Opinion
No. 14-4276
01-15-2015
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. TRACEY LAMONT COAD, Defendant - Appellant.
Mark A. Jones, BELL, DAVIS & PITT, PA, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellant. Ripley Rand, United States Attorney, Andrew C. Cochran, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellee.
UNPUBLISHED Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. James A. Beaty, Jr., Senior District Judge. (1:13-cr-00300-JAB-1) Before KEENAN and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Mark A. Jones, BELL, DAVIS & PITT, PA, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellant. Ripley Rand, United States Attorney, Andrew C. Cochran, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM:
Tracey Lamont Coad pled guilty pursuant to a plea agreement to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(e) (2012), and was sentenced as an armed career criminal to 212 months' imprisonment. On appeal, Coad argues that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to preserve any objections to his armed career criminal status.
We decline to reach Coad's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Unless an attorney's ineffectiveness conclusively appears on the face of the record, ineffective assistance claims generally are not addressed on direct appeal. United States v. Benton, 523 F.3d 424, 435 (4th Cir. 2008). Instead, such claims should be raised in a motion brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012), in order to permit sufficient development of the record. United States v. Baptiste, 596 F.3d 214, 216 n.1 (4th Cir. 2010). Because there is no conclusive evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel on the face of the record, we conclude that this claim should be raised, if at all, in a § 2255 motion.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court's judgment. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED