Lancy White, Jr. v. USA

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 19-14669
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket Nos. 1:17-cv-00512-KD,
1:14-cr-00116-KD-MU-1
LANCY WHITE, JR.,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
________________________
(April 2, 2021)
Before WILSON, ROSENBAUM, and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Petitioner Lancy White, Jr., a federal prisoner serving a 132-month sentence
for attempted online enticement of a minor, appeals the district court’s denial of his
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 1 of 19

-- 1 of 19 --

2
28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate his sentence. In his § 2255 motion, Petitioner
asserted one claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, alleging that his trial
attorney, Walter Honeycutt, failed to present testimony from a forensic computer
examiner regarding apparent discrepancies in the Government’s printed email
evidence. The district court concluded, however, that Petitioner had failed to
establish prejudice. We agree with the district court’s prejudice determination and
affirm the decision below.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Criminal Proceedings
As part of an online investigation into sexual exploitation of children in
April 2013, undercover police officer Corporal James Morton placed a “personals”
advertisement on Craigslist.org, using the name “Cindy Carmichael,” who
purported to be a 34-year-old mother of two daughters, ages 9 and 12. Petitioner
responded to the ad and later sent emails expressing a desire to travel to
Carmichael’s residence to engage in sexual activity with her daughters. But when
Petitioner arrived at the predetermined location, he did not meet “Carmichael” and
her “girls.” Instead, he found the authorities waiting to arrest him. After waiving
his Miranda rights,1 Petitioner made several incriminating statements. A federal
1 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 2 of 19

-- 2 of 19 --

3
grand jury then indicted him on two counts of attempted online enticement of a
minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422. The case went to trial.
At trial, Corporal Morton testified that, as part of an undercover operation,
he had placed an ad in the “Personal Encounters” section of Craigslist, posing as
“Cindy Carmichael,” a 34-year-old woman with 9-year-old and 12-year-old
daughters. The ad consisted of nonsense song lyrics but contained coded language
that would be meaningful to individuals seeking to sexually exploit children,
including capitalized letters “P, T, H, C,” an acronym for “preteen hard core,” and
the capitalized phrase “MOTHER FOR SAFETY,” which Corporal Morton
included to indicate that the mother would not be involved in any sexual activity.
A few hours later, Corporal Morton received a response from Petitioner through
Craigslist. Corporal Morton said that his communications were routed through
Craigslist and saved on a Gmail account, younglove4u36571@gmail.com, which
he was using for the investigation.
Referring to the Government’s exhibit containing the email between
Petitioner and “Carmichael,” Corporal Morton testified that every email was
present and that he did not insert the phrase “quoted text hidden” or hide or delete
any emails. The emails showed that, after Petitioner expressed curiosity about the
Craigslist ad, Corporal Morton, using the “Carmichael” pseudonym, asked him if
he enjoyed “family fun.” The following exchange then occurred:
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 3 of 19

-- 3 of 19 --

4
Petitioner: “Honestly. yes, I have always wanted to play but never
got the chance.”
Carmichael: “What is your pleasure sir?”
Petitioner: “Mother and daughter servicing me. I don’t care who
is around watching.”
Carmichael: “Actually I do not participate. I am there for safety
only. I have 2 daughters.”
Petitioner: “nice. ages?”
Carmichael: “What is your pleasure?”
Petitioner: “I want young.”
Carmichael: “I have 2 daughters of different ages. The youngest is
9”
Petitioner: “what age is the oldest? Are they both well-behaved?”
Carmichael: “My oldest is 12. They are both well behaved and
know that we are not allowed to talk about our friends
with others. They have 3 years experience.”
Petitioner: “If I were to visit, what would I need?”
Carmichael: “Protection. We do not keep any here.”
Petitioner: “Is that a requirement? Also, how do I become a
friend?”
Carmichael: “It is not a requirement if you are DD free.”2
At that point, Petitioner expressed concern about being “put in a jeopardizing
situation” and asked for Carmichael’s “real email address.”
After exchanging personal email addresses, Carmichael asked Petitioner if
he would “like to meet [her] family,” and Petitioner expressed hope that he would
“get an invite.” When Carmichael asked what Petitioner “would like to do with
2 Corporal Morton testified that “DD” could mean “disease” or “drug and disease.”
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 4 of 19

