United States v. Waite , 378 F. App'x 818 ( 2010 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
May 18, 2010
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALSElisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 10-8012
STEVEN JAMES WAITE, (D.C. Nos. 2:06-CV-00278-WFD and
2:01-CR-00099-WFD-3)
Defendant-Appellant. (D. Wyo.)
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY*
Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, TACHA, and O’BRIEN, Circuit Judges.
Steven James Waite, a federal prisoner appearing pro se, seeks a certificate of
appealability (“COA”) to enable him to appeal the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct sentence. The district court granted Waite’s
motion to proceed in forma pauperis. For the following reasons, we DENY Waite’s
request for a COA and DISMISS this matter.
I
On September 16, 2002, the United States filed an eleven-count superseding
indictment which charged Waite, Jason Encinias and Xavier Arriola-Perez with, inter
*
This order is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case,
res judicata, and collateral estoppel.
alia, conspiring with each other, and with other individuals, to possess methamphetamine
with intent to distribute. Subsequently, the government moved to sever Waite’s trial from
that of Encinias and Arriola-Perez. At a hearing on the government’s motion, the
following exchange occurred:
The District Court: The motion relates that there are 11 counts
charged in the indictment and [Waite] is only charged in Count One which
involves the conspiracy; that his role in the conspiracy is minor when
compared to that of the co-conspirators who are co-defendants in this
proceeding; and that his continued participation in this trial would unduly
prejudice his right to obtain a fair trial as there would be a great risk that his
conduct would be wrapped up in the . . . allegedly broader conduct of the other
co-defendants.
****
In particular, [] Waite is concerned about alleged evidence, including
a badly beaten individual that dies of his injuries, autopsy photos, pictures of
individuals stuffed into a 55-gallon drum and other kinds of evidence.
Did I represent the position of the United States accurately with regard
to this motion[?]
The Government: You did, Your Honor.
ROA, Vol. 1 at 20-21.
Ultimately, the district court granted the government’s motion. Encinias and
Arriola-Perez were tried and were found guilty of various drug and firearms related
offenses charged in the superseding indictment. See United States v. Encinias, 123 F.
App’x 924 (10th Cir. 2005); United States v. Arriola-Perez, 137 F. App’x 119 (10th Cir.
2005). Waite, meanwhile, agreed to plead guilty to two counts of distributing
methamphetamine as alleged in a second superseding indictment.
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Pursuant to Waite’s plea agreement, the government stipulated that no more than
“5 kilograms of methamphetamine should be attributed to [Waite’s] distribution for
sentencing purposes.” See United States v. Waite, 139 F. App’x 119, 120 (10th Cir.
2005) (quoting the plea agreement). Despite the government’s stipulation, the
presentence report (“PSR”) prepared by the probation office concluded that 9.072
kilograms (20 pounds) of methamphetamine were attributable to Waite. The PSR’s
conclusion was based upon the investigation of Drug Enforcement Administration Agent
Steve Woodson whose conclusion was, in turn, based upon the statements of Joseph Dax,
who at the trial of Encinias and Arriola-Perez (hereinafter “Encinias/Arriola-Perez trial”)
testified that he and Waite jointly obtained methamphetamine from Arriola-Perez which
they later distributed.
Prior to sentencing, the government filed written objections to the PSR, stating, in
relevant part, as follows:
The United States notes that the ascribing of the full 20 pounds of
methamphetamine distributed by both Dax and Waite to [Waite] is not an
unreasonable assignment of relevant conduct given the applicability of
U.S.S.G. Section 1B1.3(a)(1)(B). Also, the plea agreement in this case left the
determination of the Base Offense Level and other sentencing factors to the
discretion of the trial court. (See, Plea Agreement, unnumbered paragraph 3,
page 2.)[.] Nevertheless, in the plea agreement, the United States stipulated
that it could only prove the amount directly distributed by the defendant was
just under 5 kilograms of methamphetamine, and it abides by that stipulation.
ROA, Vol.1 at 53-54 (emphasis in original).
At Waite’s sentencing, the district court explained that “the fact that the
government may have stipulated as to relevant conduct does not in any way prohibit this
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Court from exercising its responsibility in determining what the relevant conduct is.”
Waite, 139 F. App’x at 120 (quoting sentencing transcript). The district court then called
Agent Woodson who, over the objection of Waite’s counsel, testified that 9.072
kilograms of methamphetamine was attributable to Waite. Finding Woodson’s testimony
to be credible,1 the district court concluded that Waite’s United States Sentencing
Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) base-offense level was 36, which, in turn, led to a total offense
level of 33 after a 3-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility was applied. When
coupled with his criminal history category of III, Waite’s offense level of 33 led to an
advisory Guidelines range for imprisonment of 168 to 210 months. The district court
sentenced Waite to 168 months.
