Nguyen v. Attorney Gen. of N.J.

• Decision Date: 10 August 2016
• Docket Number: No. 15-3902,15-3902
• Citation: 832 F.3d 455
• Parties: Hai Kim Nguyen, Appellant v. Attorney General of New Jersey; Superintendent Attica Correctional Facility.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

832 F.3d 455

Hai Kim Nguyen, Appellant

v.Attorney General of New Jersey; Superintendent Attica Correctional Facility.

No. 15-3902

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued June 14, 2016

Filed: August 10, 2016

Michael J. Confusione, Hegge & Confusione, P.O. Box 366, Mulica Hill, NJ 08062, Jonathan I. Edelstein (argued), Edelstein & Grossman, 501 Fifth Avenue, Suite 514, New York, NY 10017, Attorneys for Appellant

John R. Ascione, Somerset County Office of Prosecutor, James L. McConnell (argued), Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, Administration Building, P.O. Box 3000, Somerville, N.J. 08876, Attorneys for Appellees

BEFORE: AMBRO, JORDAN, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges

OPINION

GREENBERG, Circuit Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This matter comes on before this Court on an appeal from an order entered in the District Court on November 19, 2015, denying Hai Kim Nguyen's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. See Nguyen v. Hoffman, Civ. Act. No. 13–6845, 2015 WL 7306425, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156677 (D.N.J. Nov. 19, 2015). Though the order denied Nguyen's petition, it granted him a certificate of appealability on one of the grounds that he asserted in his petition—namely, that his trial counsel had been ineffective for failing to raise a Sixth Amendment speedy trial claim. We review the denial of his petition based on ineffective-assistance-of-counsel grounds through a “doubly deferential” lens. See Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 123, 129 S.Ct. 1411, 1420, 173 L.Ed.2d 251 (2009). Thus, the question before us is whether Nguyen's trial counsel's representation met an objective standard of reasonableness or, if he did not meet that standard, his representation did not prejudice Nguyen. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). In light of the fact that Nguyen's trial counsel did raise a Sixth Amendment speedy trial claim before trial on a motion to dismiss the indictment in the state trial court, we conclude that he cannot be deemed to have been ineffective for failing to raise the claim. Accordingly, without reaching the issue of prejudice, we will affirm the District Court's denial of Nguyen's petition.

II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. The State–Court Charges and Guilty Plea

On March 24, 2002, while attending a wedding reception in Green Brook Township, New Jersey, Nguyen shot another wedding guest, Tuan Thieu, eight times, fatally wounding him. At that time, Nguyen also shot at another wedding guest, but he missed his target, and the bullet lodged in the wall of the wedding facility. When the police arrived shortly after the shooting, several eye witnesses, each of whom knew Nguyen, identified him to the police as the shooter. Witnesses also informed the police that Nguyen fled the scene in a 1996 Honda with Alabama license plates. Moreover, witnesses provided the police with Nguyen's address in Brooklyn.

On the day following the homicide, detectives from the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, accompanied by New York City Police Department officers, went to the Brooklyn address that the witnesses provided intending to arrest Nguyen. When the officers knocked on the door of the residence, Nguyen barricaded himself inside with his two-year-old son, and informed the officers that he would shoot his son and the officers if they attempted to enter. After a four-hour standoff in which a New York Police Department hostage team participated, Nguyen agreed to be taken into custody, and the New York authorities arrested him on the evening of March 25, 2002.¹

While Nguyen was in custody in New York, a New York grand jury returned several indictments against him. Nguyen pleaded guilty to the New York indictments on April 30, 2003, 13 months after his arrest. A New York court imposed concurrent sentences on Nguyen for these convictions, the longest of which was a five-to-fifteen year sentence on a bribery charge.

Prior to his guilty pleas to the New York indictments, at a time that he was still in custody in New York, a New Jersey grand jury in Somerset County returned an indictment on April 24, 2002, relating to the March 24, 2002 shootings at the wedding reception. That indictment charged Nguyen with first-degree murder and other offenses as a result of his crimes at the wedding reception. On May 13, 2003—shortly after he entered guilty pleas to the New York indictments—Nguyen waived extradition, and on November 7, 2003, he was extradited to New Jersey so that New Jersey authorities took custody of him. After protracted pretrial proceedings, Nguyen pleaded guilty on September 23, 2009, to one count of aggravated manslaughter and one count of attempted murder. He was sentenced on December 11, 2009, to a 20-year term of imprisonment to run concurrently with his New York sentence starting from the date of his New Jersey guilty pleas. Nguyen's habeas corpus petition, from the denial of which he appeals, turns on the events that occurred between his extradition in November 2003 and his entry of his guilty plea in September 2009.

