Case ID: f-appx_537/html/0756-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Matthew Mark MOORE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Joe SCHMIDT, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 12-35668.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted Aug. 13, 2013.
    
    Filed Aug. 15, 2013.
    Fred Richard Curtner, III, Esquire, Noa Eva Oren, FPDAK-Federal Public Defender’s Office (Anchorage), Anchorage, AK, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    
      Mary A. Gilson, State of AK Office of Special Prosecutions & Appeals, Diane Wendlandt, Assistant Attorney General, AGAK-Office of the AK Attorney General (Anchorage), Anchorage, AK, for Defendant-Appellee.
    Before: KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, BERZON and IKUTA, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

1. The Alaska Court of Appeals concluded that Moore was not constructively denied counsel. This was not “contrary to, or [ ] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Failure to subject a prosecutor’s case to adversarial testing will only constitute constructive denial of counsel when “ ‘counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing.’ ” Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 697, 122 S.Ct. 1843, 152 L.Ed.2d 914 (2002) (quoting United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 659, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984)). Moore’s lawyer presented his desired intoxication defense at trial. Additionally, the Supreme Court has never found that a criminal defendant has a right to a meaningful relationship with his attorney. Morris v. Slappy, 461 U.S. 1, 13-14, 103 S.Ct. 1610, 75 L.Ed.2d 610 (1983). In any event, the proposition that a serious breakdown in the attorney-client relationship may rise to a constructive denial of counsel is not “clearly established” by Supreme Court precedent.

2. Moore cites no Supreme Court case to support his claim that the trial court’s inquiry into his motion to substitute counsel was inadequate. As such, he failed to satisfy AEDPA’s threshold for reviewing a state court adjudication on the merits. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9 th Cir. R. 36-3.