United States v. Hernandez

                                      PUBLISH

                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Filed 8/21/96
                                  TENTH CIRCUIT


 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

 v.                                            No. 95-1009

 JESUS JOHN HERNANDEZ,

 Defendant-Appellant,



             APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                     FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
                            (D.C. No. 86-C-2525)
                           (D.C. No. 84-CR-284-1)



John M. Hutchins, Assistant United States Attorney (Henry L. Solano, United States
Attorney, and William D. Welch, Assistant United States Attorney, with him on the
brief), Denver, Colorado for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Paula D. Greisen, Denver, Colorado (David A. Lane, Denver, Colorado, on the brief) for
Defendant-Appellant.



Before HENRY, BRISCOE, and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.




                                           1
HENRY, Circuit Judge.




       Defendant-appellant Jesus John Hernandez appeals from the district court’s order

denying his motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 in which he attacked the sentence he was then

serving following his 1986 conviction for various offenses related to cocaine trafficking.

Mr. Hernandez argues that the district court erred in upholding his convictions and

sentence against three separate attacks. First, he contends that the government failed to

disclose exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), that

federal agents committed perjury in misrepresenting such evidence, and that newly

discovered evidence entitles him to a new trial. Second, he claims that his trial counsel’s

preparation of an affidavit supporting his motion for severance constituted ineffective

assistance in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Third, he urges that he

was subjected to double jeopardy, both because of a subsequent prosecution for

conspiracy in federal district court in Florida and because the crimes of which he was

convicted in Colorado included both engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise in

violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848 and the lesser included offense of conspiracy in violation of

21 U.S.C. § 846. After careful examination of the record, we affirm the district court’s

decision on the claims of failure to disclose evidence, perjury and newly discovered

evidence; we affirm on the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel; and we hold that


                                             2
the district court lacked § 2255 jurisdiction over both double jeopardy claims. Thus the

district court’s orders denying all of these claims are affirmed.



                                    I. BACKGROUND

        In 1984, Mr. Hernandez was indicted by a federal grand jury in Colorado on five

counts relating to his role in a drug trafficking organization, including three counts of

distribution and possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §

841(a)(1), one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846,

and one count of managing a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE) in violation of 21

U.S.C. § 848. Before trial, Mr. Hernandez moved through counsel pursuant to Fed. R.

Crim. P. 14 to sever the CCE count from the other counts against him on the grounds that,

in order to defend himself against the CCE charge, it might be necessary for him to

incriminate himself as to the other charges. The district court denied this motion, and Mr.

Hernandez was tried before a jury on all five counts together. The jury convicted him on

all five counts, and the district court sentenced him to a total of thirty years’

imprisonment: fifteen years on the CCE count and, on the distribution counts, an

additional fifteen years to run consecutively to the CCE sentence and ten years to run

concurrently with the CCE sentence.

       Mr. Hernandez appealed his conviction. See United States v. Hernandez, 829 F.2d

988 (10th Cir. 1987). While the Tenth Circuit panel that heard the appeal expressed


                                               3
“concern” about the adequacy of the affidavit that accompanied the motion for severance,

id. at 991, it nonetheless affirmed the conviction, id. at 989.

       While the direct appeal from his conviction was still pending before the Court of

Appeals, Mr. Hernandez moved pro se to attack his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.

The district court initially denied this motion on the grounds that it was “duplicative,”

relying on the government’s representation that the issues raised in the motion had also

been raised in the pending direct appeal. Rec. vol. 2, doc. 84, at 2. Mr. Hernandez

appealed this decision and this court remanded, noting that the evidentiary issues raised in

the § 2255 motion--which we discuss below in section II.A. of the instant opinion--had

not in fact been raised in the direct appeal. This court further noted, however, that

       defendant’s failure to raise these grounds on direct appeal may be fatal to
       the instant motion unless he can establish good cause for the omission and
       prejudice resulting therefrom. See United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152
       (1982); United States v. Khan, 835 F.2d 749, 753-54 (10th Cir. 1987)[, cert.
       denied, 487 U.S. 1222 (1988)].

