Opinion
No. 99 CR 934.
November 21, 2007
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Defendant Tracy Harrison was sentenced on June 27, 2001, after a plea of guilty. On April 4, 2005, he filed a "Motion Pursuant to Title 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a)(1)." What he wants to do is appeal his sentence. The time for appeal having long passed, he contends that he wanted his appointed counsel to appeal, and his counsel failed to do so. To indicate his interest in appealing, he appends the letters from his counsel (who was then retiring from practice) to the Federal Defender's office that refer to letters from him to his attorney — but those letters are from 2004 and 2005.
It is clear that an attorney provides ineffective assistance of counsel if, after being requested to do so, that attorney fails to perfect an appeal. And we recognize defendant's motion as, essentially, a federal habeas petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. But the request, if made, was years after the time to appeal had expired. It is hardly ineffective assistance of counsel to fail to file an untimely appeal. We note that this petition, filed in 2005, only recently came to our attention (why it did not show up in prior scans of the data base we do not know), but, even then, it was long after the one-year limitations period of § 2255. The petition is denied.