Robert C. Evenstad v. United States

978 F.2d 1154, 978 F.3d 1154, 92 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9015, 92 Daily Journal DAR 14930, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 28487, 1992 WL 315710
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedNovember 4, 1992
Docket90-16202, 90-16301
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 978 F.2d 1154 (Robert C. Evenstad v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Robert C. Evenstad v. United States, 978 F.2d 1154, 978 F.3d 1154, 92 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9015, 92 Daily Journal DAR 14930, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 28487, 1992 WL 315710 (9th Cir. 1992).

Opinion

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge:

Evenstad pleaded guilty to bank robbery and was sentenced to twelve years in prison. He did not appeal. Four years later, he petitioned for habeas corpus. He claims that his sentence should be vacated because one of the prior offenses considered in sentencing was tainted by ineffective assistance of counsel. We remand so that the district judge can make certain determinations and possibly hold a hearing.

I. Facts.

Evenstad robbed a bank, using what looked like a handgun and wearing a ski *1156 mask. FBI agents tracked him and caught him with the gun, ski mask, and most of the money. He pleaded guilty to an information charging only simple bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a). The government dismissed the indictment charging both bank robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon during a bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) and. 2113(d). The gun was a plastic replica, not a real gun capable of firing bullets. Evenstad committed this crime in 1986, before the federal sentencing guidelines became effective. In his written, signed plea agreement, the government promised “to make a binding recommendation to the Court that any term of incarceration to which defendant EVENSTAD is sentenced not be in excess of twelve years in length.”

At his sentencing hearing, Evenstad took issue with numerous details in his presen-tence report:

—the loss to the bank was less than the amount stolen, because the FBI caught him with most of the money.
—the unpaid loans were from his relatives to him, not from him to his relatives.
—the word “allegedly” should not have been used in connection with these loans.
—he disagreed with the probation officer’s inference that he chose a life of crime because of inability to establish roots and friendship networks.
—his girlfriend lived in Las Vegas for one year, not three years.
—the listing of his liabilities omitted $4,000 in bad checks he had written.
—he wanted a formal ruling on the probation officer’s statement that he supported himself by money obtained from robberies. The judge struck it instead.
—he wanted a ruling on the probation officer’s statement that his lifestyle was extravagant. The judge let it stand, on the ground that it was a conclusion the officer could draw.

Despite Evenstad’s detailed critique of the presentence report, he did not claim that ineffective assistance of counsel affected his 1973 conviction. The prosecutor alluded to Evenstad’s prior criminal record and the plea bargain as his reasons for a recommendation of twelve years to serve, and Evenstad acknowledged the record, but still did not raise the point. In the course of explaining his reasons for accepting the plea bargain, the judge mentioned the “simple robbery” in 1973, and the “armed robbery” in 1977, while on parole from the 1973 sentence. Evenstad and his attorney said that the 1977 robbery was also with a toy gun, and was reduced to simple robbery. The judge noted the correction, and clarified that Evenstad was on parole from the 1977 robbery when he committed the latest robbery. He then imposed the twelve year sentence agreed upon as the cap in the plea agreement. Throughout this detailed colloquy, with full participation by Evenstad personally as well as his attorney, Evenstad never claimed any infirmity in his 1973 conviction.

Evenstad was sentenced in June of 1986. He did not appeal. In October, he moved for reduction of sentence, but not on any of the grounds raised in the petition now before us. In December, Evenstad filed a memorandum in support of his motion for reduction of sentence, claiming various errors and mischaracterizations in his presen-tence report, but not claiming any defect in the 1973 robbery conviction. His motion was denied, and he did not appeal the denial.

In 1990, three years after his Rule 35 motion for reduction of sentence was denied, and almost four years after he was sentenced, Evenstad filed his motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, the denial of which is now before us. The 1990 motion for the first time raised, among other claims, the issue which is the focus of this opinion, Evenstad’s claim that his 1973 robbery conviction should not have been used to enhance his 1986 sentence, because he had ineffective assistance of counsel in 1973. We review the denial of a petition for habeas corpus de novo. United States v. Angelone, 894 F.2d 1129, 1130 (9th Cir.1990).

*1157 II. The 1973 state conviction.

The only substantial issue in this appeal is the procedure to be followed by the district court when a prisoner files a § 2255 motion claiming that a prior state conviction considered during his federal sentencing was tainted by ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court declined to rule on Evenstad’s claim that his 1973 conviction was tainted. The ground for the ruling was that an attack on a state sentence had to be made under § 2254, in a separate proceeding, because a § 2255 motion was limited to a single judgment of the district court.

Our decision in Brown v. United States, 610 F.2d 672 (9th Cir.1980), compels us to vacate and remand. In that case, too, a prisoner on a federal conviction claimed years after judgment that his federal sentence should be vacated because an old state conviction considered by the judge had been tainted by ineffective assistance of counsel. We held that the prisoner did not have to exhaust his state remedies when he was "only attacking the federal government’s right to use that conviction as a predicate to the imposition of federal penalties.” Id. at 675. We remanded, so that the district judge could determine whether the sentence would have been the same even had the challenged state conviction been disregarded.

Brown did not address the issue of waiver. It explicitly left open “the standards of adequacy to be followed in a long-distance collateral attack.” Brown at 675. The facts and arguments in this case require that we address waiver. One cannot read Evenstad’s sentencing transcript without wondering why he did not attack the old state conviction during his extensive colloquy. One might think that the claimed injustice of his 1973 Minnesota conviction would have gnawed at Evenstad for thirteen years, and not first occurred to him seventeen years later, four years after the federal sentencing. But the waiver determination is for the district court to make, not us. See Farrow v. United States, 580 F.2d 1339, 1357 (9th Cir.1978).

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978 F.2d 1154, 978 F.3d 1154, 92 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9015, 92 Daily Journal DAR 14930, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 28487, 1992 WL 315710, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/robert-c-evenstad-v-united-states-ca9-1992.