Lopez v. United States

Background

Gibron Lopez was convicted after a jury trial of conspiring to commit Hobbs Act robbery and committing Hobbs Act robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951. The robbery involved Miles Klein, who was beaten and died from his injuries. The court sentenced Lopez to 40 years in prison, the combined statutory maximum for the two convictions. The Second Circuit upheld the conviction on appeal.

Lopez later filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure allowing a federal prisoner to seek correction or vacatur of a sentence based on certain constitutional, legal, or jurisdictional errors. His initial filing, submitted without a lawyer, asserted ineffective assistance by trial and appellate counsel. A lawyer later filed a supplemental claim seeking resentencing because Lopez’s conviction in an earlier criminal case had been vacated after the Supreme Court’s decision concerning part of the federal firearm statute.

Claims and analysis

Lopez argued that trial counsel should have investigated and presented additional surveillance footage, sought delays until the earlier case was resolved, and challenged the use of consecutive sentences and the sentencing-guidelines calculation. He also argued that appellate counsel should have raised related issues.

The court rejected the ineffective-assistance claims under the two-part test requiring proof that counsel’s performance fell below reasonable professional standards and that the alleged error probably affected the result. The court found that the trial evidence and stipulation already explained the surveillance footage, and that additional footage would not have undermined the substantial evidence of guilt. It also found no error in counsel’s decision not to seek delays because resolution of the earlier case would not have changed the trial and the timing of sentencing was uncertain.

The court further held that conspiracy and the completed Hobbs Act robbery were separate offenses for which consecutive sentences were legally permitted. It upheld the use of the sentencing-guidelines provision applicable when a robbery victim is killed under circumstances constituting murder. Because the court found no underlying trial-counsel error, it also found no ineffective assistance by appellate counsel for failing to raise those issues.

The court separately considered whether the vacatur of Lopez’s earlier conviction required resentencing. It concluded that the vacated conviction had not changed the applicable guidelines range and had not unlawfully affected the sentence in this case. Although the court had considered the existence of the earlier sentence when deciding whether to impose a concurrent sentence or reduce the sentence, the Bureau of Prisons had credited Lopez with time served after the earlier conviction was vacated. The court therefore found no basis under Section 2255 to resentence him.

Ruling

Judge Katherine Polk Failla denied Lopez’s motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The court issued a certificate of appealability and granted permission to pursue an appeal without paying filing fees only for Lopez’s counseled resentencing claim, not for his ineffective-assistance claims. The court directed the clerk to terminate the motion in the criminal case and close the related civil case.