-- 4 of 19 --

5
[her] girls,” Petitioner described in detail how he wanted to engage in kissing,
touching, oral sex, and penetration. Responding to a follow-up question about
whether Petitioner would be able to do those things “with [her] girls and not leave
bruising,” Petitioner responded, “Yes of course. I won’t bruise.” They then
arranged for Petitioner to meet Carmichael and her girls at an apartment the next
night.
Corporal Morton testified that he arrested Petitioner when he arrived at the
apartment. After waiving his Miranda rights, Petitioner engaged in a recorded
interview with Corporal Morton. Corporal Morton testified that he discussed the
emails one by one with Petitioner, and that Petitioner admitted he had used his
home computer to write the emails, which he sent via Craigslist and his Gmail
account. According to Corporal Morton, when asked what “family fun” meant,
Petitioner responded that it referred to sexual activity with family members
including children.
The Government then played for the jury two video clips from Petitioner’s
post-arrest interview. In the first, Corporal Morton asked why Petitioner had asked
“Carmichael” for an email address other than Craigslist, and Petitioner responded
that “[t]his is really dirty stuff” and that he was “worried about somebody finding
out.” In the second video clip, Corporal Morton asked Petitioner what he meant
when he described the types of sex he wanted to have with the children, and
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 5 of 19

-- 5 of 19 --

6
Petitioner explained that in “this part of the conversation” he was saying “it was
going to be sex,” “[v]aginal penetration,” and “[o]ral sex.” When Corporal Morton
asked if there were “[a]ny other places that you would have penetrated the 9- and
12-year-old babies,” Petitioner responded, “No, no, sir.” Corporal Morton then
asked whether Petitioner “wanted the 9- and 12-year-old to perform oral sex on
[his] penis” and “wanted to perform oral sex or cunnilingus on the 9- and 12-year-
old,” to which Petitioner responded “Yes, sir” and “Yes.”
On cross-examination, Honeycutt questioned the authenticity of the email
exhibit. Corporal Morton testified, however, that he had “just clicked the ‘print’
button” from his Gmail account to create the Government’s email exhibit, that the
exhibit contained all of the emails with Petitioner, and that Petitioner had deleted
from his own Gmail account some of the emails in the Government’s exhibit.
Honeycutt also pointed out several apparent discrepancies in the email printout, but
Corporal Morton could not explain, among other things, why the emails switched
between standard and military time, what explained the organization of the emails
in the printout, what “quoted text hidden” meant, why the font changed within the
email thread, or why an email present in one thread was missing from another. On
redirect, Corporal Morton said that he had not altered the emails, which flowed
sequentially, and that Petitioner did not indicate that emails were missing when he
reviewed the emails with Petitioner during the post-arrest interview.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 6 of 19

-- 6 of 19 --

7
After the Government rested its case, Petitioner took the stand. Petitioner
confirmed that he had written the emails in the Government’s exhibit but
contended that the emails shown were taken out of context and did not reveal the
true nature of the conversation. According to Petitioner, some of the emails did
not display the correct times and were shown out of order, making them
erroneously appear incriminating. Petitioner further alleged that the Government’s
exhibit was incomplete because it did not show some of his emails, which would
have shown he was seeking to have casual sex with Carmichael, not her daughters.
The missing emails, Petitioner testified, might have been obscured by the phrase
“Quoted text hidden,” which appeared numerous times throughout the email
printout. Petitioner claimed that he believed Carmichael was engaging in a fantasy
involving imaginary daughters, that he never believed her daughters were real, and
that he had “no interest in children whatsoever.” Addressing his post-arrest
statements, Petitioner testified that, in context, he was not admitting that he wanted
to perform sexual acts with the children. Instead, Petitioner said, he was merely
describing the emails he had sent, which referred to sexual acts he wished to
perform with Carmichael. On cross-examination, Petitioner conceded that he had
not mentioned during his post-arrest interview that emails were missing from the
thread, and that he had deleted some of his emails before going to meet
Carmichael.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 7 of 19

