Sentencing – Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Logan M. Gaylord v. United States of America

Case No.: 15-1297

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and FLAUM, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Sentencing – Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Dismissal of appellant ineffective assistance of counsel claim based on imposition of “death results” sentence enhancer was court error.

“We disagree with the district court’s conclusion that Gaylord failed to raise the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel in his § 2255 motion. Though he did not cite Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), or an analogous case, Gaylord did argue that his guilty plea was “uninformed, therefore involuntary” because his counsel insufficiently investigated his case. He claimed that his counsel did not provide him with the postmortem and forensic pathology reports stating that the cause of death was oxycodone and cocaine intoxication. Instead, he only saw the PSR and the plea agreement, which indicated that oxycodone was the cause of death. Thus, Gaylord was mistakenly led to believe that the oxycodone he distributed was the but-for cause of Evins’s death. See Galbraith v. United States, 313 F.3d 1001, 1006 (7th Cir. 2002) (“Due process requires that a guilty plea, to be valid, be made voluntarily, intelligently and knowingly.”). This is enough to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, especially given the lenient standard under which we review pro se filings. Warren v. Baenen, 712 F.3d 1090, 1099–1100 (7th Cir. 2013) (explaining that we construe pro se petitions liberally). And since Gaylord argues that his plea agreement was the product of his counsel’s ineffective assistance, he can overcome the waiver provision in the plea agreement. See Hurlow, 726 F.3d at 964.”

Vacated and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.