Coleman v. U.S.

Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant’s habeas petition challenging his life sentence on drug conspiracy charge, where defendant alleged that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to inform him of possible life sentence enhancement prior to taking case to trial. After trial counsel indicated that he had informed defendant of said enhancement prior to trial, defendant filed amended habeas petition after limitations period for doing so had expired, alleging that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge government’s section 851 notice of seeking life sentence enhancement based on defendant’s two prior Illinois drug convictions. Dist. Ct. abused its discretion in finding that amended habeas petition did not relate back to date of original timely habeas petition, since amended petition related back to date of original petition because ineffective assistance of counsel claim in both original and amended petitions arose out of same conduct, transaction or occurrence. Moreover, Ct. of Appeals found that defendant stated viable ineffective assistance counsel claim in amended petition, where, even though no case law had established at time of instant 2014 trial that defendant’s drug convictions did not qualify under categorical approach as felony drug convictions for purposes of instant enhancement, framework for making such challenge had been established. As such, remand for evidentiary hearing was required to determine trial counsel’s mindset in failing to make said challenge. (Dissent filed.)