Terrance Kimbrough v. United States, No. 21-6208 (6th Cir. 2023)
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Defendant murdered a rival drug dealer. When he learned that a witness might cooperate with law enforcement, Defendant murdered him too. Federal charges followed. His lawyers negotiated a plea deal under which the government would drop many of the charges, and he would serve 480 to 520 months in prison. Defendant agreed to the plea deal, and the district court imposed a 504-month sentence. Defendant had second thoughts. He moved to vacate his sentence, claiming that his counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance in advising him to accept the plea deal. The district court rejected this contention.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that to establish ineffective assistance of counsel, Defendant must show that his attorney performed deficiently and that he suffered prejudice from the inadequate representation. The court reasoned that given the lack of a single favorable decision at the time, the district court may not have accepted it. Even if the court had done so, “it is not clear how the successful exclusion of” one of 18 charges would have materially improved Defendant’s bargaining position. Yet despite this minimal leverage, Defendant’s counsel secured a plea with a 480-to520-month sentence—a lengthy term, granted, but one that (with good time credit) permits Defendant’s release in his mid-to-late 50s, a meaningful improvement over a guaranteed life sentence. Further, the court wrote that Defendant failed to show prejudice. Finally, the court held that by failing to raise the substantive challenge (or his newly asserted grounds for overcoming procedural default), Defendant doubly forfeited review.
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