PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
JOSE BUSTOS,
Petitioner-Appellee,
v.
WILLIAM WHITE, Warden of Broad No. 07-6598
River Correctional Institution;
HENRY DARGAN MCMASTER,
Attorney General of South Carolina,
Respondents-Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of South Carolina, at Columbia.
Henry M. Herlong, Jr., District Judge.
(3:06-cv-00368-HMH)
Argued: January 31, 2008
Decided: March 28, 2008
Before WILKINSON and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and
Liam O’GRADY, United States District Judge for the
Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Traxler wrote
the opinion, in which Judge Wilkinson and Judge O’Grady joined.
COUNSEL
ARGUED: William Edgar Salter, III, OFFICE OF THE ATTOR-
NEY GENERAL OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South Caro-
2 BUSTOS v. WHITE
lina, for Appellants. Margaret A. Chamberlain, Greenville, South
Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Henry D. McMaster, Attorney
General, John W. McIntosh, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Donald
J. Zelenka, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellants.
OPINION
TRAXLER, Circuit Judge:
William White, Warden of Broad River Correctional Institution,
and Henry D. McMaster, Attorney General of South Carolina, appeal
a district court order granting a conditional writ of habeas corpus to
Jose Bustos. We reverse and remand for entry of judgment in favor
of the State.
I.
Bustos is an inmate at the Broad River Correctional Institution in
Columbia, South Carolina. Bustos was indicted by a Pickens County
grand jury on five counts of trafficking a controlled substance and one
count of possession of a firearm during commission of a violent
crime. In August 1997, he pled guilty to all charges and received one
sentence of twenty years’ imprisonment, a consecutive prison term of
five years, a concurrent prison term of ten years, and a $200,000 fine.
Bustos did not appeal his convictions or sentences.
In October 1997, Bustos filed an application for post-conviction
relief ("PCR"), which he amended twice to add additional claims. Fol-
lowing a hearing, Bustos was denied relief and his application was
dismissed with prejudice. After a petition for writ of certiorari pursu-
ant to Johnson v. State, 364 S.E.2d 201 (S.C. 1988) (per curiam), was
filed on Bustos’s behalf,1 the South Carolina Supreme Court denied
certiorari.
1
Johnson provides that counsel must follow the procedures outlined in
Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), in order to withdraw in a
meritless appeal of a PCR denial.
BUSTOS v. WHITE 3
In October 2001, Bustos filed a "Motion for Petition for Writ of
Habeas Corpus" with the Pickens County Clerk of Court. J.A. 164.
Bustos subsequently filed another PCR application, and then filed an
amended application in December 2002. A South Carolina trial judge
dismissed Bustos’s petition for writ of habeas corpus for several pro-
cedural reasons2 but found that his pending PCR application should
be amended to include the grounds alleged in his habeas petition.
The State of South Carolina then filed its return to the pending
PCR application, arguing that the application should be summarily
dismissed because it was barred as successive, see S.C. Code Ann.
§ 17-27-90 (2003), and because it was untimely under the one-year
statute of limitations governing PCR actions, see S.C. Code Ann.
§ 17-27-45(A) (2003). The state trial judge summarily dismissed all
but two of Bustos’s claims for the reasons advanced by the State. The
remaining claims were that Bustos’s trial counsel incorrectly advised
him that if he pled guilty he would be eligible for parole and he would
not be deported after serving his sentence.
At a hearing regarding these claims, Bustos’s wife testified that
Bustos had told her that he believed he was eligible for parole and
would not be deported. Bustos testified that his trial counsel had
advised him that he would be parole eligible if he pled guilty and that
deportation would be waived since he was married to an American
citizen. He also testified that he would not have pled guilty had he
realized that he would not in fact be paroled and that he would likely
be deported after serving his sentence. Bustos’s trial counsel refuted
Bustos’s testimony, testifying that he never made any representations
to Bustos regarding parole eligibility or deportation.
A South Carolina trial judge ("the PCR court") dismissed Bustos’s
application. Crediting the testimony of Bustos’s trial counsel and dis-
crediting that of Bustos and his wife, the PCR court found that "trial
counsel did not advise [Bustos] about either parole eligibility or
2
The court ruled that Bustos had failed to allege that he had exhausted
all other available remedies and that his allegations could not be raised
in a habeas petition in state circuit court because they were cognizable
under the Uniform Post-Conviction Procedure Act, S.C. Code Ann.
§§ 17-27-10 to -160 (2003).
4 BUSTOS v. WHITE
deportation possibilities with regard to his charges" and therefore that
"trial counsel’s performance did not fall below reasonable profes-
sional standards." J.A. 252. The court also rejected Bustos’s assertion
that he would not have pled guilty but for trial counsel’s alleged mis-
advice. Again, a Johnson petition for writ of certiorari was filed on
Bustos’s behalf, and the South Carolina Supreme Court denied the
petition.
