United States v. Scott, No. 20-30256 (5th Cir. 2021)
Annotate this CaseThe Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion seeking to vacate his sentence based on the ineffective assistance of counsel. The court concluded that defendant failed to meet his burden of showing that counsel's decision to forego a suppression motion was unreasonable under prevailing professional norms and that her decision was not sound strategy. Therefore, defendant failed the first prong of the Strickland v. Washington analysis. In this case, counsel provided constitutionally adequate representation when she decided to forego a suppression motion to follow her strategy of preventing additional charges from being brought against defendant.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on August 27, 2021.
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