Pendergrass v. United States
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:16-cv-05714
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Pendergrass v. United States, Judge Abrams denied the challenge to Pendergrass’s conviction and dismissed the action.
Terrence Pendergrass’s federal conviction challenge was rejected; the United States prevailed, and the action was dismissed.
What happened
In Pendergrass v. United States, Terrence Pendergrass challenged his December 2014 federal conviction for depriving people of civil rights under color of law. He argued, among other things, that his trial lawyer was ineffective.
Pendergrass objected to a magistrate judge’s recommendation that his petition be denied, focusing on the court’s treatment of affidavits, the failure to call certain witnesses, and the combined effect of alleged trial errors. The opinion says the magistrate judge had carefully considered these arguments and found that Pendergrass had not shown deficient representation or that the alleged errors affected the trial’s outcome.
Judge Ronnie Abrams adopted the recommendation in full, denied Pendergrass’s petition, and dismissed the action. The court also declined to issue a certificate allowing an appeal because Pendergrass had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied.
The detailed version
- Pendergrass v. United States · No. 1:16-cv-05714
- Ronnie Abrams
- Dec. 30, 2019
Background
Terrence Pendergrass filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure allowing a person convicted in federal court to ask the sentencing court to vacate, set aside, or correct the sentence on specified constitutional, jurisdictional, or fundamental legal grounds. He challenged his December 2014 conviction for deprivation of civil rights under color of law under 18 U.S.C. § 242.
Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman issued a Report and Recommendation recommending that the petition be denied and that no certificate of appealability issue. Pendergrass objected, and the United States responded by letter. Judge Abrams reviewed the objections under the standards applicable to objections to a magistrate judge’s recommendation. The court stated that most objections merely repeated arguments previously presented and therefore were reviewed for clear error, while also stating that the result would be the same under a more searching review.
Court’s Analysis
The principal issue was ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Pendergrass argued that the magistrate judge improperly credited an affidavit from his trial lawyer, Samuel Braverman, over affidavits from Pendergrass and Patrick Ferraioulo, a former municipal union representative. The court rejected that objection, finding that the Report had considered the competing affidavits and that Pendergrass’s and Ferraioulo’s submissions did not show that Braverman’s performance was constitutionally deficient.
Pendergrass also argued that Braverman should have called several inmates and correctional officers as witnesses and should have reviewed all available audio recordings. The court agreed with the Report that Pendergrass had not adequately shown what the proposed witnesses would have testified to or that their testimony would have tended to exonerate him or changed the trial’s outcome. The court also stated that Pendergrass had not shown that the decision not to review all available recordings was constitutionally deficient or prejudiced him.
The court further rejected Pendergrass’s arguments about prior witness statements and cases addressing claims based on counsel’s failure to call witnesses. It concluded that his unsupported assertions were insufficient and that the materials he submitted did not establish a likelihood that the witnesses’ testimony would have changed the result.
Finally, Pendergrass argued that the combined effect of a disclosure issue, an allegedly erroneous conscious-avoidance jury instruction, and counsel’s failure to call fact witnesses deprived him of effective assistance. The court stated that the Court of Appeals had rejected his arguments concerning the disclosure issue and jury instruction, and that the Report had properly considered and rejected the cumulative-effect argument.
Disposition
Judge Abrams found no clear error in the Report and Recommendation and adopted it in its entirety. The petition was denied, and the action was dismissed. The court declined to issue a certificate of appealability because the petition did not make a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. The Clerk was directed to close the case.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.