This week, for the third time this term, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s handling of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in a capital case with a per curiam opinion. In the first two cases, Bobby v. Van Hook (6th Circuit) and Wong v. Belmontes (9th Circuit), the Court vacated lower court decisions in favor of capital defendants. In each case, the Court thought the appellate court had been too solicitous of the defendant’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Yet this week in Porter v. McCollum (11th Circuit), the Court reversed a decision that had rejected the defendant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. In all three case, the Court made its decision without oral argument (indeed, without the benefit of briefs beyond those from the cert petition stage). Thus, it would appear the Court is quite unhappy with how appellate courts are handling ineffective assistance claims.
Mark N. says:
No dissents from any of them, either (though Stevens penned an almost-dissent concurrence to Wong), so it seems the displeasure with handling of such cases is unanimous.
December 3, 2009, 9:28 amMartinned says:
A cynic might note that Porter was – as mentioned on almost every page of the opinion – a vet, making this a threesome of two anti-defendant rulings and one pro-veteran. (For the record, I just finished reading Porter, and I think SCOTUS got it right.)
December 3, 2009, 11:21 amDave N. says:
I read the three opinions as saying, “It’s not OK for federal courts to speculate about claims of ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing when there is no real basis for doing so but when the defense actually has something to work with, defense counsel better do his job.”
December 3, 2009, 11:46 amKent Scheidegger says:
Also don’t forget the unwritten rule that in circuits divisible by 3 the fact that the client was sentenced to death is sufficient by itself to establish the deficient performance prong of the Strickland test.
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December 3, 2009, 3:20 pmIlec says:
Except that Van Hook was a veteran as well. So that makes for one anti-defendant, one pro-veteran and one anti-veteran.
December 4, 2009, 9:12 amFriday Round-up | SCOTUSblog says:
[...] the coverage of this week’s orders, The Volokh Conspiracy reports on the Court’s per curiam opinion in Porter v. McCollum, in which the Court reversed a [...]
December 4, 2009, 11:17 am