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Criminal Procedure — ineffective assistance

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 6, 2014//

Criminal Procedure — ineffective assistance

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 6, 2014//

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — ineffective assistance

Where the defendant did not object at trial when his attorney admitted his guilt on one of the charges against him, he ratified the decision.

“Flores tries to distinguish Nixon as a situation in which counsel alerted his client to his plan to concede guilt on some charges, while Flores insists that his lawyer never told him what the trial strategy would be and thus violated the duty to discuss tactics with the accused. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688 (1984). This is not a compelling line of distinction, because Nixon, having been alerted, sat in silence and neither approved nor objected. 543 U.S. at 186. The Court nonetheless held that counsel’s performance met the sixth amendment’s requirements. Lack of notice seems a lesser sin, unless we are confident that the client would have objected and that counsel would have followed the accused’s instructions. See also Wright v. Van Patten, 552 U.S. 120 (2008) (remarking the limited scope of Cronic).”

Affirmed.

13-2276 U.S. v. Flores

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

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