-- 7 of 19 --

8
After Petitioner testified, the Government announced its intention to call FBI
Agent Candace Hunter as an expert witness in rebuttal. The court ruled that the
Government could do so as long as Petitioner was also allowed to call an expert.3
But when the court asked Honeycutt if he had an expert present, Honeycutt
responded that he did not because “[w]e didn’t plan on this whatsoever.”
Honeycutt further objected that allowing a rebuttal expert would be prejudicial
because he did not have an expert, and he did not know whether an expert with
whom he had consulted, Dr. George Kirkham, would qualify as a computer
expert.4 The court, however, permitted Agent Hunter to present limited rebuttal
testimony.
3 The court had excluded Agent Hunter from the Government’s case-in-chief because the
Government had not complied with Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16’s notice
requirements.
4 Before trial, Honeycutt filed an untimely Rule 16 notice of intent to call Dr. Kirkham as an
expert witness to testify about “well established undercover investigative procedures.”
Honeycutt later served an expert report from Dr. Kirkham that addressed Petitioner’s entrapment
defense. The Government moved in limine to exclude Dr. Kirkham’s testimony, due to
Petitioner’s untimely disclosure and failure to comply with Rule 16. In responding to the
Government’s motions in limine, Honeycutt noted that “Defendant’s expert” had identified
“altered dates, times, and missing texts” in the proffered email evidence. Honeycutt then moved
to dismiss the case because “[Corporal Morton] appears to have provided altered, manipulated
and/or incomplete evidence.” Responding to the motion to dismiss, the Government noted that
Petitioner’s proposed experts did not appear to have expertise in electronic evidence or offer any
opinions on that topic. Honeycutt then served a supplemental expert report from Dr. Kirkham,
which noted in cursory fashion that the printed email evidence “show[ed] evidence of having
been tampered with and altered.” In a supplemental response, the Government argued that Dr.
Kirkham’s resume did not establish any expertise regarding electronic evidence or email. After a
pretrial hearing, the court granted the Government’s motion to exclude Dr. Kirkham and denied
Petitioner’s motion to dismiss the case.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 8 of 19

-- 8 of 19 --

9
Agent Hunter testified that Gmail automatically inserted the phrase “Quoted
text hidden” to avoid displaying every forwarded message in a thread, and that
Corporal Morton was not responsible for that phrase appearing in the email exhibit.
She further testified that Gmail created the timestamps when printing emails, that
not all prior emails in a thread were timestamped, and that the five-hour
differences between emails existed because the email server and computer were set
to different time zones. On cross-examination, Agent Hunter explained that one
would not expect all the email correspondence between Petitioner and
“Carmichael” to be in a single thread because Petitioner had used two separate
accounts (Gmail and Hotmail) when emailing Corporal Morton’s
younglove4u36571@gmail.com account.5
The jury found Petitioner guilty as charged. After denying Honeycutt’s
motions for acquittal, a new trial, and dismissal, the court sentenced Petitioner to
concurrent terms of 132 months’ imprisonment. On direct appeal, we affirmed
Petitioner’s convictions. In so doing, we ruled that the district court did not abuse
its discretion in admitting the email evidence, in denying Petitioner’s motion to
dismiss the indictment, or in excluding Dr. Kirkham from testifying.
5 During cross-examination, Petitioner said that he had initially contacted Carmichael through a
Hotmail account but had switched over to Gmail when he learned that was what she was using.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 9 of 19

-- 9 of 19 --

10
B. Post-Conviction Proceedings
After retaining new counsel, Petitioner filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to
vacate, asserting one claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Petitioner argued
that his trial counsel, Honeycutt, had failed to investigate and present expert
testimony regarding the Government’s apparent manipulation of the printed email
evidence introduced at trial. According to Petitioner, Honeycutt’s performance
was deficient because his workload (7 trials across 60 days) prevented him from
completing a reasonable investigation of the email evidence and retaining a
qualified expert to testify that the email evidence “showed signs of tampering and
manipulation,” that there remained “unexplained discrepancies in the emails
introduced at trial,” and that Agent Hunter was incorrect that the discrepancies
could be easily explained away.6 Petitioner further argued that he suffered
prejudice because his defense relied on his own testimony that the email evidence
was out of order and incomplete, and expert testimony about the unexplained
inconsistencies would have bolstered his testimony that the email evidence did not
accurately capture his correspondence with Carmichael.
6 Because he was simultaneously representing other defendants in several criminal cases set for
trial, Honeycutt moved for and received continuances of Petitioner’s pretrial conference and trial,
as well as extensions of time to file and respond to pretrial motions. From the record, it appears
that Honeycutt first noticed discrepancies in the email evidence two weeks before trial, when he
emailed the Government to ask what the phrase “quoted text hidden” in the email threads meant.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 10 of 19