On February 16, 2006, Bustos filed a petition for writ of habeas
corpus in federal district court naming Warden William White of
Broad River Correctional Institution and South Carolina Attorney
General Henry D. McMaster (together, "the State") as respondents
and advancing several claims. In the only claim relevant to our dispo-
sition of the present appeal, Bustos alleged that he received constitu-
tionally ineffective assistance from his trial counsel because counsel
"failed to . . . fully inform petitioner" that he would be ineligible for
parole if he pled guilty ("the parole ineligibility advice claim"). J.A.
273. The government moved for summary judgment, arguing that
parole eligibility was only a collateral consequence of a guilty plea
and thus counsel could have been constitutionally ineffective only by
affirmatively misadvising Bustos that he would be eligible, which the
state court properly found that he did not do.
After the case was referred to him, a magistrate judge determined
that if Bustos was ineligible for parole at the time he pled guilty, then
defense counsel’s failure to advise Bustos of that fact constituted inef-
fective assistance and the PCR court holding otherwise "was contrary
to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established
Federal law." 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(d) (West 2006). The magistrate
judge, citing decisions of this court, reasoned that "parole ineligibility
is considered a direct consequence of a guilty plea, and counsel has
an affirmative duty to advise his client of this fact." J.A. 328 (citing
Cuthrell v. Director, 475 F.2d 1364, 1366 (4th Cir. 1973); Bell v.
North Carolina, 576 F.2d 564, 565 (4th Cir. 1978); and Chapman v.
Angelone, 187 F.3d 628, 1999 WL 511062 (4th Cir. 1999) (per
curiam) (unpublished table decision)). The magistrate judge con-
cluded, however, that whether Bustos was eligible for parole at the
time he pled guilty, or rather, whether he became ineligible only some
time after he pled guilty, could not be determined on the summary
BUSTOS v. WHITE 5
judgment record. The magistrate judge therefore recommended that
summary judgment be denied on the parole ineligibility advice claim.
The State objected to the magistrate judge’s report and recommen-
dation. As is relevant here, the State emphasized that in determining,
under the AEDPA,3 whether a state court decision is "contrary to, or
involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal
law," a court considers only holdings of the United States Supreme
Court, and the State contended that "there is no United States
Supreme Court precedent requiring counsel to advise on parole eligi-
bility." J.A. 338.
Considering the State’s objections, the district court noted that
although the Supreme Court had not addressed whether a parole-
ineligible defendant must be advised of his parole ineligibility before
pleading guilty, the Fourth Circuit had concluded that such a defen-
dant must be so advised. On that basis, the district court ruled that
counsel’s "failure to inform Bustos that he was ineligible for parole
was contrary to clearly-established federal law and unreasonable."
Bustos v. White, 2007 WL 914229, at *6 (D.S.C. 2007). The court
also concluded that Bustos was prejudiced by counsel’s deficient per-
formance because Bustos testified that he would not have pled guilty
had he known he was not eligible for parole. See id. at *7. Based on
that analysis, the district court issued a conditional writ of habeas cor-
pus, directing the State to either release Bustos or retry him within
180 days. See id.
II.
The State maintains that the district court erred in granting Bustos
relief on the parole ineligibility advice claim when Supreme Court
law did not clearly establish that his attorney was constitutionally
deficient in failing to inform him that he was parole ineligible. We
agree.4
3
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub. L.
No. 104-32, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996).
4
The government also contends that the parole ineligibility advice
claim was procedurally defaulted and that Bustos’s habeas petition was
not timely filed. Because we decide this appeal on the basis discussed
above, we do not address these issues though we note that there is a sub-
stantial question of waiver by the State of the procedural default.
6 BUSTOS v. WHITE
The Sixth Amendment requires that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions,
the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel
for his defence," U.S. Const. Amend. VI, and that such assistance be
effective, see Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984). In
order to establish a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel, Bustos
must demonstrate "that counsel’s performance was deficient" and that
"the deficient performance prejudiced the defense." Id. at 687. To
demonstrate inadequate performance, Bustos "must show that coun-
sel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonable-
ness" measured by "prevailing professional norms." Id. at 688. To
demonstrate prejudice, Bustos "must show that there is a reasonable
probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of
the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 694. That burden
would require Bustos to establish "that there is a reasonable probabil-
ity that, but for counsel’s errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and
would have insisted on going to trial." Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52,
59 (1985).
