Montoya v. Johnson

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_______________
m 99-50190
_______________
JESSE MONTOYA,
Petitioner-Appellee,
VERSUS
GARY L. JOHNSON,
DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
INSTITUTIONAL DIVISION,
Respondent-Appellant.
_________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
_________________________
September 14, 2000
Before JOLLY, SMITH, and BARKSDALE,
Circuit Judges.
JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:
When he pleaded guilty, for separate
criminal acts, to federal charges of carjacking
and state charges of aggravated robbery, Jesse
Montoya no doubt would have preferred that
his federal and state terms of imprisonment run
concurrently. The state court did sentence him
concurrently but, importantly, did so before
the federal court had issued its sentence.
There being no previous federal sentence with
which Montoya’s state sentence could run, it
was left to the federal court to decide whether
to allow his federal sentence to run
concurrently with his previously-issued state
sentence. Montoya’s hopes were thus largely
dashed when the federal court subsequently

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2
sentenced him to a consecutive term of
incarceration, for that meant that his state
sentence would run concurrently only if he
were prematurely discharged from state prison
and subsequently detained for federal
incarceration.
In retrospect, Montoya would have been
better served had he been sentenced in federal
court before he was sentenced by the state
court. He claims constitutional error, seeking
a federal writ of habeas corpus from his guilty
plea on the state charges on the ground that
that plea was premised on the state’s promise
of concurrent sentencing, failure of which ren-
dered his plea unknowingly and involuntarily
submitted. Alternatively, he complains of un-
constitutionally ineffective counsel.
The state courts have rejected these
arguments, concluding that Montoya was
made adequately aware of the terms of his
state plea agreement in open court, thereby
rendering his plea voluntary and curing any
ineffectiveness of counsel. Therefore,
whatever we might have thought of Montoya’s
claims if we were ruling on them in the first
instance, principles of federalism, comity, and
finality of judgments, impressed upon us by the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996 (“AEDPA”), counsel us to deny relief.
Consequently, we REVERSE.
I.
Before imposition of the state sentence,
Montoya had pleaded guilty to carjacking
charges in federal court. He had not been
sentenced on the federal charge when he
pleaded guilty to, and faced sentencing for,
aggravated robbery in Texas state court.
A.
Montoya’s plea agreement with the state
provided that his twelve-year state sentence
would be imposed concurrently with his
pending federal sentence.1 That is, the state
agreed to allow him to use any time spent
serving a federal sentence as credit against his
state sentence. Accordingly, Texas law
authorizes a state court to sentence a
defendant to a term of imprisonment to be
served concurrently with anot her
sentenceSSbut only if the other sentence has
already been imposed.2 When Montoya was
sentenced on the state charge, however, there
was no pending federal sentence with which
the state sentence could run concurrently
pursuant to the state plea agreement.
Clifford Hardwick, Montoya’s attorney in
the state prosecution, advised him to plead
guilty in state court, even though federal
sentencing had not yet taken place, rather than
to seek a continuance and delay pleading and
sentencing in state court until after federal
sentencing, because the policy of the state
judge was either to accept a plea or proceed
1 The written plea agreement read: “I have
agreed with the State to the terms and conditions of
the plea agreement as follows: 1. I will enter a
plea of guilty to the offense of Aggravated
Robbery, charged against me in this cause. . . .
3. Defendant’s punishment will be set as follows:
Twelve (12) Years IDTDCJ, concurrent with
Federal sentence.”
2 See TEX. CODE CRIM. P. art. 42:08(a) (stating
that “in the discretion of the court, the judgment in
the second and subsequent convictions may either
be that the sentence imposed or suspended shall
begin when the judgment and the sentence imposed
or suspended in the preceding conviction has
ceased to operate, or that the sentence imposed or
suspended shall run concurrently with the other
case or cases, and sentence and execution shall be
accordingly”).