B. The Pretrial Proceedings

On September 2, 2004, Nguyen's trial counsel in Somerset County filed an omnibus motion, which included motions to suppress physical evidence, to suppress statements, for a Sands-Brunson hearing,² to preclude evidence of his other bad acts, and to conduct a hearing regarding the admissibility of statements made to non-police witnesses. The trial court held a hearing over two days in September 2005 to address the motion to suppress the homicide weapon and Nguyen's statements made to non-police witnesses. After the hearing, the parties filed briefs between October 2005 and February 2006. The trial court heard oral argument on the motions to suppress on April 27, 2006, and denied the motions. The court subsequently denied the remainder of Nguyen's pretrial motions in a written decision on February 11, 2009.

From August 2006 to June 2008, Nguyen pursued an insanity defense. He filed his notice of insanity defense and lack of requisite state of mind as required by New Jersey court procedures on August 30, 2006. The trial court entered a consent order on January 4, 2007, which provided for the release of medical records from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Correctional Health Services. (A6). On January 17, 2007, Nguyen's counsel produced Nguyen's medical and psychiatric record. Subsequently, the State's expert examined Nguyen in March 2007 and on October 5, 2007. Ultimately, the trial court held a competency hearing on December 13, 2007, at which both the State and defense counsel presented expert witnesses. At that hearing, defense counsel stated that the defense expert would conduct a further examination of Nguyen in January 2008 and thereafter file an additional report. It appears, however, that the expert did not make a further examination, and on June 26, 2008, the trial court determined that Nguyen was competent to proceed to trial.

Following this resolution of all outstanding motions, the court set a trial date for June 2009. The State requested an adjournment and proposed a September 29, 2009 trial date, to which there was no objection. Notably, the record reflects that while the case was pending in New Jersey, 12 conferences scheduled in the case were adjourned, at least ten of them at the request of defense counsel.

C. The Motion to Dismiss the Indictment

On July 1, 2009, defense counsel filed a Motion to Dismiss the Indictment for Violation of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (“IAD”), N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:159A-1 et seq., a statute that sets forth a procedure for the transfer of prisoners between jurisdictions for trial in the receiving jurisdiction. Defense counsel filed a letter brief supporting the motion on September 21, 2009, seeking an order dismissing the indictment. In making his IAD argument, defense counsel cited Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101 (1972), for the proposition that “ ‘a [d]efendant has no duty to bring himself to trial. The State has that duty, as well as the duty of insuring that the trial is consistent with Due Process.’ ” (A36 (quoting Barker, 407 U.S. at 527, 92 S.Ct. at 2190 )). In his brief defense counsel included the following nine paragraphs in a footnote:

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees an accused the right to a speedy trial. An accused's right to a speedy trial ripens after the filing of a formal criminal complaint.

State v. LeVien, 44 N.J. 323 (1965). This fundamental right applies against the State through the Due Process [Clause] of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213 [87 S.Ct. 988, 18 L.Ed.2d 1] (1967), and the New Jersey Constitution, Article I, Paragraph 10 (1947).

In Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514, 530 [92 S.Ct. 2182, 33 L.Ed.2d 101] (1972), the United States Supreme Court established a balancing test to be used in determining whether a defendant's right to a speedy trial has been violated. The Court noted that the duty to bring a defendant to trial ‘as well as the duty of insuring that the trial is consistent with due process ...’ rests entirely with the State. Id. at 527 . See also State v. Smith, 70 N.J. 214 [213], 217 (1976) (applying the Barker v. Wingo balancing test).

The balancing test ‘compels Courts to approach speedy trial cases on an ad hoc basis.’ Barker v. Wingo, supra at 530 . It requires considering and weighing four factors: (1) the length of delay; (2) the reason for the delay; (3) the defendant's assertion of his right; and (4) prejudice to the defendant.

Applying these factors to the case at hand, it is clear that Mr. Nguyen's right to a speedy trial has been denied. Mr. Nguyen was indicted in 2003—six years ago. Moreover, it has been six years since the Prosecutor's Office filed to bring Mr. Nguyen to New Jersey under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers. This is clearly long enough to trigger a speedy trial analysis. Barker v. Wingo, supra

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