-- 10 of 19 --

11
A magistrate judge ordered an evidentiary hearing, where dueling forensic
computer experts testified about the email evidence presented at trial. Petitioner’s
expert, Steven Burgess, testified that he had compared two email threads in the
printed email evidence admitted at trial—Thread B and Thread C—which
generally contained the same group of emails but were timestamped with standard
time and military time respectively.7 According to Burgess, Craigslist masked
individuals’ true email addresses by forwarding emails through Craigslist alias
accounts. Thread B showed messages between “Carmichael’s” Gmail account and
Petitioner’s Craigslist alias, while Thread C showed messages between the two
parties’ Craigslist aliases.
Burgess concluded that the trial exhibit was not a fair and accurate
representation of the communications between Petitioner and “Carmichael”
because there were several unexplained “discrepancies” between Threads B and C:
three emails in Thread B were missing from Thread C; one email in Thread C
appeared to be missing from Thread B; there were two instances in which identical
emails in the two threads showed different timestamps up to five minutes apart; an
extra line appeared between the email address and the message content in one
Thread B email; four Thread B emails appeared out of chronological order, based
7 Although Burgess confirmed that he was granted unlimited access to the younglove4u36571
Gmail account, he testified that his opinions were based on a comparison of the printouts of
Threads B and C that had been admitted at trial.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 11 of 19

-- 11 of 19 --

12
on their timestamps; and the “y” in “younglove4u36571” was inconsistently
capitalized. According to Burgess, only the “Carmichael” account could have
deleted the missing emails, and “it look[ed] like the timeline ha[d] been fiddled
with somehow.” He speculated that these discrepancies “could have been” the
product of manipulation but admitted “I don’t know how, however.”
On cross-examination, Burgess admitted that expertise was not required to
identify the “obvious” discrepancies between Threads B and C, and that Gmail
automatically inserted the phrase “quoted text hidden” to avoid displaying the
entire email thread. Although he testified that the timestamp discrepancies could
not be explained by Craigslist’s forwarding function, he admitted that he had not
investigated Craigslist’s operations and merely assumed based on his knowledge of
other systems that Craigslist instantaneously forwarded emails. He also admitted
that the electronic version of Carmichael’s Gmail account “was the same as” the
printout of Thread B, and that the printout of Thread C “had the same content” as
what he found in the Gmail account.
The Government’s expert, Konstantinos Dimitrelos, disagreed with
Burgess’s assessment of the email evidence. Dimitrelos testified that Threads B
and C accounted for all of the emails electronically available through the
“younglove4u36571” Gmail account, and that the printing process, which created
only a representation of the source emails, caused certain emails to show up in only
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 12 of 19

-- 12 of 19 --

13
one of the threads. Based on his familiarity with the Craigslist messaging system,
Dimitrelos testified that emails were not instantaneously forwarded, and that the
forwarding process routed the emails through Craigslist’s servers, which explained
the timestamp lag and the use of different types of timestamps. He further said that
emails deleted from Gmail were unrecoverable after 30 days and that there was no
way to determine whether emails had been deleted.
Following post-hearing briefing, the magistrate judge issued a report and
recommendation (“R&R”), recommending that the district court deny Petitioner’s
§ 2255 motion. The magistrate judge concluded that Petitioner had not shown
prejudice from Honeycutt’s failure to present the testimony of a forensic computer
expert similar to Burgess because the discrepancies Burgess had identified did not
undermine the Government’s principal evidence of guilt—namely, Petitioner post-
arrest admissions that he had written the emails to “Carmichael” and had intended
to engage in sexual activity with her minor daughters. The magistrate judge
further found that Burgess’s testimony was weak because he had speculated about
the causes of the apparent discrepancies without being able to explain them, and
Dimitrelos had credibly rebutted key aspects of Burgess’s testimony. Over
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 13 of 19

