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Habeas Corpus — ineffective assistance

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//March 20, 2012//

Habeas Corpus — ineffective assistance

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//March 20, 2012//

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U.S. Supreme Court

Criminal

Habeas Corpus — ineffective assistance

Where, under state law, ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel claims must be raised in an initial-review collateral proceeding, a procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing those claims if, in the initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in that proceeding was ineffective.

Allowing a federal habeas court to hear a claim of ineffective assistance at trial when an attorney’s errors (or an attorney’s absence) caused a procedural default in an initial-review collateral proceeding acknowledges, as an equitable matter, that a collateral proceeding, if undertaken with no counsel or ineffective counsel, may not have been sufficient to ensure that proper consideration was given to a substantial claim. It thus follows that, when a State requires a prisoner to raise a i claim of ineffective assistance at trial in a collateral proceeding, a prisoner may establish cause for a procedural default of such claim in two circumstances: where the state courts did not appoint counsel in the initial-review collateral proceeding for an ineffective assistance-at-trial claim; and where appointed counsel in the initial review collateral proceeding, where that claim should have been raised, was ineffective under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668. To overcome the default, a prisoner must also demonstrate that the underlying ineffective-assistance-at-trial claim is substantial. Most jurisdictions have procedures to ensure counsel is appointed for substantial ineffective-assistance claims. It is likely that such attorneys are qualified to perform, and do perform, according to prevailing professional norms. And where that is so, States may enforce a procedural default in federal habeas proceedings.

623 F. 3d 731, reversed and remanded.

10-1001 Martinez v. Ryan

Kennedy, J.; Scalia, J., dissenting.

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