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3
immediately to trial. An earlier opportunity
for federal sentencing had been delayed
because Montoya’s federal counsel was out of
town.
At the plea hearing in state court, the
following exchange took place:
THE COURT: I just want to make sure
that there wasn’t something else that
they offered you and changed it. Okay.
And . . . does that include all aspects of
the recommendation, Mr. Hardwick?
MR. HARDWICK: Well, also, Your
Honor, the State had agreed that that
sentence . . . run concurrent with his
federal offense, which is to be sen-
tencedSShe is to be sentenced on
August 31st for the federal offense and
he already pled guilty to that.
THE COURT: All right. I am going to
write that in on item three here.
Concurrent with the federal sentence.
Now, you understand, Mr. Montoya, I
can’t bind the federal judge to do
anything. But what I am saying is that
our timeSSyou will be given credit on
this sentence with the time you serve in
federal court. Now, what they do, I am
not sure. I don’t know about how
theySSwhat their rules are.
THE DEFENDANT: I understand.
THE COURT: But our rule will be that
you will get credit on this one. . . . I will
announce for the record that I will not
exceed the agreed recommendation as to
punishment. . . . [T]welve years to be
served concurrent with the federal
sentence.
Montoya had previously demonstrated at
least some ability to comprehend and exercise
his rights as a criminal defendant. When asked
by the state trial court whether he had read the
form he had previously signed waiving his ap-
peal rights, he responded that he had not,
thereby allowing the court to respond and to
ensure protection of his rights to due process
by allowing him the opportunity to read that
form.
B.
Subsequently, the federal court sentenced
Montoya to a seventy-eight-month federal
sentence, to be served consecutively to his
state sentence.3 He thus was placed under a
federal detainer, such that he would not begin
serving his federal sentence until release from
state custody, so there was no federal term of
incarceration with which to run his state
sentence concurrently, because he would not
begin serving his federal time until his release
from state custody. His right to a concurrent
state sentence would not be triggered,
therefore, until after his release from state
3 The decision to run federal sentences
concurrently or consecutively with pending
sentences is governed by 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a) (“If
multiple terms of imprisonment are imposed on a
defendant at the same time, or if a term of
imprisonment is imposed on a defendant who is
already subject to an undischarged term of
imprisonment, the terms may run concurrently or
consecutively, except that the terms may not run
consecutively for an attempt and for another
offense that was the sole objective of the attempt.
Multiple terms of imprisonment imposed at the
same time run concurrently unless the court orders
or the statute mandates that the terms are to run
consecutively. Multiple terms of imprisonment
imposed at different times run consecutively unless
the court orders that the terms are to run
concurrently.”).

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4
custodySSas in the case of parole or habeas
relief from state imprisonment (which the
federal court would later grant).
C.
Montoya first filed a habeas petition in state
court, challenging his state sentence. He ar-
gued that TEX. CODE CRIM. P. art. 26:13 re-
quired the trial court to admonish him that the
terms of the plea agreement regarding con-
current sentencing was not binding on the fed-
eral court4 and that, because of the lack of
warning by the trial court or his counsel, his
guilty plea was not made knowingly and
voluntarily.5 He additionally demanded with-
drawal of his plea on the ground that specific
performance of the plea agreement was
impossible, and the promises made to him
therefore were illusory. Finally, he alleged
ineffective assistance of counsel.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals re-
jected the petition without written order,
thereby accepting the trial court’s finding that,
if nothing else, the exchange in open court
between the petitioner and the judge
(excerpted above) adequately informed
Montoya of the terms and limitations of his
plea agreementSSspecifically, that court’s lack
of power to bi nd the federal court to
concurrent sentencing. The state habeas court
also concluded there was no harm from any
ineffective assistance of counsel and that the
promises made to Montoya were not illusory:
His federal sentence was to run consecutively
with his state sentence, while his state sentence
could run concurrently with a pending federal
sentence.
Therefore, the state courts reasoned, Mon-
toya’s entitlement to state imprisonment credit
for any federal time served would be realized
only if he were paroled from state custody, an
event that would trigger his federal
imprisonment. Only under those particular cir-
cumstances would his time in federal
imprisonment be credited by the state. But
that benefit was enough for the state court to
support the plea agreement against a habeas
challengeSSeven though other evidence
established that Montoya sought fully
concurrent sentences and that Hardwick had
told him that the agreement guaranteed fully
concurrent sentences, despite counsel’s
awareness that Texas law did not provide as
much because the federal sentence had not yet
been imposed.
D.
In early 1997SSafter the April 24, 1996, ef-
fective date of AEDPASSMontoya filed the
instant petition for federal habeas relief before
the same judge who had sentenced him on the
federal carjacking charge. The federal court
granted the habeas petition and ordered Mon-
toya’s immediate release from Texas custody
to the U.S. Marshal so that he could begin ser-
vice on his federal charge. In doing so, the
court noted that, at the time it sentenced Mon-
toya on the federal charge, the judge had held
4 See TEX. CODE CRIM. P. art. 26:13(a) (“Prior
to accepting a plea of guilty . . . the court shall ad-
monish the defendant of: (1) the range of the
punishment attached to the offense”). See also
TEX. CODE CRIM. P. art. 26:13(c) (“In
admonishing the defendant as herein provided,
substantial compliance by the court is sufficient,
unless the defendant affirmatively shows that he
was not aware of the consequences of his plea and
that he was misled or harmed by the admonishment
of the court.”).
5 See TEX. CODE CRIM. P. art. 26:13(b) (“No
plea of guilty . . . shall be accepted by the court
unless it appears that the defendant is mentally
competent and the plea is free and voluntary.”).