Rec. vol. 2, doc. 84, at 2. Consistent with this mandate, the district court appointed

counsel for Mr. Hernandez and ordered both parties to brief the matter raised in the

appellate opinion and to address the “resulting prejudice” issue, see Rec. vol. 2, doc. 83.

On June 22, 1988, the district court issued a terse order denying Mr. Hernandez’s § 2255

motion for a second time. Mr. Hernandez filed, through counsel, a Motion for

Reconsideration. Concurrently with these events, Mr. Hernandez filed several pro se

motions to amend his § 2255 motion, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 15, to add the


                                               4
ineffective assistance of counsel and double jeopardy issues.

       The district court now had before it three separate issues: the original group of

claims relating to non-disclosure of evidence, the ineffective assistance of counsel claim,

and the double jeopardy claims. Acting upon a suggestion by the government, the court

elected to delay ruling on the latter two issues, and entered an order on March 20, 1989,

rejecting for the third time Mr. Hernandez’s claims relating to non-disclosure of evidence.

The court also ordered that new counsel be appointed for Mr. Hernandez and that both

parties address the remaining ineffective assistance of counsel and double jeopardy

issues. The parties submitted briefs arguing the effectiveness of counsel issue, though

neither brief mentioned the double jeopardy claims. On December 16, 1994, the district

court filed an order rejecting Mr. Hernandez’s ineffectiveness of counsel claim. Mr.

Hernandez now appeals from both the 1989 order, which denied the evidentiary claims,

and the 1994 order, which rejected the ineffectiveness of counsel claim and did not

address the double jeopardy claims.

       The procedural complexity of this case defies easy explanation. Allowing the dust

to settle, we are left with three sets of issues: the claims regarding non-disclosure of

evidence, the ineffectiveness of counsel claim, and the double jeopardy claims.




                                              5
                                      II. DISCUSSION

                                    A. Evidentiary Issues

         Mr. Hernandez raises three grounds for relief based on various pieces of evidence

he says he discovered only after his trial: (1) that the government was aware of

exculpatory evidence that it failed to disclose to him, in violation of Brady, 373 U.S. 83;

(2) that the government knowingly used perjured or materially misleading statements at

Mr. Hernandez’s trial; and (3) that “newly discovered evidence” entitles him to a new

trial.

         All of the cited evidence is related to proceedings in the Middle District of Florida

against the drug organization of Albert S. Fortna. Mr. Hernandez explains in his brief,

though he does not point to any support in the record, that during the course of those

proceedings he was indicted and pleaded guilty, agreeing to testify for the government in

exchange for a sentence concession in his then-pending Colorado case. He now argues

that certain evidence which came to light in the Fortna organization prosecution and

trials, which began about two months before Mr. Hernandez’s trial in Colorado and

continued after the date of his conviction, might have exculpated him had it been

introduced in his own trial.

         Mr. Hernandez’s claims focus on evidence that the Fortna organization was large,

that individuals in the organization greatly feared ringleader “Chick” Fortna, and that a

woman named Linda Whitman distributed $400,000 worth of cocaine in Colorado during


                                               6
the period covered by Mr. Hernandez’s indictment. Mr. Hernandez believes that this

evidence would have bolstered his defense that he acted under duress from the Fortna

organization and that he was not a drug “kingpin.”



1. Brady violations

       In evaluating whether Mr. Hernandez could overcome his failure to raise these

issues on direct appeal, the district court followed the dicta in our remand opinion, Rec.

vol. 2, doc. 84, at 2, applying the “cause and actual prejudice” standard of Frady, 456

U.S. at 167, and held that Mr. Hernandez had failed to establish that the omission of this

evidence resulted in the requisite prejudice. On appeal, Mr. Hernandez argues that the

Frady standard, which applies to “procedural” defaults--i.e. failure to object to errors at

trial and to raise such errors on direct appeal--does not apply when the government failed,

as he alleges it did, to disclose Brady material to the defendant. When the government

fails to disclose relevant evidence, he argues, the defendant is unaware of its existence,

and therefore his failure to raise the issue cannot be deemed a “default.” He urges that

because he has alleged a Brady violation, the proper standard to employ was whether the

omitted evidence was “material” under the Brady line of cases, see Brady, 373 U.S. at 87

(“[T]he suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request

violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment . . . .”)

