In May 2010, Los Angeles hoodlums Laterrial Dewaun Norwood and Rashad Branagh donned ski masks, hooded sweatshirts and gloves to rob $26,577 from the Citizens Business Bank in Laguna Hills.
A California Highway Patrol officer noticed the getaway Chevrolet Suburban on the 405 and initiated a stop that spun out of control with shots fired and the suspects fleeing; Norwood on foot and Branagh in the vehicle.
Both men were eventually captured. Norwood received a 151-month prison sentence in April 2011 and five months later his partner in crime nabbed the same punishment.
We wouldn't hear from Branagh for many years, except that his defense lawyer allegedly forgot to file his requested post-sentencing appeal of a label U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna placed on him: career criminal.
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Branagh rejects that characterization though he, a longtime drug addict who dropped out of high school, committed the Laguna Hills bank robbery while on parole, willingly became of a member of the Four Trey criminal street gang and has three separate Los Angeles County convictions: voluntary manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and felon in possession of a firearm.
From his cell at United States Penitentiary McCreary in Eastern Kentucky, Branagh complained in October that his right to appeal had been violated because no action had been taken.
In essence, he'd been forgotten.
Earlier this week, inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana, judge Selna agreed.
“[Branagh] claims that his counsel was constitutionally ineffective in failing to file a notice of appeal to allow him to contest this court's finding that he was a career criminal for purposes of sentencing,” Selna wrote in his ruling. “The court finds that counsel fell below standards . . . and that the failure was prejudicial.”
Selna gave the inmate 14 days to file his brief.
If the 37-year-old bank robber eventually wins the point, his 151-month prison sentence could be reduced by 24 months.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