Pursuant to the limits on federal habeas review of a state convic-
tion, when a habeas petitioner’s constitutional claim has been "adjudi-
cated on the merits in State court proceedings," we may not grant
relief unless the state court’s adjudication "resulted in a decision that
was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly
established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the
United States" or "resulted in a decision that was based on an unrea-
sonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented
in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(d). A state court’s
decision is contrary to clearly established federal law under § 2254(d)
when it "applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth"
by the United States Supreme Court or "confronts a set of facts that
are materially indistinguishable from a decision of [the Supreme
Court] and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [that] prece-
dent." Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06 (2000). A state
court’s decision involves an unreasonable application of clearly estab-
lished federal law "if the state court identifies the correct governing
legal rule from [the Supreme] Court’s cases but unreasonably applies
it to the facts of the particular state prisoner’s case." Id. at 407. Fac-
tual determinations made by the state court "shall be presumed to be
correct," and "[t]he applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the
BUSTOS v. WHITE 7
presumption of correctness by clear and convincing evidence." 28
U.S.C.A. § 2254(e)(1) (West 2006).
The claim at issue in this appeal is that because Bustos was ineligi-
ble for parole, Bustos’s attorney was constitutionally ineffective for
failing to advise him of his parole ineligibility before he pled guilty.
Neither the district court nor Bustos point us to any Supreme Court
precedent clearly establishing the proposition that an attorney’s repre-
sentation is constitutionally deficient when he fails to alert a defen-
dant considering pleading guilty that he will not be eligible for parole.
Indeed, the Supreme Court has specifically declined to address that
very question. See Hill, 474 U.S. at 60 ("We find it unnecessary to
determine whether there may be circumstances under which errone-
ous advice by counsel as to parole eligibility may be deemed constitu-
tionally ineffective assistance of counsel . . . ."); see also id. at 56
("We have never held that the United States Constitution requires the
State to furnish a defendant with information about parole eligibility
in order for the defendant’s plea of guilty to be voluntary.").
The Supreme Court has held that a judge accepting a guilty plea
must determine that the defendant fully understands the consequences
of the guilty plea. See Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 243-44
(1969). Bustos does not deny, however, that defense counsel’s failure
"to ascertain and advise [his client] of the collateral consequences of
a guilty plea" does not constitute ineffective assistance. United States
v. Yearwood, 863 F.2d 6, 8 (4th Cir. 1988) (emphasis added). Never-
theless, citing Cuthrell v. Director, 475 F.2d 1364 (4th Cir. 1973),
Bustos maintains that parole ineligibility is a "‘direct consequence[ ]’"
of a guilty plea, and thus that his trial counsel was ineffective in fail-
ing to inform him of it. Id. at 1365-66 (stating in dicta that parole inel-
igibility is a direct consequence of a guilty plea and thus that the
defendant must be made aware of it before he can validly plead
guilty).
What Bustos fails to appreciate, however, is that it is Supreme
Court precedent, and not Fourth Circuit precedent, to which we look
in applying the AEDPA standard of review. See Williams, 529 U.S.
at 381-82; id. at 390 n.15 (explaining that to justify grant of habeas
relief under the AEDPA, the law with which the decision conflicts
"must be ‘clearly established’ by [the Supreme] Court alone."). And,
8 BUSTOS v. WHITE
no Supreme Court precedent establishes that parole ineligibility con-
stitutes a direct, rather than a collateral, consequence of a guilty plea.
Indeed, the majority of circuits deciding the issue have concluded that
parole ineligibility is only a collateral consequence. See United States
v. United States Currency in the Amount of $228,536.00, 895 F.2d
908, 915 (2d Cir. 1990); Holmes v. United States, 876 F.2d 1545,
1549 (11th Cir. 1989) (holding that "the requirements of Rule 11 [of
the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure] do not encompass the
court’s failure to inform a defendant of his ineligibility for parole
since parole eligibility is a collateral rather than a direct consequence
of a guilty plea"); Hill v. Lockhart, 731 F.2d 568, 570 (8th Cir. 1984)
("The details of parole eligibility are considered collateral rather than
direct consequences of a plea, of which a defendant need not be
informed before pleading guilty." (citations omitted)), aff’d, 474 U.S.
52 (1985); Armstrong v. Egeler, 563 F.2d 796, 800 (6th Cir. 1977)
(holding that due process does not require that a defendant be
informed of his parole ineligibility before pleading guilty); Trujillo v.
United States, 377 F.2d 266, 268-69 (5th Cir. 1967) (holding that a
defendant need not be advised of his parole ineligibility before enter-
ing a guilty plea because "eligibility for parole is not a ‘consequence’
of a plea of guilty, but a matter of legislative grace" and thus "non-
eligibility for parole is not a ‘consequence’ of a plea of guilty" but
rather "a consequence of the withholding of legislative grace" (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted)). For all of these reasons, we conclude
that there is no basis for determining that the state court decision was
contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly estab-
lished Supreme Court law. We therefore reverse the district court’s
conditional grant of a habeas writ and remand to the district court for
entry of judgment in favor of the government.
REVERSED AND REMANDED