(emphasis added), rather than whether it resulted in “prejudice” under Frady, 456 U.S. at


                                              7
167.

       There appears to be little or no difference in the operation of the “materiality”

(Brady) and “prejudice” (Frady) tests. See Frady, 456 U.S. at 168 (noting that in this

context the Court has “refrained from giving ‘precise content’ to the term ‘prejudice’”)

(citation omitted); cf. United States v. Spawr Optical Research, Inc., 864 F.2d 1467, 1472

n.6 (9th Cir. 1988) (“The Strickland standard for prejudice has been considered to impose

virtually the same burden on the defense as the standard for materiality in Brady claims.”)

(referring to Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 688 (1984)), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 809

(1989). Nonetheless, we agree that the “materiality” inquiry is the proper one in this case,

see United States v. Buchanan, 891 F.2d 1436, 1440-45 (10th Cir. 1989) (applying the

“materiality” standard to a Brady claim raised for the first time in a § 2255 motion), cert.

denied, 494 U.S. 1088 (1990), and proceed to analyze the Brady cases to ascertain the

proper standard to employ in determining materiality.

       In United States v. Agurs, the Supreme Court held that the standard for materiality

in a Brady violation depends upon the degree of specificity of the defendant’s request.

427 U.S. 97, 103-107 (1976). In Buchanan, we followed Agurs in holding that in a case

like this one, in which specific information has not been requested, materiality depends on

“whether ‘the omitted evidence creates a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise exist.’”

891 F.2d at 1441 (quoting Agurs, 427 U.S. at 112). However, subsequent to Agurs, in

United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667 (1985), a majority of the Supreme Court agreed


                                              8
that the proper standard for materiality, at least in cases where the defendant’s request

was not specific, is whether “there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been

disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at

682 (Blackmun, J.); id. at 685 (White, J., concurring). Although we suspect the

distinction between the Agurs/Buchanan standard and the Bagley standard might well be

one without a difference, we proceed to apply the Bagley standard.

       Applying the Bagley standard to our close examination of the record, we conclude

that there is not a reasonable probability that disclosure of the cited evidence would have

produced a different verdict.1 Because a person may be convicted of conducting a CCE

under § 848 even if his role in the enterprise is subordinate to that of others, we agree

with the district court that the evidence of the size of the Fortna organization was

irrelevant to Mr. Hernandez’s conviction for CCE. See United States v. Apodaca, 843

F.2d 421, 426 (10th Cir.) (“The defendant need not even have been the dominant

organizer or manager of the enterprise; ‘the statute requires only that he occupy some

managerial position’ with respect to five or more persons.”) (citations omitted), cert.

denied, 488 U.S. 932 (1988). We further agree that the evidence of others’ fear of the

Fortna organization, without any objective evidence of threats, was insufficient to create a


       1
         The government raises an alternative ground for holding that it did not violate Brady:
that the “undisclosed evidence” of which Mr. Hernandez complains was a matter of public record
and therefore that the government had no duty to provide it to the defense. We draw no
conclusion as to whether or not the government failed to provide any evidence that it had a duty
to provide because we hold that none of the evidence cited by Mr. Hernandez was material under
Brady.

                                               9
reasonable probability of acquittal on any of the charges against Mr. Hernandez.

Therefore, we hold that the evidence was not material and hence that its omission does

not constitute a violation under Brady.2



2. Perjury

       Mr. Hernandez also claims that the testimony offered at his trial by two federal

agents that the Fortna organization was involved in trafficking “mostly marijuana” is

belied by the Fortna indictment, which details the organization’s sales of cocaine.

Therefore, he contends, the agents committed perjury, or at least their statements

“materially misled the jury.” Aplt’s Br. at 13. By “downplaying” Fortna’s involvement

in the Colorado cocaine market in this way, he claims, the government undermined his

duress defense. Id. at 13-15.

       Applying plenary review to the district court’s legal determination, we agree with

the court’s conclusion that the agents did not commit perjury. Perjury involves

knowingly making a false material statement that has the tendency to mislead. United

States v. Larranaga, 787 F.2d 489, 494 (10th Cir. 1986). The record shows that one agent

testified that Fortna was involved “[m]ostly [in] marijuana,” Rec. vol. 19, at 417, and the

other testified that Fortna was “primarily focused on importing marijuana,” Rec. vol. 20,

at 531. Mr. Fortna was charged with attempting to distribute 40,000 pounds of marijuana


       Were we to apply the Frady standard, we would likewise hold that the omission of this
       2

evidence did not “prejudice” Mr. Hernandez.

