In the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth ___________________________ No. 02-21-00065-CR ___________________________ Ex parte Ram Kumar Samal On Appeal from County Criminal Court No. 6 Tarrant County, Texas Trial Court No. 1519438 Before Sudderth, C.J.; Womack and Walker, JJ. Memorandum Opinion by Justice Womack MEMORANDUM OPINION Appellant Ram Kumar Samal appeals the trial court’s denial of his request for habeas corpus relief; specifically, he challenges the trial court’s findings that he knowingly and voluntarily pleaded guilty in March 2018 to misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance and that he received effective assistance of counsel at the time he entered the plea. We have reviewed the record and cannot conclude the trial court abused its discretion in making its findings. We therefore affirm the trial court’s order denying the request for habeas relief. I. BACKGROUND Samal is a Bhutanese refugee whose native language is not English. At the time of his October 2017 arrest for misdemeanor drug possession, he was a lawful permanent resident of the United States. After hiring attorney Carole Kerr to represent him, he pleaded guilty in March 2018 in exchange for a “time-served” five-day sentence. At all times relevant to this habeas proceeding, Samal has been detained in the Tarrant County jail on an immigration hold as a result of his conviction and faces possible deportation. 2 A. Samal’s Habeas Application In August 2019, Samal applied for postconviction habeas corpus1 relief based on allegations that his plea was involuntary and Kerr’s assistance was ineffective. In particular, Samal averred that Kerr “did not properly explain or discuss the nature of [his] plea with [him] before advising [him] to plead guilty”; that she “never bothered to ask [him] if [he] was a citizen of the United States”; and that she never discussed challenging the State’s evidence, hiring expert witnesses, or conducting independent testing. He also alleged in his writ application that Kerr violated ethical rules by jointly representing Samal and his cousin, who had been arrested simultaneously with Samal and was also charged with possession, stating that she never discussed the potential impacts of a conflict of interest or sought their waiver of any such interest. According to Samal, Kerr advised him during a courthouse meeting to plead guilty and enter into a pretrial diversion program for six months in order for the case to be dismissed. Samal further alleged that when his uncle, who was present at the meeting and assisting Samal by translating, attempted to ask more questions about the plea arrangement, Kerr became “irritated and snapped” at the uncle that Samal was the 1 The State agreed below that Samal’s confinement pursuant to an immigration hold allowed him standing to pursue habeas relief. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 11.09; Ex parte Schmidt, 109 S.W.3d 480, 481–82 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003). 3 client, not the uncle.2 Samal averred that he then informed her that he wanted to enter the pretrial diversion program and Kerr brought plea paperwork for him to …
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