Miller v. State

77 A.3d 1030, 435 Md. 174, 2013 WL 5354332, 2013 Md. LEXIS 596
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedSeptember 25, 2013
DocketNo. 94
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 77 A.3d 1030 (Miller v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miller v. State, 77 A.3d 1030, 435 Md. 174, 2013 WL 5354332, 2013 Md. LEXIS 596 (Md. 2013).

Opinions

BATTAGLIA, J.

Lincoln Miller, Petitioner, a native of Belize, had lived as a permanent resident in the United States since 1981. On June 1, 1999, Miller pled guilty in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County to possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of Section 286(f)(l)(ii) of Article 27 of the Maryland Code (1957, 1996 Repl. Vol.)1 and was sentenced to five years’ incarceration. During sentencing, Miller was informed of his right to file an application for leave to appeal his conviction to the Court of Special Appeals, but he did not pursue that path.2 Miller finished serving his mandatory five-[179]*179year sentence and while incarcerated also did not file any petition for post-conviction relief.

United States Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initiated deportation proceedings against Miller, because of his 1999 conviction, after he traveled to his native country in 2008 and was detained upon reentry into the United States. In order to forestall his being deported, Miller filed a Petition for a Writ of Error Coram Nobis, pursuant to Maryland Rule 15-1202.3 In that Petition, Miller asserted [180]*180“that his guilty plea was not entered knowingly and intelligently, due to the failure to advise him on the record of the possible immigration consequences attendant to his plea.”

On August 21, 2009, Judge Maureen M. Lamasney of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County conducted a hearing on Miller’s Petition, during which she accepted the transcript of his guilty plea proceeding, which had been made an attachment to Miller’s Petition and showed Miller was not advised on the record of the possibility of adverse immigration consequences. Miller testified during the hearing that he was not aware nor was he advised of the possibility of deportation by his attorney, even though his attorney was aware that he was not a citizen. Judge Lamasney denied the Petition, ruling that a trial court needed only inform a defendant of the “direct” consequences of a plea, which did not include the possibility of deportation: “[i]t is clear from the record that the plea Court did not inform [Miller] of ... possible immigration consequences.... However, ‘consequences of the plea’ has been interpreted to mean ‘direct’ consequences.”

Miller appealed to the Court of Special Appeals; while his appeal was pending, the United States Supreme Court decided Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 360, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 1478, 176 L.Ed.2d 284, 290 (2010), in which the Court held that “constitutionally competent counsel” was required to inform Padilla “that his conviction for drug distribution made him subject to automatic deportation.” In so holding, the Court analyzed the two-pronged test set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) and Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985) (applying Strickland in the context of guilty pleas), by which courts would determine initially wheth[181]*181er an attorney’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness considering prevailing professional norms and, if so, whether there is a reasonable probability the result of the proceeding would have been different, but for the errors. Padilla, 559 U.S. at 365, 130 S.Ct. at 1484, 176 L.Ed.2d at 294. The Court explained that it had “never applied a distinction between direct and collateral consequences to define the scope of constitutionally ‘reasonable professional assistance’ required under Strickland ” and that the collateral versus direct distinction was “ill-suited to evaluating a Strickland claim concerning the specific risk of deportation” due to its “close connection to the criminal process.” Id. at 366, 130 S.Ct. at 1481-82, 176 L.Ed.2d at 293-94. The Court concluded, therefore, “that advice regarding deportation is not categorically removed from the ambit of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel [and, therefore] Strickland applied] to Padilla’s claim.” Id. at 366, 130 S.Ct. at 1482, 176 L.Ed.2d at 294. The Court held that constitutionally competent counsel is required to “provide her client with available advice about an issue like deportation and the failure to do so ‘clearly satisfies the first prong of the Strickland analysis.’ ” Id. at 371, 130 S.Ct. at 1484, 176 L.Ed.2d at 297, quoting Hill, 474 U.S. at 62, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (White, J., concurring in judgment). The Court then remanded the case for consideration of whether Padilla suffered prejudice because of his counsel’s deficient performance. Id. at 375, 130 S.Ct. at 1487, 176 L.Ed.2d at 299.

In light of the Supreme Court’s holding, the Court of Special Appeals considered Miller’s claim to be controlled by the determination of whether Padilla applied “to invalidate [Miller’s] guilty plea entered on June 1, 1999[.]” Miller v. State, 196 Md.App. 658, 660, 11 A.3d 340, 341 (2010). In determining that Padilla did not retroactively apply, prior to 2010, to vacate Miller’s conviction, the intermediate appellate court determined that “Padilla v. Kentucky announced new law” inapplicable to Miller’s conviction. Id. at 679-80, 11 A.3d at 352. In so doing, the court applied the retroactivity test set forth in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 [182]*182L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), in which the Supreme Court had determined that a “new rule,” defined as a rule that “breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation on the States” or a rule where “the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant’s conviction became final,” would not apply retroactively. Miller, 196 Md.App. at 666, 11 A.3d at 344 (emphasis omitted), quoting Teague, 489 U.S. at 301, 109 S.Ct. at 1070, 103 L.Ed.2d at 349.

Miller, thereafter, filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in this Court presenting the sole question of whether Padilla’s holding “that failure to advise a non-citizen client about deportation as a possible consequence of a guilty plea constitutes ineffective representation, [should] be applied retroactively” to cases finalized before Padilla. 423 Md. 453, 31 A.3d 921 (2011). This question, however, previously had been queued up in the case of Denisyuk v. State in which we already had granted certiorari to answer whether Padilla applied to Denisyuk’s challenge to his 2006 conviction, which, he averred, should have been vacated because his counsel had been ineffective for having failed to advise him of potential adverse immigration consequences prior to pleading guilty. 415 Md. 38, 997 A.2d 789 (2010). In Denisyuk v. State, 422 Md. 462, 466, 473, 30 A.3d 914, 916, 920 (2011), we subsequently determined that Padilla should be applied retroactively to Sixth Amendment claims arising after the effective date of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, after which deportation for certain crimes became practically inevitable for noncitizens: “[W]e hold that Padilla

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
77 A.3d 1030, 435 Md. 174, 2013 WL 5354332, 2013 Md. LEXIS 596, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-state-md-2013.