U.S. v. Contreras
| Decision Date | 15 August 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. CRIM. H-90-226.,CRIM. H-90-226. |
| Citation | 134 F.Supp.2d 820 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Juan Antonio CONTRERAS, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas |
Paula Offenhauser, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Houston, TX, for Government.
Juan Antonio Contreras, Victorville, CA, Pro se.
This case has not been remanded; it has been delegated. Remand would imply that the court of appeals had actually done its work. It did not.
After having the appeal of the summary denial for a year, the court of appeals remanded the case for findings from the district court. Other than the petitioner's name, the opinion contains no case-specific fact in it at all — not one. The opinion identifies no fact that is both (a) essential to the resolution of a claim and (b) the subject of conflicting evidence in the record. In the absence of these predicates, the law is satisfied when the trial court has made a record and a decision.
The opinion does have two case citations. United States v. Daly, 823 F.2d 871 (5th Cir.1987); United States v. Edwards, 711 F.2d 633 (1983). Those cases do not have facts parallel to this case; no, they are merely earlier examples of an appellate panel "elaborating" the rules for its own convenience. This is the theme: "Although nothing [in the rules] technically requires a statement of reasons by a trial judge ... we have many times emphasized the importance of a detailed discussion by the trial judge." McIncrow v. Harris County, 878 F.2d 835, 835 (5th Cir.1989) (quoting Heller v. Namer, 666 F.2d 905, 911 (5th Cir.1982))(emphasis added), as quoted in O'Neill v. Air Line Pilots Ass'n Intern., 886 F.2d 1438, 1443 (5th Cir.1989), rev'd, 499 U.S. 65, 111 S.Ct. 1127, 113 L.Ed.2d 51 (1991)(affirming trial court still without a trial-court opinion).
The rule says, "Findings of fact and conclusions of law are unnecessary on decisions of motions under Rule 12 or 56 or any other motion." FED.R.CIV.P. 52(a)(emphasis added). The petition here is governed by a rule that says, "Unless the motion and the files and records of the case conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief, the court shall ... determine the issues and make findings of fact and conclusions of law...." 28 U.S.C. § 2255. No issue has been identified on appeal that would lawfully require a finding. Rather, the case was returned for help with the paperwork; that is not judging — it is dodging.
The court of appeals has roughly seventeen judgeships, fifty-one law clerks, and fifty staff attorneys. It does not have the district court as additional staff. While an appeal lies from district court to the court of appeals, district courts are not local branches of its operation — just as courts of appeals are not regional branches of the Supreme Court. The distinction between route of appeal and subordination of institution is important for the vitality of judging at each level; intra-branch independence keeps the American judicial process from resembling a slouch up through the Department of Interiors's layers. Even if, as it occasionally asserts, the court of appeals had some general supervisory power over the trial court separate from its appellate responsibilities, that authority would not extend to shifting its work to the district court.
Courts of appeal should expect — and even hope — that the sources of their cases constitute "a Court unwilling to be simply a reference librarian to its Superior Court." B. Ward, Tribute to Clement F. Haynesworth, Jr., 665 F.2d LXXXVI (1981).
In this court's imposed capacity as an honorary briefing clerk to the court of appeals, here is the application of the record to Contreras's claims.
The petition is not clear, so the court has tried to put Contreras's text into as plausible a claim as it reasonably could support.
By Contreras's count, this is his fifth post-trial action. Under any interpretation of the writ of habeas corpus, a fifth action after seven years is presumptively specious, but courts read them and check the record because it is just possible that a good claim has been newly discovered. These claims are not new.
Contreras raises several complaints about his trial. None of them is the kind of gross failure of regularity that would implicate the court's responsibility for fundamental justice. In the aggregate they are not substantial. A couple of them he raised and lost on his direct appeal.
Except for the assertion that he was used by his counsel, his claims all could have been brought in his appeal. Because he has no excuse for not bringing them then, he may not bring them now. Without a cause for omitting these claims from his appeal, he does not reach the question of harm since he needs to have both a good reason and a bad result. United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 168, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982).
The facts supporting these claims were known to Contreras at the time of trial and appeal. The only new "fact" is an amendment to federal law in 1996 that would have made a good faith arrest for immigration charges by a local policemen lawful. He also urges as new, lenient law a holding in a case that is quite unlike his.
