00-2979 Miller v. Anderson

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“The minimally competent lawyer would have presented expert evidence

that there was no physical evidence of Miller’s presence at the crime

scene, would have greatly undermined the hardware clerk’s evidence,

would not have undermined the alibi testimony of Miller’s wife, would by

forgoing psychological evidence (unlikely in any event to impress a

jury) have kept the evidence of Miller’s previous crimes from the jury,

and would thus have forced the state to rely entirely on Wood’s

questionable testimony. The jury might have concluded that Wood was

trying to save his life by portraying himself falsely as the tool of an

older man. This is far from certain; indeed, we think the chance of an

acquittal would still have been significantly less than 50 percent; but

it would not have been a negligible chance, and that is enough to

require us to conclude that the lawyer’s errors of representation were,

in the aggregate, prejudicial.”

Reversed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District

of Indiana, Sharp, J., Posner, J.