Louis Ruggiero v. United States

The district court denied, without an evidentiary hearing, petitioner’s pro se 28 U.S.C. § 2255 claim of ineffective assistance of his defense counsel who had failed to convey a favorable plea offer that petitioner would have accepted to resolve state court charges. In the absence of a plea, the case was turned over to federal prosecutors who then obtained petitioner’s plea to a significantly longer sentence than contemplated by the unconveyed state court offer. Although counsel’s ineffective performance, petitioner’s willingness to accept the unconveyed plea offer, and the timeline of the federalization of the case were uncontested, the district court ruled that petitioner had not established in his § 2255 filings that by entering the state court plea, he would have avoided the federal charges. The question presented is: Should the court of appeals have granted a certificate of appealability on whether a district court may deny a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 evidentiary hearing on the issue of prejudice resulting from counsel’s deficient plea representation, where the district court placed on petitioner a burden at the pleading stage to allege facts that would prove—rather than merely support, without contradiction in the record—a claim of prejudice?