at 4-5).īrown, Matthews and four others were indicted for narcotics conspiracy-related offenses. Brown, Matthews and several of their chums had created a PCP operation that they called “Little Mexico.” Little Mexico’s modus vivendi involved using Woodberry Village apartments to stash guns and sell PCP. at 3-4).Īn examination of Brown’s cell phone text messages led to Matthews’ arrest, at which point the police learned that the takeover of Clifton’s apartment was no isolated event. The gendarmes then pounced and surprised Brown inside the apartment. Brown and his friend, Keith Matthews, who were using his apartment for several weeks to make “dippers” of PCP-laced cigarettes and store the proceeds from selling dippers. Clifton presented an account of enduring his unwelcome roommates, Mr. It turns out that one Louis Clifton walked into an MPD station and related what the per curiam decision describes as “an extraordinary story” that “rmed men had taken over his apartment and were using the apartment to manufacture and sell PCP – all while Clifton continued to live there.” Mr. Chief Judge Garland and Circuit Judges Kavanaugh and Millet’s’ eyeballs must have been bulging when they learned how the Government came across Dawayne (“Goon”) Brown and his associates in the PCP distribution trade. Thus, the substitution of the plea colloquy for advice from counsel will substantially undercut the Padilla decision.Every time you are convinced you’re read it all, another one pops out of the hopper. Circumscribing Padilla’s requirements by allowing plea colloquies to “cure” the prejudice created by Sixth Amendment Padilla violations is problematic because the Fifth Amendment plea colloquy provides significantly less protection to criminal defendants.

In the plea context, the court and defense counsel serve complementary but distinct functions in our constitutional structure neither can replace the other, and the failure of either court or counsel constitutes a breakdown in our system. This Note argues that those rulings mistakenly conflate the role of the court in a Fifth Amendment plea colloquy and the role of counsel under the Sixth Amendment and, further, that they misread the clear directives of Padilla. Since Padilla, a number of lower courts have held that such general court warnings prevent a defendant from proving prejudice and prevailing on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim where there might otherwise be a Padilla Sixth Amendment violation. In many plea colloquies, judges issue general warnings to defendants regarding the immigration consequences of a guilty plea. In the plea context, defendants are also protected by the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and the Due Process Clause, which requires that judges and defendants engage in a conversation regarding the consequences of the plea - the so-called “plea colloquy” - before the defendant can enter a valid guilty plea. Kentucky, the Supreme Court held that a lawyer’s failure to advise her noncitizen client of the deportation consequences of a guilty plea constitutes deficient performance of counsel in violation of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights.

Colloquy in court