Background
Price Javon Patterson pleaded guilty without a written plea agreement to possession with intent to distribute forty grams or more of fentanyl. The district court sentenced him to one hundred eighty-eight months of imprisonment and four years of supervised release. On appeal, counsel filed a brief under Anders v. California stating there were no meritorious grounds for appeal, while Patterson raised pro se claims regarding ineffective assistance, career offender status, and substantive reasonableness.
The court’s reasoning
The court held that ineffective assistance claims must be raised in a Section twenty-two hundred fifty-five motion unless conclusively apparent on the record. The court found the district court procedurally reasonable by correctly calculating the guidelines range and considering the Section thirty-five hundred fifty-three factors. The court determined that Patterson’s prior convictions qualified as career offender predicates and that uncharged conduct could support enhancements. The court concluded the sentence was substantively reasonable and within the guidelines range.
Unless an attorney’s ineffectiveness conclusively appears on the face of the record, ineffective assistance claims are not addressed on direct appeal.
United States v. Faulls, 821 F.3d 502, 507-08 (4th Cir. 2016)
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces that direct appeals are not the proper vehicle for ineffective assistance claims and confirms that uncharged conduct can support sentencing enhancements when proven by a preponderance of the evidence.