United States v. Alaniz

• Decision Date: 23 July 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-40486,19-40486
• Citation: 5 F.4th 632
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff—Appellee, v. Alberto ALANIZ, Defendant—Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

5 F.4th 632

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff—Appellee,

v.Alberto ALANIZ, Defendant—Appellant.

No. 19-40486

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

FILED July 23, 2021

Audrey Lynn Maness, Carmen Castillo Mitchell, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Texas, Houston, TX, for Plaintiff - Appellee.

Marjorie A. Meyers, Federal Public Defender, Scott Andrew Martin, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Kathryn Shephard, Federal Public Defender's Office, Southern District of Texas, Houston, TX, for Defendant - Appellant

Before Haynes, Graves, and Willett, Circuit Judges.

Haynes, Circuit Judge:

Alberto Alaniz was convicted of drug and money laundering offenses and sentenced to over twenty years in prison. He did not file a direct appeal. In subsequent filings under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, he asserted the reason for no appeal was his counsel's failure to file despite being asked to do so at sentencing. Later, Alaniz separately claimed that his counsel also failed to advise him of his appellate rights and failed to consult with him about the virtues of an appeal over the course of his counsel's representation. The district court concluded that his failure-to-advise and failure-to-consult claims did not relate back to his failure-to-file claim and were, as a result, untimely. We granted a certificate of appealability ("COA") on the issue. Because we likewise conclude that the claims relate to a different core of operative facts, we now AFFIRM.

I. Background

In 2013, Alaniz pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute 1000 kilograms or more of marijuana and to conspiring to commit money laundering. He was ultimately sentenced to concurrent sentences totaling more than twenty years on those charges. At sentencing, the district court advised Alaniz that he had the right to appeal, that he had two weeks to do so, and that he could ask for a waiver of the costs of an appeal. No appeal was filed.

Approximately a year later, Alaniz timely filed a pro se § 2255 motion to set aside his sentence. He asserted numerous ineffective assistance claims, including, as relevant here, a claim that his counsel had been ineffective for failing to file an appeal.¹ Although Alaniz's filings also cited some legal authority about an attorney's duty to advise a defendant about his appellate rights and to consult with the defendant about those rights, Alaniz's factual allegations on the subject focused entirely on his counsel's alleged failure to file the appeal on his behalf even though, according to Alaniz, he specifically asked his counsel to do so during sentencing.

After appointing him counsel, the district court ordered an evidentiary hearing to address his failure-to-file claim. Some of the testimony at the hearing related to the alleged failure to file an appeal. Specifically, Alaniz testified that he had whispered to one of his attorneys at sentencing that he wished to appeal. But much of the testimony related to new factual allegations, including his attorneys’ alleged failures over the entire course of their representation to advise Alaniz of his appellate rights and to consult with him concerning the merits of appealing.

Following the hearing, Alaniz submitted a post-hearing memorandum. In that memorandum (unlike in his original filings), Alaniz subdivided his ineffective assistance claim as to the appeal into three parts, claiming that: (1) his attorneys failed to advise Alaniz of all of his appellate rights, including his right to appointed counsel on appeal; (2) one of his attorneys failed to file an appeal after Alaniz asked him to; and, (3) his attorneys failed to consult with Alaniz regarding an appeal.

The district court first dismissed Alaniz's failure-to-file claim because Alaniz had not testified credibly as to his alleged request at sentencing; accordingly, the district court ruled that his attorney never received "specific instructions" from Alaniz about filing an appeal. (This factual determination is not at issue here.) The district court then identified that Alaniz's failure-to-advise and failure-to-consult claims had been raised for the first time in Alaniz's post-hearing memorandum such that they were effectively attempts to amend the original § 2255 filings to add new claims. See United States v. Gonzalez , 592 F.3d 675, 678–79 (5th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (noting that an argument not originally raised in a § 2255 motion may be raised if the district court grants leave to amend). Concluding that those claims did not relate back to the original filings because they differed in both time and type from the timely failure-to-file claim and that, as a consequence, they were untimely (having been raised more than a year after the relevant date), the district court denied Alaniz leave to amend to raise the claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(1). Accordingly, the district court denied the § 2255 motion and dismissed the case. It also denied a COA on all claims.