After this court rejected Waite’s claims on direct appeal, see id. at 119-23, and the
Supreme Court denied certiorari, see Waite v. United States, 546 U.S. 1054 (2005), Waite
filed a timely § 2255 motion in the district court on November 24, 2006, alleging nine
propositions of error. In claims one, four, five, six, seven, and nine, Waite alleged that he
1
More specifically, the district court stated as follows:
The testimony of [Agent Woodson] in this proceeding corroborates what I
already knew from the record in the previous trial. Mr. Dax and Mr. Waite
were jointly fronted methamphetamine by Arriola-Perez. The evidence is
uncontroverted on that point. Twenty pounds of methamphetamine, as both
parties know, is probably a grotesquely understated amount, but it’s the only
legitimate amount that I can attach any significance to for purposes of this
sentencing.
Waite, 139 F. App’x at 120-21(quoting sentencing transcript) (brackets in original,
emphasis omitted).
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was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel as recognized
and defined in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). In claims two and three,
Waite contended that his constitutional right to due process was violated by prosecutorial
misconduct. And finally, in claim eight, Waite argued that his constitutional rights were
violated at sentencing because the sentencing court treated the Guidelines as mandatory,
rather than discretionary. On December 31, 2009, the district court issued an order in
which it rejected each of Waite’s arguments and denied his § 2255 motion. Waite now
seeks to appeal the district court’s denial of the second and third claims raised in his §
2255 motion.
II
A COA is a jurisdictional prerequisite to an appeal from the denial of a § 2255
motion. See Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003). A COA may be issued
“only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional
right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). In order to make such a substantial showing, an applicant
must demonstrate “that reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree
that) the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues
presented were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v.
McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
In the second and third claims raised in his § 2255 motion, Waite argued that his
due process rights were violated by prosecutorial misconduct. More specifically, Waite
alleged that the government knowingly presented Dax’s perjured testimony at the
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Encinias/Arriola-Perez trial and that the government breached the plea agreement it had
reached with Waite by reneging on promises which related to federal charges pending
against Waite’s wife and by failing to adequately object to the PSR and to Woodson’s
testimony at sentencing.
In addressing these claims, the district court initially noted that “because [] Waite
did not raise [them] on direct appeal, ordinarily a procedural bar would [preclude them
from being raised in the habeas corpus context].” ROA, Vol. 1 at 159. The district
found, however, that by alleging the ineffective assistance of his appellate counsel, Waite
had potentially demonstrated sufficient cause and prejudice to overcome this procedural
bar. See United States v. Mora, 293 F.3d 1213, 1216 (10th Cir. 2002) (“When a
defendant fails to raise a claim on direct appeal, he is barred from pursuing that claim in a
later § 2255 proceeding, absent a showing of cause and actual prejudice, or a fundamental
miscarriage of justice.”). The district court then proceeded to address Waite’s claims,
implicitly concluding that he was not prejudiced by his failure to raise either claim on
direct appeal because (1) “at [the] sentencing hearing, defense counsel raised the issue of
the inconsistencies in Dax’s testimony . . . . [but] the evidence against [] Waite
outweighed the discrepancies,” see ROA, Vol. 1 at 160-61, and (2) there is no evidence
that the government actually breached the plea agreement.
After a careful review of the record, we conclude that reasonable jurists would not
debate the district court’s conclusions and thus, we decline Waite’s request for a COA on
these claims. In so holding, we are mindful that with respect to Waite’s breach of plea
6
agreement argument, United States v. Boatner, 966 F.2d 1575, 1576-80 (11th Cir. 1992),
presents a seemingly factually similar case. There, the Eleventh Circuit held that the
government breached its plea agreement promise to stipulate to a certain drug quantity
when, at sentencing, “it attempted to bolster the presentence investigation report” by
“declaring to the court that its later investigations had revealed that the amount of
[contraband] involved was actually [greater than what was stipulated to.]” Id. at 1579.
This declaration corroborated the testimony of the probation officer who, when called to
testify by the court, attributed the greater amount of contraband to the defendant based
upon his interviews with law enforcement officials. See id. at 1577-79.
In the instant case, however, the prosecutor did nothing to “bolster” the PSR or
Woodson’s testimony at sentencing. Indeed, rather than “support[] the information
contained in the presentence report,” see id. at 1579, the government offered no opinion
as to the efficacy of Woodson’s conclusion other than its pre-sentencing acknowledgment
that attributing 9.072 kilograms to Waite was “not unreasonable.” Boatner is, therefore,
readily distinguishable. See United States v. Stringfellow, 1996 WL 315750 at *5 (10th
Cir. June 5, 1996) (unpublished) (“[T]he government’s actions in Boatner are
distinguishable from the circumstances of this case. Here, the government did not
attempt to introduce belatedly discovered information about the defendant. This is not a
case where the government discovered facts indicating its prosecutorial discretion was not
properly exercised and attempted to recover by reneging on its promise.”). No jurist of
reason would debate the district court’s determination that Waite was not prejudiced by
7
his failure to raise a breach of plea argument on direct appeal.
III
We DENY Waite’s request for a COA and DISMISS this matter.
Entered for the Court
Mary Beck Briscoe
Chief Judge
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