Criminal Law and Procedure Decisions: Glover v. United States</titl <body>  <script language="javascript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/tracking/wss-lp.js"></script> <script language="javascript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/tracking/hbx-0250.js"></script> <noscript> <img src="http://ehg-findlaw.hitbox.com/HG?hc=we76&cd=1&hv=6&ce=u&hb=DM531216MLSZ&n=LP&vcon=NO+JAVASCRIPT&vpc=HBX0250u" border="0" width="1" height="1"> </noscript>  <div id="main"> <div id="doc3" class="pro"> <div id="bd"> <div class="yui-g" id="header"> <div id="header_sub_center"> <h1 id="logo"><a href="http://lp.findlaw.com"><b>FindLaw | Find a Lawyer. Find Answers.</b></a></h1> <div id="question"> <h3><a href="http://www.findlaw.com/" class="c_4">Non-Professional? 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United States</h5><P align="center"><b>Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel – Prejudice Prong</b></p><p><b>Case: <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/99-8576.html">Glover v. United States</a></b></p><p><b>Issue</b>: Whether a sentencing increase of 6 to 21 months, caused by counsel’s failure to effectively challenge a trial court’s erroneous Sentencing Guidelines determination, is “significant” enough to constitute “prejudice” under the second or “prejudice” prong of the <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/466/668.html">Strickland v. Washington</a>, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), test.</p><p><b>Facts</b>: Petitioner Glover was convicted by a jury of labor racketeering, money laundering, and tax evasion charges. The pre-sentence investigation report prepared by the probation office recommended that the convictions be grouped together for sentencing under § 3D1.2 of the Sentencing Guidelines as “counts involving substantially the same harm.” The Government objected to the grouping of the money laundering conviction with the other convictions. Glover’s counsel failed to submit papers or offer extensive oral arguments contesting the Government’s no grouping argument, and the United States District Court ruled in favor of the Government. As a result of the ruling on grouping, Glover’s offense level was increased by two levels and his ultimate sentence under the Sentencing Guidelines was increased between 6 and 21 months.</p><p>Glover, represented by the same counsel, appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. His counsel did not raise the grouping issue at all, either in the brief or oral argument. A short time after oral argument on Glover’s appeal, a separate panel of the Seventh Circuit held that, under certain circumstances, grouping money laundering counts with other counts was appropriate. <U>See</U> <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/7th/952496.html">United States v. Wilson</a>, 98 F.3d 281 (7th Cir. 1996). A month and a half later, the Seventh Circuit rejected Glover’s appeal and affirmed his conviction.</p><p>Glover later filed a <U>pro se</U> motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255, arguing that the failure of his counsel to press the grouping issue constituted ineffective assistance of counsel, a position that was bolstered (in his view) by the Seventh Circuit’s <U>Wilson</U> decision. The District Court denied his motion, determining, in accordance with Seventh Circuit precedent, that the 6 to 21 month difference in Glover’s sentence length was not significant enough to amount to prejudice under the <U>Strickland</U> test. [Under <U>Strickland</U>, counsel is ineffective if (1) counsel’s performance “fell below an objective standard of reasonableness” <U>and</U> (2) the deficient performance prejudiced the defendant.] Since the District Court found no prejudice, it did not consider whether Glover’s counsel performed in a deficient manner under the first prong of <U>Strickland</U>. The Seventh Circuit affirmed.</p><p><b>Holding</b>: “We hold that the Seventh Circuit erred in engrafting this additional requirement onto the prejudice branch of the <U>Strickland</U> test.” The judgment of the Seventh Circuit was reversed and remanded.</p><p><b>Reasoning</b>: Justice Kennedy, writing for a unanimous Court, surmised that the Seventh Circuit had drawn the substance of its no-prejudice ruling from the Supreme Court’s decision in <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/506/364.html">Lockhart v. Fretwell</a>, 506 U.S. 364 (1993), which held that in some circumstances a mere difference in outcome will not suffice to establish prejudice. The Court, however, explained last term in <a href="http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/98-8384.html">Williams v. Taylor</a>, 529 U.S. 362, 393 (2000), that the <U>Lockhart</U> holding does not supplant the <U>Strickland</U> test, nor does it justify a departure from a straightforward application of the <U>Strickland</U> test. The Seventh Circuit, therefore, “was incorrect to rely on <U>Lockhart</U> to deny relief to persons attacking their sentence who might show deficient performance in counsel’s failure to object to an error of law affecting the calculation of a sentence because the sentence increase does not meet some baseline standard of prejudice.” Authority, the court explained, does not suggest that a minimal increase of a sentence term cannot constitute prejudice. “Quite to the contrary, our jurisprudence suggests that any amount of actual jail time has Sixth Amendment significance.” The Court noted, moreover, that the case before it was not one where trial strategies, in retrospect, might be criticized for leading to a harsher sentence. Under such circumstances, a petitioner would not be entitled to relief. Rather, the case before the Court presented “the sentencing calculation itself, a calculation resulting from a ruling which, if it had been error, would have been correctable on appeal.”</p><p><b>Comment</b>: On remand, the Seventh Circuit (or the District Court) will need to decide such issues as: whether the question of counsel’s <U>deficient performance</U> under the first prong of <U>Strickland</U> is still open and, if so, whether that performance was in fact unreasonable; and, whether Glover’s sentence was really in error.</p></div> </div>       <div id="fl_container3"> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <script language="javascript">fl_legal_645x52();</script> <div id="fl_label">Ads by FindLaw</div> </div> <script> hide_box('fl_container3'); </script>   <div id="fl_container_goog"> <script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://images.findlaw.com/lp/google.js"></script> <script language="JavaScript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script> </div>  </div> </div> <div class="nav_right rn_inner">  <div class="sections yui-g"> <h2 class="right" style="color:#666666;">Welcome Legal Professionals</h2> <p>FindLaw provides the resources to help you practice law. 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