By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//June 20, 2014//
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
Criminal
Criminal Procedure — ineffective assistance
It was not deficient performance for an attorney not to have anticipated a change in the law.
“In this context, counsel’s failure to object to the PSR’s characterization of Groves’s 1995 burglary was not ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland. The district court sentenced Groves in May 2007, over two years before the Woods decision and six years before Descamps. We cannot say that counsel’s performance ‘fell below an objective standard of reasonableness,’ because counsel failed to anticipate Descamps and future Seventh Circuit case law clarifying the application of § 4B1.2(a)(2).”
Affirmed.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Miller, J., St. Eve, J.