United States v. Jimmy Williams

670 F. App'x 795

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: November 21, 2016
• Docket: 16-4272
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.,

PER CURIAM:

Jimmy Lee Williams pled guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 371 (2012), and money laundering and aiding and abetting money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(l)(B)(i) and 2 (2012). The district court sentenced Williams to a total of 105 months’ imprisonment. Williams appeals, raising a single claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.

Unless an attorney’s ineffectiveness conclusively appears on the face of the record, ineffective assistance claims are not generally addressed on direct appeal. United States v. Benton, 523 F.3d 424, 435 (4th Cir. 2008). Instead, such claims should be raised in a motion brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012), in order to permit sufficient development of the record. United States v. Baptiste, 596 F.3d 214, 216 n.1 (4th Cir. 2010).. Because the record does not conclusively establish that counsel provided ineffective assistance to Williams, we conclude that this claim should be raised, if at all, in a § 2255 motion.

Accordingly we affirm the judgment of the district court. We deny Williams’ motion to file a pro se brief. See United States v. Penniegraft, 641 F.3d 566, 569 n.1 (4th Cir. 2011). We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal conten-tiops are adequately presented in the materials before this .court and argument would not aid the. decisional process.

AFFIRMED