-- 13 of 19 --

14
Petitioner’s objections, the district court adopted the R&R and denied Petitioner’s
§ 2255 motion.8
II. DISCUSSION
On appeal, Petitioner challenges the district court’s denial of his ineffective-
assistance-of-counsel claim, arguing that he suffered prejudice from Honeycutt’s
failure to present a forensic computer examiner like Burgess to testify about
discrepancies in the Government’s email evidence. In reviewing the denial of a
§ 2255 motion, we review legal conclusions de novo and factual findings for clear
error. Spencer v. United States, 773 F.3d 1132, 1137 (11th Cir. 2014) (en banc).
The ultimate question of whether trial counsel was ineffective is a mixed question
of law and fact that we review de novo. United States v. Bender, 290 F.3d 1279,
1284 (11th Cir. 2002).
The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the right to effective
assistance of counsel. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 685–86 (1984). To
succeed on an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, a § 2255 petitioner must
show that (1) his attorney’s performance was deficient, and (2) the deficient
performance prejudiced his defense. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. “The
petitioner’s burden of demonstrating prejudice is high.” Wellington v. Moore, 314
8 The district court did not adopt the R&R’s findings regarding the deficient-performance prong
of Petitioner’s claim, which the magistrate judge had addressed briefly in a footnote.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 14 of 19

-- 14 of 19 --

15
F.3d 1256, 1260 (11th Cir. 2002). Prejudice exists only if “there is a reasonable
probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the
proceeding would have been different.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. “A
reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the
outcome.” Id. To prove prejudice from counsel’s failure to present an expert
witness, a petitioner must demonstrate a reasonable likelihood both that ordinarily
competent counsel “would have found an expert similar to the one eventually
produced” and that such an expert’s testimony would have affected the outcome of
the proceedings. Horsley v. Alabama, 45 F.3d 1486, 1495 (11th Cir. 1995).
Here, Petitioner failed to establish prejudice because a forensic computer
examiner’s expert testimony about unexplained discrepancies in the email evidence
would not have undermined the impact of Petitioner’s post-arrest admissions,
which served as the core of the Government’s case and provided overwhelming
evidence of his guilt. At trial, the Government played video clips from Petitioner’s
post-arrest interview in which Corporal Morton asked Petitioner about his email
exchange with “Carmichael.” In those clips, Petitioner admitted not only that he
was responsible for sending the emails describing the various sex acts he would
perform with Carmichael’s minor children, but also that he in fact wanted to
engage in sexual activity with the children. Petitioner further incriminated himself
by admitting that he had asked Carmichael to correspond via her personal email
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 15 of 19

-- 15 of 19 --

16
address rather than through Craigslist out of fear “about somebody finding out.”
Given the strength of these post-arrest admissions, which Burgess’s testimony did
not call into question, the district court did not err in concluding that testimony
from an expert like Burgess would not have created a reasonable probability of a
different verdict. See Bester v. Warden, 836 F.3d 1331, 1338–39 (11th Cir. 2016)
(holding that the petitioner had not shown prejudice where “[t]he evidence against
him was overwhelming”).
We reject Petitioner’s contention that he suffered prejudice because a
forensic computer examiner like Burgess could have bolstered his allegation that
the email threads had been manipulated and were incomplete.9 For starters,
Petitioner’s theory that the emails had been manipulated lacked credibility because
Petitioner’s post-arrest statements supported the authenticity of the email evidence
presented at trial. Specifically, in his post-arrest interview, Corporal Morton
discussed with Petitioner many of the emails ultimately presented at trial. Rather
than objecting that the email threads did not accurately represent his
correspondence with “Carmichael,” Petitioner took responsibility for his emails
9 For the purposes of this appeal, we assume that an expert like Burgess would have been
permitted to testify. Notably, however, Burgess testified that no expertise was required for him
to identify the “obvious” discrepancies in the email evidence. See Fed. R. Evid. 702(a)
(permitting a qualified expert to testify only if “the expert’s scientific, technical, or other
specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact
in issue”).
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 16 of 19

