Opinion
19-2615-pr
10-09-2020
SAMUEL MALDONADO, Petitioner-Appellant, v. WARDEN ADIRONDACK CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, STATE OF NEW YORK, PAROLE AND COMMUNITY SUPERVISION, Respondents-Appellees.
Appearing for Appellant: Sarah Kunstler, Brooklyn, NY. Appearing for Appellees: Michael Bierce, Assistant District Attorney of Counsel (Leonard Joblove, Sholom J. Twersky, Assistant District Attorneys of Counsel, on the brief), Kings County District Attorney's Office, Brooklyn, NY.
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT'S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION "SUMMARY ORDER"). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated Term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York on the 9th day of October two thousand twenty. Present: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, RAYMOND J. LOHIER, JR., WILLIAM J. NARDINI, Circuit Judges. Appearing for Appellant: Sarah Kunstler, Brooklyn, NY. Appearing for Appellees: Michael Bierce, Assistant District Attorney of Counsel (Leonard Joblove, Sholom J. Twersky, Assistant District Attorneys of Counsel, on the brief), Kings County District Attorney's Office, Brooklyn, NY.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Korman, J.).
ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of said district court be and it hereby is AFFIRMED.
Petitioner-Appellant Samuel Maldonado appeals from a final judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Korman, J.) entered July 25, 2019, denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. Section 2254. We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review.
Maldonado pled guilty to sexual abuse in the first degree in violation of Section 130.65(1) of New York's Penal Law and was sentenced, as a second violent felony offender, to a five-year term of imprisonment followed by a fifteen-year term of post-release supervision. The Second Judicial Department of New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division ("the Second Department") affirmed Maldonado's judgment of conviction on November 2, 2016. It held that Maldonado's plea was entered knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently because his "post-plea assertions regarding his innocence contradicted the admissions made under oath at his plea allocution and did not call into question the voluntariness of the plea." People v. Maldonado, 39 N.Y.S.3d 826, 826 (2d Dep't 2016). It also held that Maldonado's "contention that he was deprived of the effective assistance of counsel is without merit" because "[t]he record as a whole demonstrates that he received effective assistance of counsel under both the federal and state constitutional standards." Id. at 827. The New York Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal. People v. Maldonado, 28 N.Y.3d 1186 (N.Y. 2017).
We review a district court's denial of a petition for habeas corpus de novo, and its underlying findings of fact for clear error. Ramchair v. Conway, 601 F.3d 66, 72 (2d Cir. 2010). Pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), when a state court adjudicates a petitioner's habeas claim on the merits, a district court may grant relief only where the state court's decision was "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States" or was "based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)-(2). Under AEDPA's unreasonable application clause, our review is extremely deferential: "[a] state court's determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief so long as fairminded jurists could disagree on the correctness of the state court's decision." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 101 (2011) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). If the state court does not provide reasons for its decision, we examine "what arguments or theories . . . could have supported" that decision, and then "ask whether it is possible fairminded jurists could disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent with the holding in a prior decision of [the Supreme] Court." Id. at 102 (emphasis added). The range of reasonable disagreement "depend[s] in part on the nature of the relevant rule." Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004). "The more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations." Id. "We will not lightly conclude that a State's criminal justice system has experienced the extreme malfunction for which federal habeas relief is the remedy." Burt v. Titlow, 571 U.S. 12, 20 (2013) (citation, alteration, and internal quotation marks omitted).
We conclude that the district court did not err in holding that the Second Department reasonably applied federal law when it rejected Maldonado's ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Strickland's general standard supplies the relevant clearly established law for AEDPA purposes if there is "no other Supreme Court precedent directly on point." Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 122-23 (2009) (referencing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)). "The Strickland standard is a general one, so the range of reasonable applications is substantial." Harrington, 562 U.S. at 105.
The Second Department did not provide reasons for its decision that Maldonado's ineffective assistance of counsel claim lacks merit. See Maldonado, 39 N.Y.S.3d at 827. The district court correctly proceeded to analyze Maldonado's ineffective assistance of counsel claim by applying Strickland and its progeny. Under Strickland, to prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, an individual must establish that counsel's performance was deficient and that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense, i.e., that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. 466 U.S. at 687, 694. The district court held that Maldonado's counsel was deficient for failing to inform him in advance that he faced a fifteen-year term of post-release supervision (as opposed to a shorter term), including a "comprehensive regime" of special conditions for sex offenders, as that bore directly upon the advantages and disadvantages of his plea agreement. See Maldonado v. Adirondack Corr. Facility, 17-CV-6368 (ERK), 2019 WL 3321746, at *3 (E.D.N.Y. July 23, 2019). But the district court concluded that Maldonado was ultimately not prejudiced due to his favorable plea deal, alertness during state court proceedings, and actual notice at the plea colloquy that a fifteen-year term of supervised release would apply. Id. at *4.
Maldonado argues that the district court erred in holding that there was a reasonable argument that he was not prejudiced, pointing to what he describes as objective contemporaneous evidence that he would not have accepted the plea had he been properly advised, given that the government's case against him was weak. While the record indeed reflects that Maldonado informed probation on the day of his plea that he was not guilty and that he filed a pro se motion two days later to withdraw his guilty plea on the grounds that his counsel failed to apprise him of his actual term of post-release supervision or explain its components, the overall record supports the district court's conclusion. During the plea colloquy, Maldonado stressed the importance of being back with his family and asked several clarifying questions regarding civil confinement. He did not ask about, or comment on, the fifteen-year term of post-release supervision, which the court clearly presented to him at the outset. Fairminded jurists might disagree as to whether Maldonado would have pled guilty despite his counsel's failure to explain the fifteen-year term of post-release supervision. That is all that is required. The district court did not err.
Nor did the district court err in concluding that the Second Department reasonably applied federal law when it held that Maldonado's plea was knowing and voluntary. "It is a settled principle of federal constitutional law that a guilty plea violates due process and is therefore invalid if not entered voluntarily and intelligently." Wilson v. McGinnis, 413 F.3d 196, 199 (2d Cir. 2005). A guilty plea is voluntary and intelligent if a defendant enters the plea with full awareness of its direct consequences. See Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 755 (1970). The Supreme Court has not determined whether a mandatory term of post-release supervision constitutes a direct or collateral consequence of a guilty plea. See Lane v. Williams, 455 U.S. 624, 631 (1982) (reserving this question because petitioners' claim was moot). As such, the Second Department's decision could not have been contrary to any clearly established holding of the Supreme Court. See Woods v. Donald, 575 U.S. 312, 317 (2015) (holding that a state court's decision cannot be contrary to a holding of the Supreme Court when the Court has "never addressed" whether a rule applies to "the specific question presented by th[at] case").
We decline to decide whether a term of post-release supervision constitutes a direct or collateral consequence because, even assuming that it is a direct consequence, a fairminded jurist could conclude that Maldonado was fully informed of the fifteen-year term of post-release supervision by the prosecutors and by the state court judge during the plea colloquy.
We have considered the remainder of Maldonado's arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED.
FOR THE COURT:
Catherine O'Hagan Wolfe, Clerk