Habeas Corpus – Ineffective assistance

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Habeas Corpus – Ineffective assistance

It was unreasonable for state courts to find that a defendant’s attorney was not ineffective, when he failed to call two witnesses who would have testified in the defendant’s favor, without any strategic reason.

“The state court’s analysis was an unreasonable application of Strickland for two reasons. First, on the limited record before the state courts, it was unreasonable to find summarily that trial counsel chose not to call Jones and Taylor as a matter of strategy. According to their affidavits, which were treated as true for purposes of the state courts’ summary disposition, Mosley’s lawyer never even interviewed them to learn what they might say. On that limited record before the state courts, the courts had to assume the lawyer was not aware of the specifics of their potential testimony. To avoid the inevitable temptation to evaluate a lawyer’s performance through the distorting lens of hindsight, Strickland establishes a deferential presumption that strategic judgments made by defense counsel are reasonable. 466 U.S. at 690-91. But the presumption applies only if the lawyer actually exercised judgment. See id. (‘strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation’). The consequences of inattention rather than reasoned strategic decisions are not entitled to the presumption of reasonableness. Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 395-96 (2005); Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 533-34 (2003). If, as Jones and Taylor claimed in their affidavits, Mosley’s lawyer never found out what their testimony would be, he could not possibly have made a reasonable professional judgment that their testimony would have been cumulative or bolstered the State’s case and could not have chosen not to call Jones and Taylor as a matter of strategy.”

Vacated and Remanded.

12-1083 Mosley v. Atchison

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Gottschall, J., Hamilton, J.

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