Guilty plea vacated in burglary case over ineffective counsel

A state appeals court has reversed a guilty plea in a burglary case and sent the case back to the lower court because of ineffective assistance of counsel.

Defendant Willie G. Roots pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary in Monroe County Court before Judge Victoria M. Argento in January 2017.

In a decision released Friday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, vacated the plea and remitted the case to County Court.

Roots “did not validly waive his right to appeal because County Court’s oral colloquy and the written waiver of the right to appeal provided (Roots) with erroneous information about the scope of that waiver and failed to identify that certain rights would survive the waiver,” according to the Fourth Department’s decision.

Roots’ appellate attorney, Paul Skip Laisure, argued that Roots received ineffective assistance of counsel based on “multiple alleged shortcomings,” the court wrote.

Roots claimed his trial attorney was ineffective for failing to challenge show-up identification procedures used after his arrest. He claimed that his lawyer was ineffective for failing to take action related to the grand jury proceedings.

The Fourth Department rejected those allegations.

He also claimed that his trial attorney was ineffective by failing to file a motion to suppress evidence on the ground that the police unlawfully seized him without reasonable suspicion.

“We agree,” the panel wrote.

To show ineffective assistance of counsel a defendant must “demonstrate the absence of strategic or other legitimate explanations for a counsel’s failure to pursue ‘colorable claim,’” the court wrote.

“The record establishes that defense counsel could have presented a colorable argument that defendant’s detention was illegal and thus that any evidence obtained as a result thereof should have been suppressed as the fruit of the poisonous tree,” the Fourth Department wrote.

A police officer testified at a pre-trial hearing that Roots and another man were not acting suspiciously, and the officer did not see a weapon until Roots was being handcuffed and it was found in his waistband.

“Those facts demonstrate that defense counsel failed to pursue a ‘colorable claim’ that could have led to suppression,” the court wrote.

Police had a vague description of the perpetrators of a home invasion obtained from one of the victims Roots only as to his general age and skin color.

“Defense counsel’s failure to move to suppress evidence on the basis of defendant’s allegedly unlawful detention was not part of a legitimate pretrial strategy. The record demonstrates that defense counsel prepared such a motion to suppress evidence on that basis, indicated an intent to make that motion, and simply failed to file the motion,” the court wrote.

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