-- 16 of 19 --

17
and explained his understanding of the correspondence. Indeed, at trial, Petitioner
admitted that during his post-arrest interview he never objected that Corporal
Morton was missing emails necessary to provide context for the exchange. Given
that Petitioner’s post-arrest statements implicitly authenticated the content of email
exchange ultimately presented at trial, his “manipulation” theory had little chance
of success.
Further, Burgess’s weak testimony did little to advance Petitioner’s theory.10
Burgess was unable to definitively state whether the email evidence had been
manipulated, how the email threads could have been manipulated, or whether
emails were missing from the Government’s trial exhibit. He could only identify
“obvious” discrepancies and speculate that the unexplained irregularities “could
have been” the product of manipulation. Noting the presence of minor
discrepancies in the email threads, however, could not have shown, as Petitioner
alleged in his testimony, that the email exhibit did not capture the true context of
the exchange or include all of the correspondence between the parties. Thus, to the
10 Because Burgess’s testimony would not have impacted the outcome of the trial even if he had
been the only expert to testify and had done so credibly, we need not address Petitioner’s
argument that the district court erred in finding Burgess less credible than the Government’s
expert witness.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 17 of 19

-- 17 of 19 --

18
extent that an expert like Burgess could have provided any support for Petitioner’s
“manipulation” theory, that support would have been minimal at best.11
Finally, the failure to present expert testimony similar to Burgess’s did not
prejudice Petitioner because trial counsel in fact highlighted for the jury multiple
discrepancies in the email evidence and the jury nevertheless rejected Petitioner’s
theory that the emails had been manipulated or deleted. For example, Honeycutt
highlighted inconsistencies in the timestamps, as well as the repeated use of the
phrase “quoted text hidden” throughout the email exchange. Further, like Burgess,
Honeycutt identified the discrepancy with the highest chance of bolstering
Petitioner’s “manipulation” theory. Specifically, Honeycutt noted that, although
Threads B and C appeared to show the same group of messages, at least one email
present in one thread was not present in the other. Drawing the jury’s attention to
this discrepancy, Honeycutt cross-examined Corporal Morton about the missing
email. Like Burgess, however, Corporal Morton had no explanation for the
apparent discrepancy. The jury therefore considered and rejected the gist of the
testimony that Petitioner contends a forensic computer expert would have
11 Petitioner’s argument first raised on appeal that he might not have taken the stand if a
computer expert had testified lacks credibility. As Petitioner notes on appeal, neither expert
found any deleted or missing emails from the Government’s trial exhibit. Accordingly, an expert
like Burgess could not have presented the core of Petitioner’s “manipulation” theory—his
allegation that additional emails not present in the email exhibit showed that he was talking
about having sex with Carmichael rather than her children.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 18 of 19

-- 18 of 19 --

19
offered—that unexplained discrepancies might have resulted from manipulation of
the email evidence.
In sum, we cannot say that the district court erred in concluding that
Petitioner failed to prove prejudice from trial counsel’s failure to present a forensic
computer expert, given that (1) Petitioner’s post-arrest statements provided
overwhelming evidence of his guilt, (2) Burgess’s weak testimony did little to
support Petitioner’s theory regarding deleted emails, and (3) the jury rejected
Petitioner’s “manipulation” theory after considering similar evidence of apparent
discrepancies in the printed email evidence. Having concluded that Petitioner
failed to establish the prejudice prong of his ineffective-assistance claim, we need
not address his arguments regarding the deficient-performance prong. Strickland,
466 U.S. at 697.
III. CONCLUSION
Because Petitioner failed to establish prejudice from his trial counsel’s
failure to produce expert testimony from a forensic computer examiner, the district
court did not err in rejecting his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim.
Accordingly, we affirm the court’s denial of Petitioner’s § 2255 motion.
AFFIRMED.
USCA11 Case: 19-14669 Date Filed: 04/02/2021 Page: 19 of 19

-- 19 of 19 --