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5
office for only a short time and that were he
able to do the sentencing over again, he would
do everything in his power to ensure a
concurrent federal sentence.
The court then gave the state 120 days to
allow Montoya to withdraw his plea and
choose either to enter a new plea or proceed
to trial. The court stayed its order pending
this appeal.
II.
Before enactment of AEDPA, “a federal
court entertaining a state prisoner’s application
for habeas relief . . . exercise[d] its
independent judgment when deciding both
questions of constitutional law and mixed
constitutional questions (i.e., application of
constitutional law to fact). In other words, a
federal habeas court owed no deference to a
state court’s resolution of such questions of
law or mixed questions.”6
Embodying the principles of federalism,
comity, and finality of judgments,7 AEDPA
substantially restricts the scope of federal re-
view of state criminal court proceedings.8 As
before, a habeas petitioner has the burden un-
der AEDPA to prove that he is entitled to
relief.9 In addition, however, AEDPA directs
that
[a]n application for a writ of habeas
corpus on behalf of a person in custody
pursuant to the judgment of a State
court shall not be granted with respect
to any claim that was adjudicated on the
merits in State court proceedings unless
the adjudication of the claimSS
(1) resulted in a decision that
was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of,
clearly established Federal law,
as determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States; or
(2) resulted in a decision that
was based on an unreasonable
6 Williams v. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. 1495, 1516
(2000) (O’Connor, J., concurring). See also
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) (West 1994).
7 See Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 306
(1989) (“Habeas corpus has always been a
collateral remedy, providing an avenue for
upsetting judgments that have become otherwise
final. It is not designed as a substitute for direct
review. The interest in leaving concluded litigation
in a state of repose, that is, reducing the
controversy to a final judgment not subject to
further judicial revision, may quite legitimately be
found by those responsible for defining the scope of
the writ to outweigh in some, many, or most
instances the competing interest in readjudicating
convictions according to all legal standards in
(continued...)
7(...continued)
effect when a habeas petition is filed.”) (quoting
Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 682-83
(1971) (Harlan, J., concurring)). See also
Williams, 120 S. Ct. at 1506 (Stevens, J.,
concurring) (“It is perfectly clear that AEDPA cod-
ifies Teague to the extent that Teague requires
federal habeas courts to deny relief that is
contingent upon a rule of law not clearly
established at the time the state conviction became
final.”).
8 See Williams, 120 S. Ct. at 1516 (O’Connor,
J., concurring) (noting that AEDPA “placed a new
restriction on the power of federal courts to grant
writs of habeas corpus to state prisoners.”).
9 See id. at 1518; Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107,
134-35 (1982).

