D.Utah: In IAC claims, how did the failure to move to suppress affect the decision to plead?

Defendant’s 2255 doesn’t show that the failure to move to suppress a silencer was unreasonable or would have even been successful. How did the failure to move to suppress affect the decision to plead? Seamster v. United States, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 230244 (D.Utah Nov. 29, 2021):

Seamster’s final allegation of deficient performance, that Smith failed to file a motion to suppress or otherwise challenge his unregistered silencer charge before allowing him to plead guilty, is also unavailing. When a petitioner has pleaded guilty, he can raise constitutional challenges to pretrial proceedings on collateral review, including claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, only to the extent that they “implicate the voluntariness of the plea entered into.” Thus, the court can consider whether Smith’s decision not to file a motion to suppress constituted deficient performance only in the context of whether that decision rendered Seamster’s guilty plea involuntary or unknowing. Seamster has made no argument as to how Smith’s failure to make a motion to suppress or raise a pretrial challenge to the unregistered silencer charge affected his decision to plead guilty apart from his allegations regarding the adequacy of Smith’s investigation and strategy, which have already been discussed. In any event, Seamster has failed to show that there is a reasonable probability that a motion to suppress or a motion to dismiss the unregistered silencer charge would have any factual basis at all, much less resulted in a different outcome for him.⁶⁹

⁶⁹ See Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365, 375, 106 S. Ct. 2574, 91 L. Ed. 2d 305 (1986) (“Where defense counsel’s failure to litigate a Fourth Amendment claim competently is the principal allegation of ineffectiveness, the defendant must also prove that his Fourth Amendment claim is meritorious and that there is a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been different absent the excludable evidence in order to demonstrate actual prejudice.”). Smith’s decision not to challenge the unregistered silencer charge was objectively reasonable, as discussed above. Seamster argues that a motion to suppress would have led to his acquittal because the officers raided his home without a search warrant, see ECF No. 1-1 at 17, but that is clearly contradicted by the record and by Seamster’s admissions in his plea agreement and during his change of plea and sentencing hearings. See Crim. ECF No. 26 at 5; ECF Nos. 6-2 at 11-12; 6-3 at 10.