Jones v. United States

Background

Jaired Jones, representing himself, moved under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate, set aside, or correct his federal conviction and sentence. A jury found him guilty of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute crack cocaine, including at least 280 grams. The jury found him not guilty of a separate firearm charge. The court initially sentenced Jones to 151 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release, then reduced the prison sentence to 121 months after a later sentence-reduction motion. The Second Circuit affirmed the conviction on direct appeal and dismissed Jones’s ineffective-assistance claim without prejudice to raising it in a timely § 2255 petition.

The petition raised three grounds: ineffective assistance by trial counsel for allegedly failing to provide Jones with government witness statements and other materials known as “3500 materials”; an argument that his sentence was unconstitutional because defendants who go to trial may receive different sentences from defendants who plead guilty; and ineffective assistance by appellate counsel for failing to seek Supreme Court review.

Legal Standards

To prove ineffective assistance of counsel, Jones had to show both that his lawyer’s performance fell below an objectively reasonable standard and that the alleged error probably changed the result. The court also explained that § 2255 generally cannot be used to relitigate issues already decided on direct appeal or to raise issues that could have been raised on appeal without an adequate reason for not doing so.

A federal court generally must hold a hearing on a § 2255 motion unless the motion and case records conclusively show that the prisoner is not entitled to relief. The court determined that the existing record resolved Jones’s claims and denied the petition.

Trial-Counsel Claim

Jones argued that trial counsel Amelio Marino did not provide him with the 3500 materials before or during trial. The government submitted a declaration from its trial attorney stating that the materials were made available to Marino before trial, that Marino received them, and that Jones appeared to review papers from the folders during trial. The government attorney also stated that Marino later said Jones’s allegation was false and that Marino had provided the materials. Marino died before submitting an affidavit.

The court concluded that Marino had provided Jones with the materials and therefore was not ineffective for failing to provide them. The court further held that, even if Marino had not reviewed every item with Jones, counsel is not constitutionally required to review every discovery document or every piece of voluminous witness material with a defendant.

Jones identified alleged inconsistencies in testimony by government witnesses and argued that counsel should have used the materials to impeach them. The court held that decisions about whether and how to cross-examine witnesses are generally strategic decisions. It also found no reasonable probability that additional questioning about the minor inconsistencies identified by Jones would have changed the result because the government presented substantial other evidence of guilt.

The court separately rejected Jones’s argument that a trial judge’s criticism of Marino for failing to object more often to leading questions established ineffective assistance. The court said the judge had not found Marino ineffective and that decisions about when to object generally fall within counsel’s permitted strategic discretion.

Sentencing and Equal-Protection Claim

Jones argued that the difference between his sentence and the sentences of defendants who did not go to trial violated the Equal Protection Clause. The court noted that Jones had raised sentencing-disparity arguments on direct appeal and that the Second Circuit had rejected them. The court held that Jones could not relitigate that issue in his § 2255 petition. To the extent he presented a new version of the claim, the court held that he could have raised it on direct appeal and had not shown a basis to raise it for the first time in collateral review.

Appellate-Counsel Claim

Jones argued that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to petition the Supreme Court for review. The court held that a defendant has no constitutional right to appointed counsel for seeking Supreme Court review after the first direct appeal. Jones also had not alleged facts resembling the unusual circumstances in which the appeals court had allowed a mandate to be recalled after counsel knew the defendant wanted to seek Supreme Court review, prepared a petition, and failed to file it.

Disposition

Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. denied Jones’s § 2255 petition. The court also declined to issue a certificate of appealability because Jones had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied.