United States v. Shults, 1:17-cr-00136

Craig Shults, a federal prisoner, was convicted of wire fraud in 2014 and later convicted of retaliating against a federal official by threatening a judge involved in his prior case.
The retaliation charges arose from threats Shults made while incarcerated, which were reported and recorded by fellow inmates, including one seeking a sentence reduction.
Shults was convicted after a four-day trial and sentenced to 72 months, consecutive to his wire fraud sentence; the Ninth Circuit affirmed his conviction and sentence.
He filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence, primarily alleging ineffective assistance of counsel on several grounds.
The court addressed the sufficiency, prejudice, and procedural aspects of each ineffective assistance claim, ultimately denying Shults' requests for relief and for an evidentiary hearing, and declined to issue a certificate of appealability.

Issue	Shults' Argument	Government's Argument	Held
Counsel failed to call Shults to testify	Shults wanted to testify, was denied the opportunity, and this prejudiced his defense	Shults waived his right by remaining silent; no prejudice resulted	Shults knowingly waived his right; no prejudice shown
Failure to call two supporting inmate witnesses	Witnesses would corroborate Knox's motive to set up Shults for a sentence reduction	Testimony was speculative, cumulative, and not supported by affidavits	Proposed testimony was cumulative; failure to call witnesses not deficient or prejudicial
Failure to question a witness (Assan) on a key issue	Key question not asked; answer would have shown Knox set up Shults	Ample evidence and testimony on Knox's motivations already presented	No prejudice from omission; question would have been cumulative
Failure to call an expert on prison informants	An expert would explain inmates' incentives to fabricate for reductions	Defense already presented extensive evidence on inmate motivations	No prejudice; testimony would have been cumulative
Structural error/right to autonomy (McCoy claim)	Counsel's failure to call Shults was a violation of autonomy, not governed by Strickland	Claim must be reviewed under Strickland; no automatic prejudice	Strickland applies; no prejudice shown

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (standard for ineffective assistance of counsel claims)
Rock v. Arkansas, 483 U.S. 44 (defendant's constitutional right to testify in own defense)
Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500 (ineffective assistance of counsel claims can be raised on collateral review)
Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (harmless error standard in habeas cases)
Weaver v. Massachusetts, 582 U.S. 286 (prejudice required for structural error raised in collateral review)
McCoy v. Louisiana, 138 S. Ct. 1500 (defendant's autonomy to choose defense objectives)
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86 (reasonableness and prejudice standards under Strickland)
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (presumption of counsel's reasonable performance)
United States v. Wilcox, 640 F.2d 970 (scope of §2255 collateral attacks)
Florida v. Nixon, 543 U.S. 175 (when counsel can make strategic concessions without explicit client approval)