Boyd v. U.S.

Full title: ANTHONY BOYD, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant

Court: United States District Court, S.D. New York

Date published: Aug 2, 2001

98 Cr. 896 (TPG), 00 Civ. 6153 (TPG) (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 2, 2001)

Opinion

98 Cr. 896 (TPG), 00 Civ. 6153 (TPG)

August 2, 2001

OPINION

Thomas P. Griesa, U.S.D.J.

This is a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Pursuant to Rule 4 of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings, the court has examined the motion and has determined that it should be summarily dismissed. Boyd was convicted of bank robbery in a trial before the undersigned. His conviction was affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a summary order.

Boyd presents two grounds for the present motion. First, he asserts denial of the effective assistance of counsel, in that on direct appeal his counsel submitted "frivolous identification issues," and that during the trial his counsel neglected to submit relevant gambling records. Second, Boyd claims that unconstitutional identification procedures were used at and before trial, which produced mistaken identifications.

As the motion indicates, the identification issue was raised on direct appeal. Pages from the appeal brief, dealing with this subject, are attached to the motion. The Court of Appeals obviously rejected Boyd's contentions. There was no reason to review the matter once again.

As to the claim that Boyd's appellate counsel failed to submit the identification issue properly, nothing is provided in the motion to support or even argue this claim.

Petitioner argues that his trial counsel failed to introduce exculpatory evidence about his overall gambling activity. This contention relates to the fact that the Government introduced evidence showing large gambling transactions in Atlantic City by Boyd following the robberies in question. Boyd contends that he resided in Atlantic City and had been gambling almost daily since 1994 and that the gambling that he did at the time of the robberies in question was not unusual for him. Boyd states that he supplied his attorney gambling records, which the attorney did not offer into evidence.

The problem with this argument is that there was clear evidence of gambling transactions by Boyd following the robberies, involving large amounts of money with no possible source other than the robberies. This evidence, along with the substantial body of other evidence in the case, proved Boyd's guilt.

There is no basis for granting a motion under § 2255, and the motion is dismissed.

SO ORDERED.