Felder v. United States

Background

Tyrone Felder, proceeding without a lawyer, sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which allows a federal prisoner to ask the sentencing court to vacate, set aside, or correct a sentence. A jury convicted Felder of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute at least 280 grams of crack cocaine and of brandishing firearms in connection with the drug conspiracy. The court sentenced him to 26 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. The Second Circuit previously affirmed his conviction and sentence.

Felder’s petition raised four categories of claims: ineffective assistance by trial and appellate counsel; improper joinder of the drug and robbery charges; procedural unreasonableness of his sentence; and insufficient evidence to support his convictions.

Court’s Analysis

Ineffective assistance of trial counsel

Felder argued that trial counsel failed to adequately cross-examine government witnesses whom Felder believed had lied. The court concluded that counsel had cross-examined several of the witnesses about the alleged inconsistencies and referred to those issues during closing argument. It treated decisions about the scope of cross-examination as strategic choices and held that Felder had not shown objectively unreasonable performance.

The court also held that Felder failed to show prejudice—that is, a reasonable probability that the alleged errors changed the trial’s outcome. The court pointed to substantial evidence, including testimony from undercover New York City police detectives, statements and admissions by Felder’s co-defendant, physical evidence, social-media postings, and other documents. The ineffective-assistance claim against trial counsel was therefore rejected.

Ineffective assistance of appellate counsel and joinder

Before trial, Felder had moved to separate the robbery charges from the drug-conspiracy charge. Judge McMahon denied that motion, finding that the counts were properly joined. Felder argued that appellate counsel was ineffective for not challenging that ruling on appeal.

The court rejected this claim. It found that appellate counsel had reasonably selected other issues for appeal and that the omitted joinder issue was not clearly stronger than the issues counsel raised. The court also found the joinder argument meritless. The robbery and drug charges were connected by the alleged method of the drug conspiracy, and the jury was instructed to consider each count separately. The court further found no prejudicial spillover because much of the robbery-related evidence would have been relevant to the drug-conspiracy charge, the evidence supporting the drug conviction was substantial, and Felder’s acquittal on the robbery counts showed that the jury could distinguish between the charges.

Felder also raised improper joinder as an independent claim. The court held that this claim was procedurally barred because he had not raised it on direct appeal and, in any event, he had not shown actual prejudice from the joinder.

Sentencing claims

Felder argued that the court improperly treated him as a career offender under the Sentencing Guidelines. He contended that one New York robbery conviction should not count because he had been adjudicated a youthful offender, and that his two New York second-degree robbery convictions were not crimes of violence under the Guidelines.

The court held that the youthful-offender argument was procedurally barred because Felder had raised and lost that argument on direct appeal. The court also held that the challenge to the robbery convictions was procedurally defaulted because Felder could have raised it on direct appeal and had not shown a sufficient reason for failing to do so, actual prejudice, or actual innocence.

Separately, the court rejected the robbery-conviction argument on the merits. It held that New York second-degree robbery convictions qualify as crimes of violence under the Guidelines’ force clause. The court also concluded that Supreme Court decisions addressing the Armed Career Criminal Act and the firearm statute’s residual clause did not apply to Felder’s advisory Guidelines career-offender determination. Felder’s claim that the sentence was procedurally unreasonable was denied. The court separately noted that the Hobbs Act robbery counts on which Felder was acquitted were not used to calculate his career-offender status.

Sufficiency of the evidence

The court held that Felder’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence was procedurally barred because he had raised and lost the issue on direct appeal. To the extent he presented a new argument about the evidence connecting guns to the drug conspiracy, the court held that it was also procedurally barred because it had not been raised on appeal. The court added that the new argument would fail on the merits because trial evidence showed that Felder committed robberies of drug dealers, including a gunpoint robbery.

Disposition

The court denied the Section 2255 petition. It declined to issue a certificate of appealability because Felder had not made a substantial showing that his constitutional rights were denied. It also certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying filing fees. The clerk was directed to terminate the motion and close the civil case.