Adejumo v. United States

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate his sentence for bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. The court held that, even assuming petitioner's allegations were true, he failed to state a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. In this case, to the extent that petitioner argued defense counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to advise him to testify truthfully, the oath he swore provided him with sufficient notice of this basic obligation. Furthermore, to the extent petitioner challenged defense counsel's failure to warn him about all the possible consequences of his decision to testify, his argument failed because defense counsel did not need to warn him of the speculative risk that false testimony would lead to the unusual chain of events that occurred here. Finally, the plea agreement established that defense counsel's concession of the amount of loss at sentencing was objectively reasonable under the circumstances. View "Adejumo v. United States" on Justia Law