                                              10
and with conspiring to import 1,240 kilograms of cocaine. Rec. vol. 1, doc. 69, Ex. A at

36. We conclude that this evidence does not demonstrate that the agents’ statements--

which appear to have been only their opinions--were false or materially misleading.



3. Newly discovered evidence

       Mr. Hernandez next argues that certain evidence revealed in the Fortna trials,

particularly evidence that Linda Whitman distributed cocaine in Colorado, demonstrates

the extent of the Fortna influence in Colorado. He characterizes this as newly discovered

evidence material to his claim that he did not occupy a managerial position, which entitles

him to a new trial. The district court held that the cited evidence did not warrant a new

trial because it was not material to guilt or innocence or likely to produce acquittal. See

United States v. Sutton, 767 F.2d 726, 728 (10th Cir. 1985).

       The proper standard of review of the district court’s decision not to grant a new

trial based on newly discovered evidence is abuse of discretion. Id. The mere fact that

Ms. Whitman distributed cocaine in Colorado for Fortna is irrelevant to the issue of

whether Mr. Hernandez occupied a position of management in the organization. See

Apodaca, 843 F.2d at 426. We therefore hold that the district court’s decision not to grant

a new trial in this case was not an abuse of discretion.



                          B. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel


                                             11
       Mr. Hernandez argues that he received ineffective assistance of counsel in the

drafting of an affidavit in support of his motion for severance of his CCE trial from his

trial for the “underlying” distribution and conspiracy charges. He draws support from

language in another opinion of this court which expressed “concern” that the

“ambiguous” affidavit was not “sufficient to enable the trial court to determine the extent

of the possible prejudice to defendant, and to intelligently weigh the prejudice against the

consideration of judicial economy.” Hernandez, 829 F.2d at 991. However, in its 1994

order denying the instant § 2255 motion, the district court subsequently found: (1) that

“the affidavit was deliberately vague because of a trial strategy decision” not to reveal

testimony to the prosecution; (2) that “throughout this eight-year litigation [Mr.

Hernandez] has always been extremely active in personally assisting his attorneys to

prepare and conduct his defense;” and (3) that Mr. Hernandez himself “decided, with his

attorneys,” to pursue this strategy.3 Rec. vol. 2, doc. 151, at 3.

       “We must accept the district court’s underlying factual findings unless clearly

erroneous, but we review de novo whether counsel’s performance was legally deficient

and whether any deficiencies prejudiced [the appellant].” United States v. Haddock, 12

F.3d 950, 955 (10th Cir. 1993). Mr. Hernandez argues that “there is no evidence that


       3
         Both parties have sought to supplement the record on appeal with transcripts of
depositions, which they contend would shed light on this issue. We have reviewed the arguments
in support of their motions and conclude that consideration of this evidence is not necessary to
our decision. See Fed. R. App. P. 10(e). The transcripts were before the district court, and the
factual findings of the district court constitute a sufficient basis for us to determine that there was
no Sixth Amendment violation under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).

                                                  12
counsel’s failure to reform the affidavit was a strategic or tactical decision.” Aplt’s Reply

Br. at 11. However, he draws our attention to nothing in the record that would cast doubt

on these findings, let alone allow us to conclude that they were clearly erroneous. Mr.

Hernandez claims that he “urged his counsel to conform the affidavit” to the legal

standard for a motion for severance, id., but the letter cited as evidence for this does not

appear at the referenced location in the record. Therefore, in light of the district court’s

factual findings, which are not clearly erroneous, we cannot hold that the performance of

Mr. Hernandez’s counsel fell outside “the wide range of reasonable professional

assistance” that satisfies the constitutional standard. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689.