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6
determination of the facts in
light of the evidence presented
in the State court proceeding.
28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).
Thus, federal courts may not grant the writ
merely on a finding of error by a state court,
but only if a state court “arrives at a
conclusion opposite to that reached by [the
Supreme Court] on a question of law or if the
state court decides a case differently than [the
Supreme Court] has on a set of materially
indistinguishable facts,” Williams, 120 S. Ct.
at 1523SSa contention Montoya does not
make.
Absent such a direct conflict with the
Supreme Court, the writ is available only if the
state court “unreasonably applies [clearly es-
tablished federal law, as determined by the
Supreme Court] to the facts of the prisoner’s
case,” id., or makes “an unreasonable
determination of the facts in light of the
evidence presented in the State court
proceeding.”10 The standard is one of
objective reasonableness.11
Montoya claims, first, that his guilty plea
was induced by a breached or illusory promise
from the state and therefore was not entered
into knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently,
as the Due Process Clause requires. He
additionally claims that counsel was
constitutionally ineffective by failing to explain
the illusory promise to him.
Although the Texas state courts rejected
both claims on petition for state habeas relief,
the federal court granted relief on both
grounds. Concluding that the state court rea-
sonably rejected Montoya’s claims, we re-
verse.
III.
A guilty plea will be upheld on habeas re-
view if entered into knowingly, voluntarily,
and intelligently. See James v. Cain, 56 F.3d
662, 666 (5th Cir. 1995).
10 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). See also 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(e)(1) (“In a proceeding instituted by an ap-
plication for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in
custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court,
a determination of a factual issue made by a State
court shall be presumed to be correct. The
applicant shall have the burden of rebutting the
presumption of correctness by clear and convincing
evidence.”).
11 The state makes reference to a standard of
“reasonable jurists,” under which the federal writ
is granted only if the state court has applied federal
law in a manner that all reasonable jurists would
agree is unreasonable. But after briefing was
(continued...)
11(...continued)
completed in this case, the Supreme Court rejected
that standard in favor of a purely objective
standard of reasonableness. See Williams, 120 S.
Ct. at 1521-22 (“The placement of this additional
overlay [of reasonable jurists] on the ‘unreasonable
application’ clause was erroneous. . . . Stated
simply, a federal habeas court making the
‘unreasonable application’ inquiry should ask
whether the state court’s application of clearly
established federal law was objectively
unreasonable. The federal habeas court should not
transform the inquiry into a subjective one by
resting its determination instead on the simple fact
that at least one of the Nation’s jurists has applied
the relevant federal law in the same manner the
state court did in the habeas petitioner’s case. The
‘all reasonable jurists’ standard would tend to
mislead federal habeas corpus courts by focusing
their attention on a subjective inquiry rather than
on an objective one.”).

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7
A plea of guilty entered by one fully
aware of the direct consequences,
including the actual value of any
commitments made to him by the court,
prosecutor, or his own counsel, must
stand unless induced by threats (or
promises to discontinue improper
harassment), misrepresentation
(including unfulfilled or unfulfillable
promises), or perhaps by promises that
are by their nature improper as having
no proper relationship to the
prosecutor’s business (e.g. bribes).
Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 755
(1970) (emphasis added). In other words,
where a plea “rests in any significant degree on
a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so
that it can be said to be part of the inducement
or consideration, such promise must be
fulfilled.” Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S.
257, 262 (1971). Otherwise, “[w]hen a
defendant pleads guilty on the basis of a
promise by his defense attorney or the
prosecutor, whether or not such promise is
fulfillable, breach of that promise taints the
voluntariness of his plea.” McKenzie v.
Wainwright, 632 F.2d 649, 651 (5th Cir.
1980). “It is clear that an unfulfilled state
promise obtained in return for a plea of guilty
will entitle a prisoner to habeas relief.”
McNeil v. Blackburn, 802 F.2d 830, 832 (5th
Cir. 1986).
Thus, a finding that Montoya’s plea
agreement contained either an illusory or
breached promiseSSand that the state court
unreasonably found to the contrarySSwould
warrant federal habeas relief. Alternatively, if
the terms of the agreement, though fulfilled,
were misrepresented to MontoyaSSand if the
state court unreasonably found to the con-
trarySShabeas relief also would be justified.
A.
First, we conclude that the state committed
no breach of the plea agreement, because a
state is not responsible for what might occur in
federal criminal proceedings. In doing so, we
follow Hendrix v. Norris, 81 F.3d 805, 807
(8th Cir. 1996), in which that court an-
nounced:
Rather than breaching its agreement . . .,
the state scrupulously honored the plea
bargain: the state requested that Hen-
drix serve his state sentences
concurrently with his federal sentence,
and the state court entered such an
order. That federal prosecutors did not
make a similar request in federal court
does not mean that the state breached its
plea agreement; “state prosecutors
cannot bind federal prosecutors without
the latter’s knowledge and consent.”
United States v. Fuzer, 18 F.3d 517,
520 (7th Cir. 1994). Neither is the state
court responsible for the federal court’s
imposition of a consecutive sentence:
the discretion of a federal sentencing
court cannot be limited by a state
court’s judgment. See United States v.
Adair, 826 F.2d 1040, 1041 (11th
Cir.1987) (per curiam) (federal court
could impose sentence consecutive to
state sentence, although state court had
imposed a concurrent sentence).
The circumstances in Hendrix are remark-
ably similar to those here. The state promised
that Montoya’s state sentence would run con-
currently with his federal sentence, and it did;
indeed, his current federal custody is available
as credit against his state sentence. The state
court therefore acted reasonably in denying
habeas on this ground.

