Scott v. United States

Background

David Scott, proceeding without a lawyer, asked the court under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate, set aside, or correct his federal sentence. He had pleaded guilty to distributing and possessing with intent to distribute crack cocaine in an unspecified amount. The court sentenced him to 151 months in prison, within the agreed Guidelines range of 151 to 188 months. The Second Circuit summarily affirmed the judgment.

Scott raised two ineffective-assistance claims. First, he argued that his lawyer in the state criminal case failed to tell him that rejecting an eight-year state plea offer would result in federal prosecution. Second, he argued that his federal lawyer should have challenged a search warrant because an affidavit appeared to say that a confidential informant identified Scott before a controlled drug purchase occurred.

Court’s analysis

The court applied the ineffective-assistance standard from Strickland v. Washington. Under that standard, a petitioner must show both that the lawyer’s performance was deficient and that the deficiency caused prejudice—meaning a reasonable probability that the proceeding would have ended differently.

State-counsel claim. The court held that § 2255 cannot be used to challenge the effectiveness of a lawyer in a separate state criminal prosecution. The state and federal cases were prosecutions by different governments, and what happened in the state case did not establish that Scott’s federal counsel was ineffective or otherwise justify relief from the federal sentence.

Scott also argued that his federal prosecution was part of “Project Exile,” which he described as cooperation between federal and state prosecutors to obtain pleas by warning that rejecting a state offer would lead to federal charges. The court found no evidence that this occurred in Scott’s case. It also noted that the materials Scott cited generally described Project Exile as a program focused on federal firearms prosecutions, while Scott was charged with federal narcotics offenses. The court therefore found no basis for a hearing on this claim.

Federal-counsel claim. The court rejected Scott’s argument that his federal lawyer should have challenged the search warrant. It reasoned that information about drug sales linked to the residence, including controlled purchases, provided probable cause to search the residence. Even if probable cause were lacking, the court said the officers could have relied on the warrant in good faith, which would have prevented suppression of the evidence under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.

The court also addressed Scott’s argument under Franks v. Delaware, which permits a challenge based on deliberate or reckless false statements in a warrant affidavit when the statements were necessary to probable cause. The court found that the apparent date error was unlikely to have been an intentional attempt to mislead the issuing judge and that probable cause would still have existed if the challenged paragraph were removed.

Finally, the court found no prejudice. The Government had discovery concerning 15 controlled narcotics purchases from Scott. The court stated that a conviction from any one of those purchases would have qualified Scott as a career offender and produced the same 151-to-188-month Guidelines range. Thus, even a successful search challenge would not necessarily have prevented further federal charges or changed the sentencing result.

Disposition

The order begins by stating that the petition was denied. Its conclusion states that the court dismissed Scott’s petition, directed entry of judgment for the United States, and directed the Clerk to close the case. The court also declined to issue a certificate of appealability because Scott had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right was denied, and certified that an appeal from the judgment on the merits would not be taken in good faith.