for his part in a large-scale conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Although the Court appointed counsel to represent him, Garcia ultimately decided that he wished to proceed pro se and the Court granted that request. (Docket No. 224.) Garcia then filed no fewer than thirty pretrial motions, in addition to responding to the Magistrate Judge's report and recommendations regarding those motions. Although most of Garcia's motions were denied, the Court repeatedly noted that Garcia was competent to represent himself, and indeed commended Garcia for his ability to represent his own interests. (Plea Hr'g Tr. (Docket No 613) at 28.)

Garcia ultimately pled guilty to an Information that charged him with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. The plea agreement provided that, while the Government believed that Garcia possessed 35 grams or more of actual methamphetamine, Garcia could challenge the amount of methamphetamine at sentencing. (Docket No. 493.) Garcia did in fact challenge the purity of the methamphetamine, cross-examining the Government's witness in this regard. (Sentencing Tr. (Docket No. 908) at 11-17.) The Court overruled his objections, found Garcia responsible 36.58 grams of actual methamphetamine, and sentenced him to 137 months' imprisonment and three years' supervised release. (Docket No. 853.)

Garcia appealed, represented by the attorney who acted as his standby counsel before this Court. His primary argument on appeal was that the Court erred in excluding from its drug-quantity calculations the portion of methamphetamine intended for Garcia's personal use. United States v. Escobar, 909 F.3d 228, 244 (8th Cir. 2018). As the Court of Appeals noted, Garcia did not raise this challenge before this Court, challenging only the purity of the methamphetamine involved. Id. Because Garcia failed to raise his personal-use objection despite several opportunities to do so, the appellate court found that he could not argue that this Court "erred by accepting an admitted fact." Id. at 245. The Eighth Circuit thus affirmed Garcia's sentence. Id. at 247.

Garcia timely filed the instant Motion to Vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He raises seven grounds for relief. Ground One claims that Garcia's stand-by counsel rendered ineffective assistance for allegedly failing to inform Garcia of a Bruton issue that would have required severance from his co-Defendants, and for failing to request that Garcia undergo a mental-health evaluation before Garcia was allowed to proceed pro se. Ground Two asserts that Garcia's appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise four issues on appeal. Ground Three challenges the sufficiency of the evidence regarding Garcia's intent to distribute. Ground Four argues that a formal objection to his sentence was not necessary for the appellate court to review the sentence for reasonableness. Ground Five has two parts. Part 1 asserts that Garcia's appellate counsel failed to raise on appeal a grouping issue, and that this failure constituted ineffective assistance. Part 2 argues that this Court erred by grouping possession under 21 U.S.C. § 844 with § 841(a)(i). Ground Six similarly has two parts. The first asserts that the quantity of drugs possessed for personal use should not be counted as relevant conduct toward a possession-with-intent-to-distribute charge, and the second argues that the use of criminal history to increase the applicable sentencing range constituted a violation of Double Jeopardy. Finally, Count Seven contends that the Government violated Garcia's Fifth Amendment rights by charging him by information, rather than indictment.

DISCUSSION

A prisoner in custody under [federal] sentence . . . claiming the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence . . . or is otherwise subject to collateral attack, may move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.

28 U.S.C. § 2255(a). Relief under § 2255 "is reserved for transgressions of constitutional rights and for a narrow range of injuries that could not have been raised on direct appeal and, if uncorrected, would result in a complete miscarriage of justice." United States v. Apfel, 97 F.3d 1074, 1076 (8th Cir. 1996). Thus, not all claims of error in a conviction or sentence are cognizable in a § 2255 proceeding. Sun Bear v. United States, 644 F.3d 700, 704 (8th Cir. 2011) (en banc). The petitioner bears the burden to establish that his conviction or sentence violated either the Constitution or federal law. United States v. Hill, 215 F. Supp. 3d 823, 826 (D. Minn. 2016) (Kyle, J.).

Although § 2255 requires a Court to hold an evidentiary hearing "[u]nless the motion and the files and records of the case conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief," 28 U.S.C. § 2255(b), a "petition can be dismissed without a hearing if (1) the petitioner's allegations, accepted as true, would not entitle the petitioner to relief, or (2) the allegations cannot be accepted as true because they are contradicted by the record, inherently incredible, or conclusions rather than statements of fact." Engelen v. United States, 68 F.3d 238, 240 (8th Cir. 1995) (citations omitted). Garcia's claims are contradicted by the record, and he is not entitled to relief on any of them. The Court therefore declines to hold an evidentiary hearing.

A. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Garcia raises multiple claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. To prevail on a claim that counsel rendered ineffective assistance, Garcia must establish both that his attorney's performance was deficient and that he was prejudiced by the deficient performance. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689 (1984). The Court presumes that the attorney provided effective representation, and "will not second-guess strategic decisions or exploit the benefits of hindsight." Henderson v. Norris, 118 F.3d 1283, 1287 (8th Cir. 1997). Indeed, the Court's "scrutiny of counsel's performance must be highly deferential." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689.

To demonstrate prejudice, Garcia must establish that "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 694. If Garcia cannot establish prejudice, the Court need not address the reasonableness of the representation, because the failure to establish prejudice is dispositive of a § 2255 claim of ineffective assistance. Apfel, 97 F.3d at 1076.

1. Bruton issue and severance

In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 126 (1968), the Supreme Court held that admission of a codefendant's confession at trial is prejudicial error if that confession implicates a jointly tried defendant. In June 2016, months after Garcia was allowed to represent himself, Garcia's standby counsel wrote to the Assistant United States Attorney stating that, unless Garcia decided to plead guilty, it would be necessary to sever his case from his co-Defendants because "there is a Bruton issue involving [Garcia's] statement to police." (Docket No. 1016 at 8.) Garcia's claim in this Motion appears to be that his attorney did not inform him of this Bruton issue, and if he had known that his case would be severed from his co-Defendants, he would not have pleaded guilty.

The record refutes Garcia's claim that he was unaware of any Bruton issue. In May 2016, Garcia requested a severance, arguing in part that a severance was necessary because of the potential prejudice of his co-Defendants' statements to police. (Docket No. 480.) He pled guilty before those motions were fully resolved. Garcia cannot establish any prejudice, because Garcia was aware of Bruton issues and nevertheless chose to plead guilty.

But even if Garcia were not aware of the Bruton issue his standby counsel mentioned, he misunderstands the import of that issue. As the attorney's letter makes clear, it was Garcia's own statement that implicated his co-Defendants. Garcia could claim no prejudice from the introduction of his own statements at his trial. Rather, his co-Defendants would seek severance of their trials from Garcia's because of his incriminating statements, not the other way around. And in any event, a Bruton severance is only for purposes of trial and has no effect on the substantive charges. In other words, the Bruton issue would not have changed Garcia's inclusion in the underlying conspiracy, as he apparently believes. Garcia has not established ineffective assistance of counsel in this regard.

2. Mental health evaluation

There is no record evidence that Garcia suffered from any mental-health issues and therefore should have been subjected to a mental-health evaluation. As noted, the Court found that Garcia was more than competent to represent himself. (See also Sentencing Hr'g Tr. at 27 (statement of standby counsel: "I've never seen a pro se defendant handle himself as well as Mr. Garcia has and to keep track of the real issues that are involved in a case like this one.").) Absent a claim that his alleged mental-health issues rendered him incompetent to represent himself, his attorney's failure to request an evaluation caused him no prejudice.

3. Failure to raise issues on appeal

The issues Garcia's appellate counsel allegedly failed to raise on appeal are the same issues Garcia raises in Grounds Three through Six of his Motion. As discussed below with respect to these Grounds, Garcia has not...