United States v. Spencer
United States v. Spencer
Opinion of the Court
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER
Petitioner Barry Spencer II, pro se, moves this court to vacate his sentence pursuant to
I. Factual Background
On April 23, 2015, a jury convicted petitioner on one count of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine and one count of conspiring to do the same. See *46Docket # 224.
Petitioner appealed his conviction, but the First Circuit upheld it and affirmed all of the challenged rulings. United States v. Spencer,
II. Legal Principles
Federal habeas relief is limited to "claims involving 'the right to be released upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or the laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum allowed by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack.' " Rogers v. United States,
To make out a claim of counsel ineffectiveness warranting relief under § 2255, petitioner "must show both deficient performance by counsel and resulting prejudice." Tevlin v. Spencer,
III. Application
In support of the first ground of his § 2255 motion, petitioner argues that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because (1) Attorney Butters "abandoned" petitioner after the initial mistrial, thereby denying him a "speedy retrial"; and (2) Attorney Butters committed various alleged mistakes involving the circumstances at the heart of petitioner's Brady claim. Both arguments fail.
As a prefatory matter, the court reaffirms its prior assessment of Attorney Butters' stellar representation of petitioner:
*47Defendant has, at various points in this case, elected to represent himself. He is an able advocate for his cause. Nonetheless, the court appointed standby counsel, Mr. Thomas Butters, who tried the case to the jury and has taken the lead on the post-verdict matters, aside from this motion for a new trial. Mr. Butters has performed admirably, protecting defendant's interests at every turn and ensuring that the mistakes described in this opinion found the light of day. The court thanks Mr. Butters for his exceptional service.
See Docket # 275 at 2 n.1.
Regarding his first argument, petitioner fails to allege any facts supporting abandonment by Attorney Butters or a denial of the right to a speedy trial. Moreover, based upon the court's familiarity with these proceedings and a review of the docket, petitioner's claims are simply untrue. Petitioner was retried within the 70-day time limit imposed by the Speedy Trial Act, and Attorney Butters represented him at that trial and post-trial proceedings. This contention is without merit.
Regarding petitioner's second argument, as stated above, there is no basis for concluding that Attorney Butters' representation failed to meet the constitutional standard. Moreover, even if petitioner were able establish that counsel performed "below an objective standard of reasonableness," the ineffective assistance claim would still fail because petitioner cannot show prejudice. Strickland,
All the alleged deficiencies relate to the Brady issue, including that (1) "counsel failed to explore the fact that the chemist was called and told to alter evidence"; and (2) "counsel failed to enter the [first] drug cert[ificate] in evidence or erred by not objecting when Judge answered the Jury's question about the second cert[ificate] saying it wasn't in evidence." See Docket # 341 at 5. Contrary to petitioner's assertions, it was counsel who on cross-examination of the chemist unearthed the erroneous date on the certificate. Moreover, neither of these alleged errors prejudiced petitioner. Rather, as both this court and the First Circuit determined, the information or evidence withheld by the government was not material. Docket # 275 at 19-20 ("no reasonable jury could have doubted that the sample delivered to [the chemist] was the same one" involved in petitioner's offenses); see Spencer,
Finally, petitioner's remaining grounds for habeas relief are without merit because they were already presented and rejected in his direct appeal. Singleton,
IV. Conclusion
Petitioner's motion to vacate his conviction under § 2255 (Docket # 341) is denied. Because he has not "made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right," see
The Motion for Retrial or in the Alternative Dismiss the Indictment (Docket # 340) is also denied. The motion is untimely, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 33, and, in any event, presents the same arguments as the § 2255 petition rejected above.
Finally, the Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus Ad Prosequendum (Docket # 327) is denied as moot because it pertains to a 2017 court hearing which never occurred.
This was petitioner's second trial on these charges, the first having ended in a mistrial. See Docket # 159.
The court previously denied without prejudice a § 2255 motion filed by petitioner because it did not address the validity of his sentence but only its execution. See Docket # 333.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- United States v. Barry SPENCER
- Status
- Published