Fields v. United States

577 F. App'x 916
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedAugust 18, 2014
DocketNo. 12-15784
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 577 F. App'x 916 (Fields v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fields v. United States, 577 F. App'x 916 (11th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Tyrone Fields appeals the district judge’s denial of his pro se habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

In November 2008, Fields was indicted as one of forty-five defendants in a large cocaine conspiracy. He was charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, possession with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, and use of a telephone to facilitate the conspiracy. Fields pled guilty to a lesser-included drug-conspiracy charge, possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846, and was sentenced to 135 months of imprisonment. Following his guilty plea, Fields violated the conditions of his pretrial release by participating in a second cocaine conspiracy.

Fields was indicted for his participation in the second conspiracy in June 2009 and also was charged with distribution of cocaine base in August 2009. In October 2009, Fields pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846. Because of his first conviction for participation in a cocaine conspiracy, Fields qualified as a career offender at the time of his sentencing. The [918]*918sentencing judge imposed a 262-month imprisonment sentence to run concurrently with his 135-month sentence. Fields did not appeal.

In February 2011, Fields filed a pro se petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He argued his defense counsel had been ineffective for failing to file a direct appeal after being requested to do so. The government opposed and asserted Fields had never asked his defense counsel, Greg Crawford, to file an appeal.

A magistrate judge scheduled an eviden-tiary hearing and appointed counsel to represent Fields during the hearing. Fields, several of his family members, and Crawford testified. Fields and his family maintained he had requested Crawford to file an appeal immediately after the sentencing hearing. Crawford, however, testified neither Fields nor his family had ever made such a request. Even if the judge found he had not asked Crawford to file an appeal, Fields argued Crawford had a duty to consult with him regarding an appeal and had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to consult. The magistrate judge agreed to consider that claim and concluded the failure-to-consult claim related back to the initial failure-to-file claim.

The magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation (“R & R”) recommended denying Fields’s § 2255 petition. First, the magistrate judge found Crawford was the more believable witness during the eviden-tiary hearing and specifically adopted Crawford’s version of events. Because Crawford had informed Fields of his career-offender classification during their initial post-arrest meeting, the magistrate judge determined Fields knew he qualified as a career offender and faced a much more severe than he had received in his first cocaine conspiracy within days of his arrest. The magistrate judge also found Fields’s primary concern was the possibility that any sentence he received would be made consecutive to the sentence he had received in the earlier drug case.

The magistrate judge concluded Fields knew the probable sentencing range he was facing, elected to plead guilty anyway, received a sentence at the bottom of the Sentencing Guidelines range, and obtained the outcome he had sought — a concurrent rather than a consecutive sentence. The magistrate judge also found that, after Fields’s sentencing, Crawford had informed his family there were no meritorious grounds to appeal, because the sentencing judge had imposed a sentence within the Guidelines range. The magistrate judge further determined neither Fields nor any member of his family had ever requested Crawford to file a direct appeal.

Accordingly, the magistrate judge concluded Fields’s failure-to-file claim lacked merit. Because Fields had not expressed any interest in appealing the sentence he expected to receive, and Crawford could not think of nonfrivolous grounds to appeal, the magistrate judge determined Crawford had no duty to consult with Fields concerning an appeal. Even if Crawford had a duty to consult, Fields had not demonstrated prejudice.

The district judge adopted the R & R and dismissed Fields’s § 2255 petition. The judge declined to grant a certificate of appealability (“COA”). On appeal, we granted a COA on the following issue:

Whether, under the totality of the circumstances, Mr. Fields established that: (1) trial counsel owed him a duty to consult because a rational defendant would have wanted to appeal his sentence, and (2) there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s failure to consult, he would have timely appealed.

[919]*919Fields v. United States, No. 12-15784 (11th Cir. June 5, 2013).

II. DISCUSSION

In a § 2255 proceeding, we review a district judge’s legal conclusions de novo and his factual findings for clear error. Devine v. United States, 520 F.3d 1286, 1287 (11th Cir.2008). Whether counsel was ineffective is a mixed question of fact and law we review de novo. Id. “We allot substantial deference to the factfinder in reaching credibility determinations with respect to witness testimony.” Id. (citation, internal quotation marks, and alteration omitted). The scope of review is limited to the issues specified in the COA. Murray v. United States, 145 F.3d 1249, 1250-51 (11th Cir.1998).

To prevail on an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, Fields must establish (1) his counsel’s performance was deficient, and (2) he suffered prejudice as a result of that deficient performance. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The Strickland test also applies to claims of ineffective assistance based on counsel’s failure to file an appeal. Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 476-77, 120 S.Ct. 1029, 1034, 145 L.Ed.2d 985 (2000). When counsel disregards specific instructions from a convicted defendant to file a notice of appeal, counsel acts in a manner that is professionally unreasonable. Id. at 477, 120 S.Ct. at 1035. In the absence of specific instructions, an attorney nonetheless has a constitutional duty to consult with his client about an appeal, when (1) a rational convicted defendant would want to appeal, or (2) the convicted defendant reasonably demonstrated to counsel an interest in appealing. Id. at 480, 120 S.Ct. at 1036.

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Bluebook (online)
577 F. App'x 916, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fields-v-united-states-ca11-2014.