                                   C. Double Jeopardy

       Mr. Hernandez makes two distinct arguments related to his claim that he was

subjected to double jeopardy, asserting first that his Colorado CCE prosecution together

with his Florida conviction for conspiracy placed him in double jeopardy, and second

that, quite apart from the Florida proceedings, his prosecution in Colorado for both CCE

and the lesser included offense of conspiracy in itself constitutes double jeopardy. On

appeal, Mr. Hernandez correctly notes that the district court did not address either of these

arguments, an understandable oversight considering both the torrent of post-conviction

motions with which Mr. Hernandez and his counsel deluged the court and the fact that

neither party argued the issue in its brief on the § 2255 motion as they were requested to


                                              13
do by the district court. He now asks us either to vacate the allegedly tainted convictions

or to remand to the district court.

       We note that Mr. Hernandez did not raise either of these arguments on direct

appeal, nor has he demonstrated cause and prejudice with regard to this failure, nor that a

“fundamental miscarriage of justice” will result if they are not considered. See United

States v. Warner, 23 F.3d 287, 291 (10th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 1030 (1996).

However, we also note that the government has not raised procedural bar as a defense to

Mr. Hernandez’s double jeopardy claims. We may invoke the procedural bar defense sua

sponte. Hines v. United States, 971 F.2d 506, 508 (10th Cir. 1992). However, we decline

to raise it in this case because “if a court elects to raise a defense sua sponte, the court

must generally afford the movant an opportunity to respond to the defense.” Id. at 509.

Mr. Hernandez has not had such an opportunity, i.e. to affirmatively demonstrate cause

and prejudice. Therefore, we proceed to consider the two double jeopardy claims.



1. Colorado conspiracy and CCE

       We first consider the argument concerning the Colorado conspiracy and CCE

convictions. At sentencing, the district court merged the two charges and imposed no

sentence for the conspiracy conviction other than a fifty-dollar special assessment.

However, the court did not vacate the conspiracy conviction itself. Rec. vol. 1, doc. 58, at

2. Mr. Hernandez correctly points out that under United States v. Stallings, 810 F.2d 973,


                                               14
975-76 (10th Cir. 1987), double jeopardy concerns mandate that when a defendant has

been convicted and sentenced for CCE, that defendant’s conviction (as well as his

sentence) for the same conspiracy under § 846 must be vacated because the latter is a

lesser included offense of the former.

       However, whereas Stallings came before us on direct appeal from a criminal

conviction, our jurisdiction in collateral appeals is more circumscribed.4 Our jurisdiction

here is invoked under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which in relevant part permits “[a] prisoner in

custody under sentence of a [federal] court . . . claiming the right to be released . . . [to]

move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.”

28 U.S.C. § 2255. A collateral challenge under § 2255 is available only to attack “a

federal sentence under which the defendant is in custody at the time of initiating the

petition or . . . a federal sentence that has been ordered to run consecutively to . . . another

sentence under which the defendant is in custody at the time of filing the challenge.”

United States v. Bustillos, 31 F.3d 931, 933 (10th Cir. 1994). Because Mr. Hernandez

received no sentence (other than the fifty-dollar assessment) for his Colorado conspiracy

conviction, he was not in custody under a sentence for that conviction, and therefore the



       4
         We note that on April 24, 1996, while this case was pending on appeal, the President
signed into law the “Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,” Pub. L. No. 104-
132, 110 Stat. 1214 (the “Act”). “We need not determine to what extent the Act’s amendments
to federal habeas review govern cases pending when the Act became effective because we
determine that even under the more expansive scope of review prior to the Act, [the appellant]
was not entitled to federal habeas corpus relief.” Stone v. Farley, No. 95-1796, 1996 WL
325937, *3 n.3 (7th Cir. June 14, 1996).

                                               15
district court lacked jurisdiction under § 2255.5 The district court therefore should have

dismissed this claim because it lacked jurisdiction to vacate the Colorado conspiracy

conviction. See Bustillos, 31 F.3d at 934 (dismissing, for lack of jurisdiction, an appeal

from the denial of a § 2255 motion where the petitioner did not meet his burden of

persuading the court that he was attacking a sentence under which he was in custody at

the time of initiating the petition). Because we conclude that this claim should have been

dismissed, the district court’s failure to rule on this issue does not alter our holding that it

was proper to deny Mr. Hernandez’s § 2255 motion.



