Alonzo Perkins v. USA, No. 09-3337 (7th Cir. 2010)
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NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604 Submitted March 24, 2010 Decided April 1, 2010 Before FRANK H. EASTERBROOK , Chief Judge JOHN L. C OFFEY, Circuit Judge DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 09-3337 ALONZO PERKINS, Petitioner-Appellant, No. 06 C 6642 Joan B. Gottschall, Judge. v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent-Appellee. Order After we affirmed Alonzo Perkins s conviction and sentence, see 449 F.3d 794 (7th Cir. 2006), he filed a petition for relief under 28 U.S.C. ยง2255. The district court denied this petition, and Perkins appeals. His principal appellate argument is that he is entitled to raise an ineffectiveassistance-of-counsel claim on collateral attack even though he did not do so on direct appeal. This is a puzzling argument, because the district judge well understood that the This successive appeal has been submitted to the original panel under Operating Procedure 6(b). After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); Cir. R. 34(f). No. 09-3337 Page 2 claim was proper, see Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500 (2003), and resolved on the merits. Perkins submits that counsel was ineffective for failure to file a motion to suppress evidence. The district court concluded that, even if such a motion had been filed and granted, Perkins was certain to be convicted, because the prosecution s other evidence against him was strong. As a result, he could not have suffered prejudice from counsel s omission (and it was correspondingly unnecessary to determine whether counsel s performance was substandard). We agree with this analysis, which need not be repeated here. Petitioner s only other argument is that he should not have been sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act. That contention was fully considered, and rejected, on direct appeal. We do not see any reason to resolve it differently today. AFFIRMED
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