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Nor was the promise illusory. If Montoya
were paroled from state custody (indeed, as he
was by the federal district court a quo), he
would have been transferred to federal custody
pursuant to the federal detainer arrangement.
Time spent in federal prison then would then
have been credited to his state sentence.
Granted, only then would there have been
another sentence with which Montoya’s state
sentence could have run concurrently, but that
was enough to render the promise not illusory.
B.
Failure to explain the distinction to Monto-
ya between state courts and prosecutors on the
one hand, and federal courts and prosecutors
on the other, would constitute sufficient cause
for habeas relief, for we do not expect a
defendant “instinctively to appreciate the
allocation of state and federal prosecuting and
sentencing authority.” Finch v. Vaughn, 67
F.3d 909, 915 (11th Cir. 1995). Thus, if in the
course of his state proceedings Montoya was
misled into believing that his state plea would
bind the federal court and guarantee that his
state and federal sentences would run
concurrently, his plea was entered into
involuntarily and thus “unconstitutionally
induced in violation of his due process rights.”
Id. at 916.
A court sitting in habeas review should not,
however, lightly find misrepresentation in a
plea agreement. The various advantages of the
plea bargaining system “can be secured . . .
only if dispositions by guilty plea are accorded
a great measure of finality.” Blackledge v.
Allison, 431 U.S. 63, 71 (1977). Thus, “the
representations of the defendant, his lawyer,
and the prosecutor at [the original plea
hearing], as well as any findings made by the
judge accepting the plea, constitute a
formidable barrier in any subsequent collateral
proceedings. Solemn declarations in open
court carry a strong presumption of verity.”
Id. at 74.
On habeas review, the state court rejected
Montoya’s claim that the agreement was mis-
represented to him. Looking at the exchange
between the court, Montoya, and his counsel,
one reasonably could disagree with the state
court’s determination that Montoya had
entered into the plea agreement knowingly,
voluntarily, and intelligently. To be sure,
“[t]he law of this Circuit . . . holds that the
defendant’s subjective belief alone is not
sufficient to invalidate a guilty plea.”12 Thus
Montoya must show that the plea agreement
had been objectively misrepresented to him.
Were this de novo review, federal habeas
relief arguably might be warranted. The
sentencing court merely explained that he
could not bind the federal court. The court did
not articulate, for example, what it was that
the agreement did provideSSnamely,
concurrent sentencing effective only upon a
parole release from state custody into federal
custody. That is, the state court explained, “I
can’t bind the federal judge to do anything.
But what I am saying is that . . . you will be
given credit on this sentence with the time you
serve in federal court.” But the court did not
go on to say, for example, that “you will be
12 Matthews v. United States, 569 F.2d 941,
943 (5th Cir. 1978). Cf. Self v. Blackburn, 751
F.2d 789, 793 (5th Cir. 1985) (“Self’s
‘understanding’ . . . that he would serve only ten
years and six months of a life sentence, does not
constitute a promise or a plea bargain, and hence
his continued confinement does not demonstrate
that a plea bargain was violated. It, therefore, does
not undermine the voluntariness of his guilty
plea.”).