2. Colorado CCE and Florida conspiracy

       We next consider Mr. Hernandez’s claim that his Florida and Colorado

prosecutions placed him in double jeopardy. Specifically, Mr. Hernandez appears to

argue that the charge of conspiracy to import marijuana, to which he pleaded guilty in

Florida, constitutes a lesser included offense with respect to the Colorado CCE charge.

Although neither the record nor the briefs provide a clear picture of the Florida



       5
         The appropriate avenue for collaterally challenging a conviction that does not result in a
sentence which the movant is serving at the time he makes the motion is a petition for a writ of
coram nobis. See, e.g., Bustillos, 31 F.3d 934. However, the availability of a writ of coram
nobis is extremely circumscribed, requiring that the movant carry a substantive burden not taken
up by Mr. Hernandez’s pleadings and probably not bearable under these facts. See id. (holding
that a writ of coram nobis is to be granted only where there is “a complete miscarriage of
justice”); United States v. Bruno, 903 F.2d 393, 396 (5th Cir. 1990) (explaining that a coram
nobis petitioner must demonstrate “that he is suffering civil disabilities as the result of the
criminal conviction”).

                                                16
proceedings, Mr. Hernandez concedes that his Florida conviction came after his Colorado

conviction. Aplt’s Reply Br. at 12. Hence the Colorado conviction is not subject to a

double jeopardy attack since, even if at the time of his Colorado conviction and sentence

Mr. Hernandez had already been indicted in Florida, a mere indictment does not cause

jeopardy to attach. See Crist v. Bretz, 437 U.S. 28, 36 (1978) (citing “the federal rule that

jeopardy attaches when the jury is empaneled and sworn”).

       Alternatively, Mr. Hernandez’s claim that “his convictions in Colorado and Florida

amounted to double jeopardy,” Aplt’s Br. at 22, could be construed as an attack on his

Florida prosecution and conviction, which the government did pursue after the previous

Colorado conviction. However, such a claim--attacking a sentence imposed by another

federal district court--could not have been entertained by the Colorado district court in

this case. Again, Mr. Hernandez brought this claim under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which

provides that “[a] prisoner in custody under sentence of a court . . . may move the court

which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence.” 28 U.S.C. §

2255 (emphasis added). 28 U.S.C. § 2255 also expressly mandates: “An application for a

writ of habeas corpus . . . shall not be entertained if it appears that the applicant has failed

to apply for relief, by motion, to the court which sentenced him . . . .” Id. See Bradshaw

v. Story, 86 F.3d 164, 166 (10th Cir. 1996); Tripati v. Henman, 843 F.2d 1160, 1163 (9th

Cir.) (holding that the district court correctly dismissed the movant’s § 2255 motion for

lack of jurisdiction because the motion was not brought in the sentencing court), cert.


                                               17
denied, 488 U.S. 982 (1988). Nor can Mr. Hernandez succeed by attacking the Colorado

indictment on the grounds that it “set [him] up for ‘prearranged’ double jeopardy.” Rec.

vol. 2, doc. 94, at 5. See Flores v. United States, 338 F.2d 966, 967 (10th Cir. 1964)

(holding that the appellant could not challenge the sufficiency of an indictment on the

grounds that it “fail[ed] to protect him against the possibility of double jeopardy”).

Again, because we conclude that this claim should have been dismissed, the district

court’s failure to rule on this issue does not alter our holding that it was proper to deny

Mr. Hernandez’s § 2255 motion.



                                     III. CONCLUSION

       For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the orders of the district court dated March

20, 1989 and December 16, 1994. The Appellant’s motion for reconsideration of this

court’s July 19, 1995 order to supplement the record on appeal is DENIED.6




       6
         Upon motion of the government, this court ordered on July 19, 1995 that the record on
appeal be supplemented with the transcript of the deposition of one of Mr. Hernandez’s trial
attorneys. After the government’s motion was granted, Mr. Hernandez filed “Appellant’s
Response to Government’s Motion to Supplement the Record on Appeal,” which this court
construed as a motion for reconsideration of the July 19, 1995 order. Because, as stated above,
we have determined that consideration of these supplemental documents is not necessary to our
disposition of this case, no purpose would be served by granting the motion for reconsideration.

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