Criminal Procedure — conflict of interest

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — conflict of interest

An attorney’s post-trial theft from his client does not create a conflict of interest requiring a new trial.

“According to Re, the judge should not have reached these conclusions without an evidentiary hearing. Yet the judge presiding in the §2255 proceeding had conducted the criminal trial. He saw exactly what roles Beuke and O’Donnell had played. Re relies on the principle of Cronic that it is unnecessary to show prejudice when a lawyer effectively abandons his client, but he does not contend that Beuke abandoned him. He had un-conflicted legal assistance throughout. Anyway, the Supreme Court has never held that there can be a conflict of interest, or any other kind of ineffective assistance, by retrospect. The Justices have been unwilling to extend Cronic beyond abandonment or a situation in which the defendant effectively was unrepresented, see, e.g., Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120 (2008); Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685 (2002), and Re had not demonstrated that his defense team was missing in action. No other circuit has held that a post-trial crime by a lawyer against his client automatically and retroactively spoils the trial. Establishing prejudice remains essential—and the district judge did not err in concluding that Re has not established prejudice.”

Affirmed.

11-3714 Re v. U.S.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Kocoras, J., Easterbrook, J.