United States v. Steve Martini
Opinion
Opinion
Steve Martini went to trial instead of accepting a plea agreement that would have resulted in a 70-month minimum sentence. He was convicted of two drug-related crimes and sentenced to ten years in prison. He now appeals his conviction, claiming he received ineffective assistance of counsel from a lawyer who advised him to reject the plea offer.
Martini received conflicting advice about the plea offer. The lawyer he had originally retained to represent him advised him to accept the plea. But Martini was dissatisfied with this advice and got a second opinion. Shortly before the plea offer was to expire, he approached a second lawyer — a lawyer who was not representing him in the case and who was completely unfamiliar with the facts and legal issues involved — and asked for an opinion about the plea offer. He told the lawyer that the government’s case was weak, and that his codefendant would testify on his behalf at trial. SER 24-25. Based on this information and a review of the discovery in the ease, this second lawyer suggested the case might be “triable.” Id. at 25. Martini claims this second lawyer’s advice constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel.