United States v. Batamula
Decision Date | 02 June 2015 |
Docket Number | No. 12–20630.,12–20630. |
Citation | 788 F.3d 166 |
Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Innocent Rutahagara BATAMULA, Defendant–Appellant. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Katherine Lisa Haden (argued), Renata Ann Gowie, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Houston, TX, for Plaintiff–Appellee.
George William Vie, III (argued), Galveston, TX, for Defendant–Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Before DENNIS and PRADO, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, District Judge.*
Innocent Rutahagara Batamula, a citizen of Tanzania, after entering the United States on a student visa, marrying a United States citizen, and applying for a change in his immigration status, pleaded guilty pursuant to a written plea agreement to one count of making a false statement to a federal agent, 18 U.S.C. § 1001, and one count of making a false statement in an application for a passport, 18 U.S.C. § 1542. The court sentenced Batamula to time served, one year of supervised release, and a $2,000 fine. Batamula did not appeal from his conviction or sentence but filed a motion for habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, asserting that his retained attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel under Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 176 L.Ed.2d 284 (2010), by failing to advise him that the offenses to which he was pleading guilty would result in his deportation. The district court denied Batamula's § 2255 motion, we granted a certificate of appealability, and Batamula now appeals. For the reasons assigned hereinafter, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Batamula is a Tanzanian citizen who entered the United States in 2001 on a student visa and has since resided in Houston, Texas. In 2008, Batamula applied for and obtained a United States passport for his biological son, B.B.,1 a citizen and then—resident of Tanzania. To secure the passport, Batamula used the name and birth date of a different Tanzanian child whom we will refer to as Z.M.—born in Tanzania to a couple with whom Batamula was acquainted. Approximately three years later, on May 11, 2011, Z.M.'s parents applied for a passport for their son and discovered that a passport had already been issued in his name but displayed a photograph of someone else's child—Batamula's son, B.B. When questioned by federal agents, Batamula said that he did not know the child pictured in the fraudulent passport.
Batamula was initially charged with one count of false representation to a United States agent under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Thereafter, a superseding information was filed that additionally charged one count of making a false statement in an application for a United States passport in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1542. On November 17, 2011, pursuant to a written plea agreement, Batamula entered a plea of guilty to both counts.
Batamula's guilty plea proceeding was conducted alongside another non-citizen defendant who was pleading guilty to an unrelated felony charge. During the proceeding, Batamula informed the court that he spoke with his attorney about the charges approximately ten times, that his attorney answered all of his questions, that he was “fully satisfied with the advice and counsel provided” by his attorney, and that his attorney had done everything asked of him. Moments before accepting the plea, the court addressed both Batamula and the other defendant present at the proceeding, stating: The court then found that Batamula's guilty plea was knowing and voluntary and accepted his guilty plea to both counts.
On May 1, 2012, Batamula moved to vacate or set aside his conviction and sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, contending that his attorney failed to provide effective assistance of counsel under Padilla by failing to advise him that pleading guilty to both charges would result in his deportation. He averred in a sworn affidavit that, if his attorney had advised him that pleading guilty to the charges would make him “mandatory [sic ] deportable” he would have refused to “make the plea,” would have pleaded not guilty, and would have insisted on going to trial “as that would have been [his] only alternative to avoid deportation.” Batamula attached to his habeas petition a sworn affidavit from his retained counsel, which stated that the attorney Additionally, Batamula presented the affidavit of an immigration attorney who attested that, pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii),3 Batamula's guilty plea rendered him “presumptively deportable” because his convictions are considered crimes of moral turpitude.4
The district court granted the Government's motion for summary judgment and denied Batamula's § 2255 motion without an evidentiary hearing, finding that he had “shown no right to relief.”5 As relevant here, the district court concluded that “even if Batamula's attorney was deficient in failing to inform Batamula of the immigration consequences of his guilty plea, Batamula has not shown that such a deficiency prejudiced him because before accepting his guilty plea the court informed him that he would likely be deported after he served his sentence ... [Batamula therefore] cannot satisfy the [Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) ] prejudice prong[.]” Thus, the district court held as a matter of law that if a judge, during the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 (“Rule 11 ”) proceeding, informs the defendant that deportation is a likely result of his guilty plea, any prejudice caused by counsel's failure to advise his client regarding that danger is thereby cured, or the defendant's claim based thereon is forfeited or waived, and the defendant is therefore categorically foreclosed from subsequently demonstrating prejudice under Padilla and Strickland.
This is an issue of law which we review de novo.6 See, e.g., United States v. Ghali, 699 F.3d 845, 846 (5th Cir.2012) ().
“Defendants have a Sixth Amendment right to counsel, a right that extends to the plea bargaining process.”Lafler v. Cooper, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 1376, 1384, 182 L.Ed.2d 398 (2012) (citing Missouri v. Frye, –––U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 1399, 1407–08, 182 L.Ed.2d 379 (2012) ; Padilla, 559 U.S. at 373, 130 S.Ct. 1473 ; Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 57, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985) ). “During plea negotiations defendants are ‘entitled to the effective assistance of competent counsel.’ ” Id. (quoting McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 25 L.Ed.2d 763 (1970) ). The right to effective representation during the pre-guilty-plea stage of proceedings requires defense counsel to, inter alia, fulfill the “quintessential[ ] ... duty ... to provide [the] client with available advice about an issue like deportation.” Padilla, 559 U.S. at 371, 130 S.Ct. 1473.
The familiar two-pronged ineffective assistance analysis set forth in Strickland applies to alleged violations of the right to effective assistance of counsel during pre-guilty-plea proceedings. See Lafler, 132 S.Ct. at 1384 (citing Hill, 474 U.S. at 58, 106 S.Ct. 366 ); Frye, 132 S.Ct. at 1405 ; Padilla, 559 U.S. at 366, 130 S.Ct. 1473. Establishing prejudice under Strickland in the context of a claim that defense counsel failed to advise the defendant that the entry of his guilty plea would result in deportation requires the defendant to demonstrate a reasonable probability that “but for counsel's unprofessional errors, ... the outcome of the plea process would have been different.” Lafler, 132 S.Ct. at 1384 (citing Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052 ; Frye, 132 S.Ct. at 1410 ). “A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Additionally, to demonstrate prejudice and “obtain relief on this type of claim, a petitioner must convince the court that a decision to reject the plea bargain would have been rational under the circumstances.” Padilla, 559 U.S. at 372, 130 S.Ct. 1473. In conducting this prejudice inquiry “we consider the totality of the circumstances.” United States v. Kayode, 777 F.3d 719, 725 (5th Cir.2014).
Recently, emphasizing that it is “counsel's duty, not the court's, to warn of certain immigration consequences,” id. at 728 (quoting United States v. Urias–Marrufo, 744 F.3d 361, 369 (5th Cir.2014) ), we held that “[w]arnings from a judge during a plea colloquy are not a substitute for effective assistance of counsel, and therefore have no bearing on the first Strickland prong,” id. We further reasoned that, “while judicial admonishments are not a substitute for effective assistance of counsel, they are relevant under the second Strickland prong in determining whether a defendant was prejudiced by counsel's error.”
Id. at 728–29. Accordingly, we held that a judicial admonishment is one of many factors and circumstances that a court may consider in the fact-based, totality of the circumstances prejudice analysis, see id. at 725, but did not determine whether such an admonishment, alone, can remedy or prevent prejudice caused by counsel's failure to provide effective advice about the immigration consequences of the guilty plea, id. at 729.
Here, the district court, without conducting an evidentiary hearing, denied Batamula's § 2255 motion, apparently reasoning that a court erases any prejudice resulting from a...
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