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9
given credit on this sentence with the time you
serve in federal court only should you be
released into federal custody prior to the end
of your state sentence.”
The state sentencing court’s admonitions
therefore might not have been enough to ex-
plain the true terms of the agreement,
particularly in light of Montoya’s assurance
from counsel that he would be able to obtain
concurrent sentencing as he understood it.
One in his shoes might reasonably have
assumed, then, that fully concurrent
sentencing, though not yet confirmed, was all
but a done dealSSjust as the plea agreement
between Montoya and the prosecutor,
requiring the ultimate approval of the state
court, had once been all but complete. Indeed,
Montoya might have reasonably believed that,
just as with his plea agreement with the state,
from which he might have withdrawn had the
state court rejected it, so too could he have
withdrawn from his state plea had the federal
court subjected him to consecutive sentencing,
as it later did.
But the deferential review required under
AEDPA, forbidding state courts only from un-
reasonable applications of clearly established
federal law as determined by the Supreme
Court, constrains us from interfering with the
state criminal process by granting federal ha-
beas relief in this case. In Hendrix, 81 F.3d at
807-08, the court reasoned as follows:
We disagree with the district court’s
conclusion that Hendrix’s guilty plea in
the state court was invalid. We assume,
without accepting, that the state court’s
apparent failure to warn Hendrix that
the federal court need not impose a con-
current sentence could result in an
invalid guilty plea. See, e.g., Finch v.
Vaughn, 67 F.3d 909, 916 (11th Cir.
1995) (habeas petitioner’s plea-bar-
gained guilty plea in state court was in-
voluntary because no one had explained
that the federal court could reject the
state court’s imposition of concurrent
state and federal sentences).
The state court in fact did warn Montoya
that the plea agreement bound only the state
court. A fortiori, his plea agreement was en-
tered into voluntarily and knowingly.
IV.
To show that he has suffered from
unconstitutionally ineffective assistance of
counsel, a habeas petitioner must establish two
elements:
First, the defendant must show that
counsel’s performance was deficient.
This requires showing that counsel made
errors so serious that counsel was not
functioning as the “counsel” guaranteed
the defendant by the Sixth Amendment.
Second, the defendant must show that
the deficient performance prejudiced the
defense. This requires showing that
counsel’s errors were so serious as to
deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a
trial whose result is reliable. Unless a
defendant makes both showings, it
cannot be said that the conviction or . .
. sentence resulted from a breakdown in
the adversary process that renders the
result unreliable.[13]
13 Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687
(1984). See also Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 57
(1985) (“Although our decision in Strickland v.
Washington dealt with a claim of ineffective assis-
tance of counsel in a capital sentencing proceeding,
(continued...)

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10
The habeas petitioner has the burden to prove
ineffectiveness by a preponderance of the
evidence. See Martin v. Maggio, 711 F.2d
1273, 1279 (5th Cir. 1983).
With respect to the second, “prejudice”
prong, “a court making the prejudice inquiry
must ask if the defendant has met the burden
of showing that the decision reached would
reasonably likely have been different absent the
errors.” Washington, 466 U.S. at 696. “To
satisfy the ‘prejudice’ requirement, the
defendant must show that there is a reasonable
probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he
would not have pleaded guilty and would have
insisted on going to trial.” Hill, 474 U.S.
at 59.
The trial court explained to Montoya that it
had no power to bind the federal court, to
which Montoya responded: “I understand.”
The state court was not unreasonable in
concluding that any deficiency in Hardwick’s
representation was constitutionally cured at
that time. Montoya therefore cannot satisfy
the prejudice prong for an ineffective
assistance counsel of claim sufficiently to
justify federal habeas relief under AEDPA.
V.
At most, this was a close case for the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals, sitting on habeas
review, to determine whether the state
sentencing court adequately had explained the
terms of the agreement to defeat Montoya’s
dual claims of unknowing plea and prejudice
by ineffective assistance of counsel. The
closeness of that case, however, makes plain
the path we must take on federal habeas
review pursuant to AEDPASSthat is,
deference to the state court’s reasonable
application of clearly established federal law as
determined by the Supreme Court. The
federal district court may have regretted its
decision to sentence Montoya consecutively
with the state sentence, but federal habeas
review is not an appropriate remedy, for this
petition requests a degree of interference with
the state criminal justice system that AEDPA
expressly forbids.
REVERSED.
13(...continued)
. . . the same two-part standard seems to us
applicable to ineffective-assistance claims arising
out of the plea process.”).

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