As a police officer for the city of Laredo, Juan Contreras arrested Patricia Orozco, drove her to a secluded location, and raped her. After his indictment in state court for rape, Contreras attempted to kill Orozco to keep her from testifying. He was tried in this court on federal charges arising from his violation of her civil rights and interference with a federal witness. Contreras was sentenced to 61 years.
Contreras says that his lawyer was crippled in his ability to help Contreras because it was the lawyer's bad advice that got him into trouble with the federal authorities. Contreras claims—now—that he was investigating Orozco's case against him for rape rather than attempting to kill her. He says that he was only investigating her at the request of his counsel in the Webb County prosecution, Gregory Zaney. Since it was his counsel who exposed Contreras to these charges, Contreras says that the lawyer's performance was insufficient for the minimum level of assistance that the Constitution requires. He also claims that Zaney's performance was hampered by the resulting "conflict of interest" because the attorney did not want the Texas bar to discover that he had a client investigate his own case.
When a petitioner claims that he had ineffective counsel because his lawyer's interest conflicted with his own, he must establish that his attorney performed below a reasonable level of competence and harmed the defense. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Beets v. Scott, 65 F.3d 1258 (5th Cir.1995)(adopting Strickland for conflicts that do not involve multiple clients). Harm occurs when the flawed performance leads to an unfair result. Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 371, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993).
Assuming that the background facts were true, Contreras is wrong in the conclusions that he draws from them. A lawyer's asking a client to help with his own defense is not an error. If it were an error, it was in the state prosecution — not in this federal case. If it were an error, it is not a conflict of interest. If it were a conflict of interest, it did not result in an unfair conviction. Contreras has made no effort to meet his responsibility to identify an act of his lawyer in the presentation of the case that (a) was wrong objectively, (b) cannot be explained tactically, and (c) probably caused the adverse verdict.
As anyone who read the record would know, Contreras testified at the trial that he wanted to find Orozco to "give her the same kind of headache she's been giving me." In his petition, he admits that he offered to track down Orozco and that Zaney merely accepted his help. He cannot reopen the evidence to contradict himself.
The whole concept of Zaney's needing Contreras to find Orozco is bizarre. Orozco was not a missing witness; she was the complaining witness.
If Contreras had chosen to help his lawyer obscure the bad advice to investigate Orozco, as he now says, that was his choice, and it binds him now.
If Zaney did suggest that Contreras investigate Orozco, it was not unethical. Regardless, Contreras has no specifics of Zaney's telling him to investigate Orozco. It is hard to imagine a lawyer's advising a client to investigate on the eve of his trial with a pistol, mask, and gloves in hand. In the four months between his indictment and trial, Contreras investigated Orozco only to the extent of finding her address in Nuevo Laredo, just across the Rio Grande in Mexico. Neither of the accomplice witnesses spoke of anything connected to the lawyer; they both confirmed Contreras's 1990 version.
The record conclusively shows that Contreras was helping himself directly without the intervention of counsel's advice. Contreras, not his lawyer, recruited a confessed accomplice. If he were actually investigating her, he would have started months earlier, leaving the pistol, mask, and gloves at home. The facts conclusively show that Contreras was on his way to kill Orozco, not to investigate her.
This is not a case where the client was ignorant of his opportunities and unaware of his lawyer's errors. Contreras actually fired Gustavo Acevedo, the court-appointed lawyer, and replaced him with Zaney. Contreras claims that other lawyers heard him assert the investigation defense, but in a decade he has not produced that testimony, and the jury heard Contreras from the stand explain his actions. He had an opportunity then to tell his story his way, but he did not mention advice of counsel. Even if it were true that Zaney did not present the investigation defense, he is presumed to have omitted it because it is no defense rather than in an...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
U.S. v. Sease
...a Laredo police officer arrested a woman, raped her, and attempted to kill her to avoid having her testify against him. 134 F.Supp.2d 820, 823 (S.D.Tex.2000). On habeas review, Contreras argued that his stop was proper pursuant to a provision in federal law authorizing municipal police offi......
-
United States v. Kaneshiro
... ... contributions in return for the investigation and prosecution ... of LJM. See also United States v. Contreras , 134 ... F.Supp.2d 820 (S.D. Tex. 2000) ... V ... CONCLUSION ... Based ... on ... ...