Habeas Corpus — ineffective assistance

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Criminal

Habeas Corpus — ineffective assistance

Where a suppression motion was unlikely to have been granted, it was not deficient performance for the prisoner’s attorney not to have argued it.

“Despite our doubts that the evidence should have been suppressed, we are less certain than was the state court that the lawyer’s decision not to move to suppress was a reasonable strategy. The ‘Sixth Amendment does not require counsel … to press meritless arguments before a court,’ Lilly v. Gilmore, 988 F.2d 783, 786 (7th Cir. 1993), and it is always good strategy to avoid wasting time or the court’s attention with claims that are going nowhere. Peterson’s claim lay somewhere north of meritless. Confronted with a client who made an incriminating statement to a police officer without receiving Miranda warnings, another lawyer might well have filed a motion to suppress despite the fact that Liethen was off duty and did not physically restrain Peterson’s movement. Cf. Gentry v. Sevier, 597 F.3d 838, 851 (7th Cir. 2010) (state court unreasonably applied Strickland where attorney’s failure to seek suppression of evidence seized during an obviously unconstitutional search and seizure was ‘beyond the pale of an objectively reasonable strategy’). Nevertheless, given the weakness of this particular suppression claim, we cannot say that the state court unreasonably applied Strickland in evaluating the performance of Peterson’s attorney.”

Affirmed.

12-2924 Peterson v. Douma

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Gorence, Mag. J., Hamilton, J.