Griffin v. United States

Background

Junior Griffin was convicted by a jury in March 2018 of conspiring to distribute narcotics and distributing cocaine. The conspiracy involved quantities of crack cocaine and cocaine that triggered a mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentence. The court later sentenced Griffin to 120 months on each offense, to run at the same time. The Second Circuit affirmed the conviction, and the Supreme Court denied review.

Griffin later filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure allowing a federal prisoner to challenge a sentence based on certain constitutional or legal errors. He claimed that his lawyer, Anthony Cecutti, failed to tell him about or advise him regarding a government plea and cooperation opportunity. Griffin said he would have cooperated and pleaded guilty if Cecutti had explained the opportunity, potentially avoiding the 10-year mandatory minimum.

Conflicting accounts and hearing

Griffin’s sworn account said that Cecutti did not discuss the proposed deal with him and advised him to proceed to trial. Cecutti gave a conflicting account. He said he reviewed the government’s single plea offer with Griffin, explained its principal terms and consequences, and discussed Griffin’s choices of pleading guilty, cooperating, or going to trial. Cecutti said Griffin rejected the offer and repeatedly maintained that he was innocent.

The proposed plea agreement offered Griffin the opportunity to plead guilty to a lesser drug-conspiracy offense that did not carry the charged offense’s 10-year mandatory minimum. It specified an advisory sentencing-guidelines range of 87 to 108 months. The agreement did not provide for a cooperation letter, although the government also sought Griffin’s cooperation separately. The court held an evidentiary hearing on October 24, 2022, at which Griffin, his partner, and Cecutti testified.

Court’s factual findings

Judge Woods found Cecutti’s testimony credible and largely accepted it as true. The court found that Cecutti communicated the plea offer, reviewed its principal terms, explained the applicable guidelines range and the absence of a mandatory minimum for the offered offense, and discussed the consequences of pleading guilty and losing at trial.

The court found Griffin’s testimony not credible. It concluded that Griffin consistently maintained his innocence before and after trial and rejected opportunities to plead guilty or cooperate. The court also found that Griffin gave shifting accounts about what he would have admitted and that his claims about not understanding English and not being able to read English were false. The opinion states that these credibility findings were based on the hearing testimony, other evidence, and the court’s observations of the witnesses.

Legal standard and analysis

The court applied the two-part test for ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment. A defendant must show that counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and that the deficient performance probably affected the result. Counsel’s failure to convey a plea offer can satisfy the first part of that test, and a defendant may show prejudice through a claim that he would have accepted the offer together with objective supporting evidence.

The court held that Cecutti did not provide ineffective assistance. Because Cecutti conveyed and explained the government’s plea offer, the court found no unreasonable attorney error. The court also said it did not need to decide prejudice. It nevertheless observed that Griffin’s later claim that he would have admitted only to giving unknown pills could not establish prejudice because the actual plea offer required responsibility for a crack-cocaine conspiracy. The court found no basis to conclude that the government would have offered a different agreement involving Percocet tablets.

Disposition

The court denied Griffin’s petition to vacate his sentence. It also denied his request to proceed without paying filing fees for an appeal, denied a certificate of appealability, directed the clerk to enter judgment for the United States, and directed the clerk to close Griffin’s civil action.