Alaniz timely appealed, moving for a COA from our court on the grounds that that he believed reasonable jurists could debate two issues: the first, whether his original § 2255 filings encompass failure-to-advise and failure-to-consult claims; and the second, whether those claims relate back to his original § 2255 motion such that they are not time-barred. We granted Alaniz a COA as to the second issue only, specifically concluding that the first issue did not warrant further review because reasonable jurists could not debate whether Alaniz's original filings themselves contained the claims.

II. Jurisdiction & Standard of Review

The district court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We have jurisdiction to review the district court's final judgment under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. Our scope of review is, however, limited to the single issue on which we granted the COA; we lack jurisdiction to consider anything else. Buck v. Davis , ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S. Ct. 759, 774, 197 L.Ed.2d 1 (2017) ; United States v. Daniels , 588 F.3d 835, 836 n.1 (5th Cir. 2009) (per curiam).

As a practical matter, the specific COA issue concerns whether the district court appropriately denied Alaniz the ability to amend his claims on the grounds that the newly raised claims were untimely. In general, we review a district court's denial of leave to amend for abuse of discretion, examining any particular legal conclusions that the district court relied on to reach that result de novo. City of Clinton v. Pilgrim's Pride Corp. , 632 F.3d 148, 152 (5th Cir. 2010) ; see also In re Deepwater Horizon , 785 F.3d 986, 999 (5th Cir. 2015) ("A decision premised on an error of law constitutes an abuse of discretion."). Although the parties dispute whether the district court's relation-back conclusion should be subject to review under abuse-of-discretion or as a de novo legal conclusion,² we need not resolve that question in this case. Alaniz's claims do not relate back under either standard of review.

III. Discussion

Given the limited COA in this case, there is one and only one question for us to resolve: whether the district court erred in concluding that Alaniz's otherwise untimely failure-to-advise and failure-to-consult claims relate back to his timely failure-to-file claim. We conclude that they do not.

The question arises because § 2255 claims are generally subject to a one-year limitations period. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f). But a newly asserted claim can avoid a limitations dismissal if it "relates back" to a timely claim by, as relevant here, "ar[ising] out of" the same conduct "set out—or attempted to be set out—in the original pleading." Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1)(B) ; United States v. Saenz , 282 F.3d 354, 356 (5th Cir. 2002).

To answer the question, we look for commonalities between the facts underlying the different claims. Mayle v. Felix , 545 U.S. 644, 664, 125 S.Ct. 2562, 162 L.Ed.2d 582 (2005). Newly asserted claims relate back if they are premised on the same or similar allegations as those in the original filing. McClellon v. Lone Star Gas Co. , 66 F.3d 98, 102 (5th Cir. 1995). But if the newly asserted claims require factual support that "differ[s] in both time and type" from that required by the timely claim, the new claims do not relate back, such that they are subject to the relevant limitations period on the date asserted. Felix , 545 U.S. at 650, 125 S.Ct. 2562. So, as relevant here, newly asserted ineffective assistance claims do not "automatically relate back" to earlier iterations of such claims, Gonzalez , 592 F.3d at 679 —only claims "tied to a common core of operative facts" avoid the limitations bar, Felix , 545 U.S. at 664, 125 S.Ct. 2562.

Our court has not had many occasions to address the relation-back doctrine in connection with § 2255 ineffective assistance of counsel claims. The parties, for their part, identify only two cases in which we have done so— Gonzalez , 592 F.3d at 675, and United States v. Gutierrez , 548 F. App'x 181 (5th Cir. 2013) (per curiam)—but neither is squarely on point. In Gonzalez , we rejected relation-back arguments where a defendant tried to add a new failure-to-file claim to pre-existing pre-trial- and sentencing-related claims because the new claim involved "entirely distinct type[s] of attorney misfeasance" at a different phase of the proceedings. 592 F.3d at 680. By contrast, in the unpublished Gutierrez , we concluded that an allegation that a defendant's pre-trial counsel was ineffective by subsequently representing an adverse witness in the defendant's trial related back to a claim that the defendant's trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the adverse witness's testimony on the basis of the pre-trial counsel's previous representation of the defendant. 548 F. App'x at 182–83. Neither case addresses the factual circumstances presented by this case, in which we are presented with multiple appellate-rights-related claims that nonetheless take aim at different aspects of counsel's...