United States v. Roosevelt Turner

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedFebruary 2, 2010
Docket08-2350
StatusPublished

This text of United States v. Roosevelt Turner (United States v. Roosevelt Turner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Roosevelt Turner, (7th Cir. 2010).

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

No. 08-2350

U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.

R OOSEVELT T URNER, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 3:05-cr-30015—David R. Herndon, Chief Judge.

A RGUED JANUARY 20, 2009—D ECIDED F EBRUARY 2, 2010

Before E ASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, S YKES, Circuit Judge, and K ENDALL, District Judge.Œ S YKES, Circuit Judge. The district court disqualified Roosevelt Turner’s retained counsel from representing him in this cocaine-conspiracy case because the attorney

Œ The Honorable Virginia M. Kendall, District Judge for the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation. 2 No. 08-2350

was also representing an alleged coconspirator in sen- tencing proceedings. The question for us is whether this violated Turner’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel of his choice. In February 2005 the government indicted Turner and eight others for conspiring to distribute cocaine in Alton, Illinois. But Turner was not arrested until June 2006, and by that time many of the alleged coconspirators had pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government. One exception was Anthony Womack. His first trial ended in a hung jury. On retrial Womack was convicted, and he was awaiting sentencing when the authorities finally caught up with Turner. In the meantime, Womack hired a new attorney—Irl Baris—to represent him at sentencing. Once in custody, Turner was initially represented by appointed counsel, but his family soon hired Baris as his attorney. The government questioned whether this joint representation was permissible and asked the court for a hearing on the matter. The government suggested that Baris’s representation of both defendants presented an insurmountable conflict of interest because one might decide to cooperate with the government against the other. Baris countered that there was no actual conflict—nor any serious potential for conflict—because neither client wanted to assist the government and prosecutors had not shown the slightest interest in securing either defendant’s testimony against the other. Moreover, both defendants waived any conflict of interest. The district judge focused on the possibility that one defendant might provide information No. 08-2350 3

or testimony against the other and held that this was sufficient to create an “absolute” conflict of interest. On this basis the judge disqualified Baris as Turner’s counsel. A jury convicted Turner of conspiracy, and he appealed, challenging the judge’s disqualification of his chosen counsel. We reverse. The Sixth Amendment gives a defendant who does not require appointed counsel the right to choose who will represent him. See Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153, 159, 164 (1988). The Supreme Court recognizes a presumption in favor of the defendant’s choice, although this presumption may be overridden if there is an actual conflict of interest or a “serious potential for conflict.” Id. at 164. Where there is an actual or serious potential conflict, two aspects of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel are in tension: the accused’s right to counsel of his choice and his right to the effective assistance of counsel. Id. at 159-61. Joint representation is not, however, a per se violation of the right to the effective assistance of counsel. Id. at 160-61. Here, the district court disqualified Baris based on the possibility that Womack might cooperate against Turner or vice versa. But this possibility for conflict is present in nearly every case of joint representation. The district court’s analysis disregarded the presumption in favor of the defendant’s chosen counsel and imposed what amounts to a per se rule against joint representation. As such, the court’s disqualification order was premised on a mistake of law and violated Turner’s right to counsel of his choice. Because this violation is structural, United 4 No. 08-2350

States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 150 (2006), Turner is entitled to a new trial.

I. Background In February 2005 a grand jury indicted Turner, Womack, and seven others on charges of conspiring to distrib- ute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A)(ii), and 846. (A superseding indictment filed in October 2005 added three more defendants as coconspirators.) The government alleged that from January 2003 to January 2005, Turner and the others conspired to distribute large quantities of cocaine in and around Alton, Illinois. Most of the alleged conspirators were quickly rounded up. Turner, however, remained at large until June 2006. Nearly all of the coconspirators pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government, but Womack elected to go to trial. The government’s first attempt to convict Womack ended in a mistrial because the jury could not reach a verdict. On retrial in April 2006, the jury found Womack guilty. The case against him relied largely on the kind of evidence customarily introduced in drug- conspiracy trials: tapes of telephone intercepts capturing conversations among those associated with the charged conspiracy and the testimony of several of the cooperating coconspirators. During both of his trials, Womack was represented by Attorney John Abell. After his conviction, however, Womack hired Attorney Irl Baris to represent him for No. 08-2350 5

sentencing and appellate purposes. Baris is an experienced criminal-defense attorney in practice since 1948 and an adjunct professor of criminal trial practice and procedure at Washington University School of Law for the last 25 years. He has tried a variety of federal cases involving white-collar crimes, drug conspiracies, and racketeering offenses, and has argued numerous appeals in five or six federal circuits. He entered his appearance on behalf of Womack on June 1, 2006. As Womack awaited sentencing, police finally arrested Turner on June 14, 2006. Court-appointed attorneys represented Turner for the next six weeks. Turner’s family then hired Baris to represent him, and on August 1, 2006, Baris entered his appearance as Turner’s counsel. The government immediately asked the district court to conduct a hearing under Rule 44(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to evaluate the effect of any poten- tial conflict of interest on each defendant’s right to the effective assistance of counsel. See F ED. R. C RIM. P. 44(c) (outlining the court’s duty of inquiry in a case of joint representation). The government’s motion intimated that Womack might be called to testify at Turner’s trial or might pursue sentencing or appellate strategies adverse to Turner’s interests, or alternatively, Turner might be asked to provide information or testimony to assist the government at Womack’s sentencing. At the Rule 44(c) hearing, the government argued as a general matter that the defendants’ interests might become adverse in the event that either opted to cooperate with the government. But the prosecutor was not more 6 No. 08-2350

specific. He did not say, for example, that the govern- ment intended or was likely to seek Womack’s coopera- tion and testimony against Turner or vice versa.

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