Jack Leal v. Brian Williams

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: February 29, 2024
• Docket: 22-16901
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 29 2024 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

JACK LEAL, No. 22-16901

Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:21-cv-00595-JAD-VCF v.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, Warden; ATTORNEY MEMORANDUM* GENERAL FOR THE STATE OF NEVADA,

Respondents-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada Jennifer A. Dorsey, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted February 16, 2024** San Francisco, California

Before: MILLER, BADE, and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges.

Jack Leal pleaded guilty in Nevada state court to one count of multiple

transactions involving fraud or deceit in the course of an enterprise or occupation,

in violation of NRS 205.377. He was sentenced to six to fifteen years of

* 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). imprisonment. After exhausting his direct appeals and unsuccessfully seeking state

post-conviction relief, Leal filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The district

court denied the petition, and Leal now appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28

U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253(a), and we affirm.

We review the district court’s denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus

de novo. Moses v. Payne, 555 F.3d 742, 750 (9th Cir. 2009). Under the

Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub. L. No.

104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, habeas relief may not be granted with respect to any

claim adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state court’s decision “was

contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal

law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” or “was based on

an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the

State court proceeding,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). “This is a ‘difficult to meet’ and

‘highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings.’” Cullen v.

Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 181 (2011) (first quoting Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S.

86, 102 (2011); and then quoting Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002)

(per curiam)). To obtain federal habeas relief, “a state prisoner must show that the

state court’s ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in

justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing

2 law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Harrington, 562 U.S. at

103.

1. Leal argues that his co-defendant (and estranged wife) Jessica Garcia

coerced his guilty plea, rendering it involuntary. We assess the voluntariness of a

plea in light of “all of the relevant circumstances surrounding it.” Brady v. United

States, 397 U.S. 742, 749 (1970). In his plea agreement, Leal attested that his plea

was entered “voluntarily” and that he was “not acting under duress or coercion.”

During his plea colloquy, Leal reaffirmed that no one forced him to plead guilty

and that he was “pleading guilty of [his] own free will.” Those representations

“carry a strong presumption of truth.” Muth v. Fondren, 676 F.3d 815, 821 (9th

Cir. 2012).

Leal now argues that the record demonstrates “a pattern of violence inflicted

by Garcia upon [him].” But the record before the state court reveals only one

incident of violence predating Leal’s guilty plea. With respect to that incident—

which culminated in Garcia’s March 2017 arrest on misdemeanor battery

charges—the record does not indicate that Leal was Garcia’s victim or that the

violence related to Leal’s criminal case. Based on the evidence presented in the

state court proceedings, the Nevada Court of Appeals reasonably concluded that

Leal’s plea was voluntary.

3 Leal asks that we expand the record on appeal to include documents relating

to Garcia’s domestic-violence arrests in Florida. Our “review under § 2254(d)(1) is

limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on

the merits.” Pinholster, 563 U.S. at 181. Because the documents were not before

the state court, we decline to consider them.

2. Despite Leal’s assertions, the state court’s conclusion was not contrary to

Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969). Under Boykin, “the record must

affirmatively disclose that a defendant who pleaded guilty entered his plea

understandingly and voluntarily.” Brady, 397 U.S. at 747 n.4. The record here does

so because it contains Leal’s acknowledgments in the plea agreement and his

repeated representations at the plea colloquy.

3. Separately, Leal argues that his attorney’s joint representation of him and

Garcia violated his Sixth Amendment right to conflict-free counsel. Although there

is a “right to representation that is free from conflicts of interest,” Wood v.

Georgia, 450 U.S. 261, 271 (1981), joint representation “is not per se violative of

constitutional guarantees of effective assistance of counsel,” Holloway v.

Arkansas, 435 U.S. 475, 482 (1978). Leal executed two conflict-of-interest

waivers, in which he acknowledged and consented to the dual representation. In his

testimony at his initial arraignment and its continuation, Leal again affirmed that

he “waive[d] conflicts” and that “there’s not a conflict of interest.” Because “a

4 defendant may waive his right to the assistance of an attorney unhindered by a

conflict of interests,” id. at 483 n.5, and Leal repeatedly did so, his claim that he

was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to conflict-free counsel lacks merit.

Furthermore, the state court’s rejection of Leal’s conflicted-counsel claim

was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of Holloway v. Arkansas or

Mickens v. Taylor, 535 U.S. 162 (2002). In Holloway, the Supreme Court held that

automatic reversal is required when a defendant objects to joint representation and

“[t]he judge then fail[s] either to appoint separate counsel or to take adequate steps

to ascertain whether the risk was too remote to warrant separate counsel.” 435 U.S.

at 484–88; see Mickens, 535 U.S. at 168 (affirming the Holloway automatic-

reversal rule). Here, the trial court inquired into the conflict when it conducted an

off-the-record bench conference addressing the conflict and asked Leal’s counsel

about the nature of the conflict during Leal’s sentencing hearing. In light of those

actions and Leal’s two conflict-of-interest waivers, we cannot say that the Nevada

Court of Appeals unreasonably applied clearly established federal law.

The motion to expand the record on appeal (Dkt. No. 22) is DENIED.

AFFIRMED.