Mask v. McGinnis

• Decision Date: 01 August 2001
• Docket Number: PETITIONER-APPELLANT,RESPONDENTS-APPELLEES,Docket No. 99-2396
• Citation: 252 F.3d 85
• Parties: (2nd Cir. 2001) RONALD MASK,, v. MICHAEL MCGINNIS, SUPERINTENDENT, SOUTHPORT CORRECTIONAL FACILITY; DENNIS C. VACCO, NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL,
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 85

252 F.3d 85 (2nd Cir. 2001)

RONALD MASK, PETITIONER-APPELLANT, v. MICHAEL MCGINNIS, SUPERINTENDENT, SOUTHPORT CORRECTIONAL FACILITY; DENNIS C. VACCO, NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL, RESPONDENTS-APPELLEES.

Docket No. 99-2396

August Term, 2001

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

Argued: May 16, 2001

Decided May 25, 2001

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Denny Chin, Judge) denying Ronald Mask's petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Petitioner contends that the state courts unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court precedent by failing to find his plea agreement ambiguous. Finding this contention lacking in merit, we affirm the district court's judgment.

Frank J. Loss, The Legal Aid Society, New York, N.Y., for Petitioner-Appellant.

Efrem Z. Fischer, Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, N.Y. (Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Mark Gimpel and Michael S. Belohlavek, Assistant Solicitor Generals of the State of New York, on the brief), for Respondents-Appellees.

Before: Feinberg, Van Graafeiland, and Sotomayor, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam

Petitioner-appellant Ronald Mask, a prisoner in state custody, appeals from a June 22, 1999 judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Denny Chin, Judge) denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). See Mask v. McGinnis, No. 97 Civ. 7211, 1999 WL 401668 (S.D.N.Y. June 17, 1999). Petitioner contends that the state trial court violated his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution by sentencing him to a term of imprisonment greater than that promised under his plea agreement without giving him the opportunity to withdraw his guilty plea. Finding that petitioner has failed to establish that the state courts unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court precedent, we affirm the district court's denial of the petition.

BACKGROUND

On April 23, 1986, petitioner pled guilty in New York Supreme Court, New York County, to one count of robbery in the second degree. The following exchange between the court and petitioner took place during the plea allocution:

THE COURT: Mr. Mask, I've agreed to cover your open jostling case and I've also agreed to give you a chance to prove you should not go to state prison. Now, keep something in mind. I am not promising you no jail. I am giving you a chance to prove that you should not be sent to state prison. Do not walk out of here with the idea that it will be only one-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years that you will get if you violate the conditions. Think five to fifteen, Mr. Mask. That's what you should think.

Now, I am going to make as a condition of the deferral of your sentence, putting off your sentence and letting you have a chance to prove you should not go to jail, that you cooperate and participate in the Manhattan Court Employment Program ["MCEP"] and in Jaycap ["J-Cap"].¹

....

THE COURT: Now, if you prove to me that you should not go to state prison, I won't send you. I will give you youthful offender treatment; probably five years probation. If you don't prove it, you're going to jail; simple as that. Is that understood?

THE DEFENDANT: Yes.

During the interval between his allocution and sentencing, petitioner ceased participating in J-Cap and was arrested for a second robbery. On January 29, 1987, the trial court, finding that petitioner had failed to abide by the conditions of the plea agreement, denied youthful offender treatment and instead imposed a sentence of one and a half to four and a half years for the first robbery.

On the basis of a Court of Appeals decision holding that a trial court lacks authority to place a defendant on "interim probation" in the interval between conviction and sentencing, People v. Rodney E., 77 N.Y.2d 672 (1991), the Appellate Division vacated petitioner's sentence for the first robbery and remanded for resentencing on the ground that the court-imposed condition that petitioner participate in MCEP and J- Cap constituted interim probation. People v. Mack, 599 N.Y.S.2d 1025 (4th Dep't 1993).

At resentencing on October 28, 1993, the trial court increased petitioner's original sentence of one and a half to four and a half years to a new sentence of five to fifteen years. In a subsequent written opinion, the court explained that, because its promise to sentence petitioner to probation rather than state prison was predicated on two distinct and independent conditions - (1) petitioner's participation in MCEP and J-Cap, and (2) petitioner's proving to the court that he should not be sent to state prison (the "proof condition") - the invalidation of the first condition had no effect on the second condition. The second condition, according to the court, implicitly provided that "the court's promise of probation was contingent upon defendant's not getting indicted for committing another felony." The court explained that, having found that petitioner had violated the proof condition by committing several additional violent crimes, the court was free to impose the maximum sentence of five to fifteen years.

On May 14, 1996, the Appellate Division affirmed, People v. Mack, 642 N.Y.S.2d 270 (1st Dep't 1996), and, on October 1, 1996, the Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal, People v. Mack, 88 N.Y.2d 1069 (1996).

On September 26, 1997, petitioner filed the instant habeas petition. Finding that "petitioner's plea agreement did require him, explicitly or implicitly, to refrain from engaging in conduct pending sentencing that would lead to his re-arrest," the district court denied the petition on June 17, 1999. Mask, 1999 WL 401668, at *3. On April 4, 2000, we granted a certificate of appealability, and petitioner thereafter timely appealed.

DISCUSSION

We review a district court's denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus de novo. Fama v. Comm'r of Corr. Servs., 235 F.3d 804, 808 (2d Cir. 2000).

Petitioner's habeas corpus petition is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 2254. As amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1218, Section 2254 permits a federal court to grant habeas relief if state court proceedings "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). In Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 411 (2000), the Supreme Court had occasion to construe this language. The Court interpreted "clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States" as "refer[ring] to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of [the Supreme] Court's decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision." Id. With respect to the "unreasonable application of" clause, the Court instructed that "a federal habeas court... should ask whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law was objectively unreasonable." Id. at 409. In determining whether an application was objectively unreasonable, "the most important point is that an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law." Id. at 410. Interpreting Williams, we have added that although "[s]ome increment of incorrectness beyond error is required... the increment need not be great; otherwise, habeas relief would be limited to state court decisions so far off the mark as to suggest judicial incompetence." Francis S. v. Stone, 221 F.3d 100, 111 (2d Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

According to petitioner, the clearly established Supreme Court precedent applicable to his case is provided by Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742 (1970) and Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257 (1971). Petitioner specifically identifies Brady's holding that "a plea of guilty entered by one fully aware of the direct consequences, including the actual value of any commitments made to him by the court,... must stand unless induced by [inter alia]... unfulfilled... promises," Brady, 397 U.S. at 755 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted), and Santobello's holding that "when a plea rests in any significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, [due process requires that] such promise must be fulfilled" or the defendant must be given "the opportunity to withdraw his plea of guilty." Santobello, 404 U.S. at 262-63.

Petitioner argues that "the state court unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court precedent in deciding that [he] had no due process right to withdraw his plea when the trial court refused to honor [the] promised sentence" of five years probation and instead sentenced him to a term of imprisonment of five to fifteen years. More specifically, petitioner argues that the trial court's enhanced sentence would be justified only if the plea agreement "unambiguously implied a no-arrest condition" - that is, only if the state courts' interpretation of the agreement's proof condition were the only reasonable interpretation.

As noted, the trial court explained that the proof condition implicitly provided that "the court's promise of probation was contingent upon defendant's not getting indicted for committing another felony. No rational person could believe that a new crime would prove that he should not go to state prison...." Similarly, the Appellate Division found that "the [trial] court's statement at the original plea proceeding... that `(defendant) would have to prove to the court that he should not be sent to state prison' put defendant on notice that the commission of further crimes would result in a harsher sentence." M...