may please order i'm randy schaffer easton i represent keith hill there is an old adage that hard cases make bad law and we are here today to test that proposition is still to its essence the issue is that the right to the effective assistance of counsel the set up is this three extraneous offense complainants testified to the punishment study age but none of them could identify people as the perpetrator who was wearing a mask extraneous that is by the confession that he gave to all five by evidence seized from his home one of the complaints reigns in a newspaper article about the crimes and evidence seized from is computer of the contact information for all five complainants and photos in the state as for a life sentence the jury gave ninety nine to fourteen court of appeals on direct appeal held that the confession was inadmissible under edwards versus arizona a nine hundred eighty one supreme court case but the admission of it the punishment state was harmless because of the evidence found in the home that connected into the extraneous now on state t v i raise the issue of the counsel is ineffective in failing to object to the detective's testimony regarding what the fourth complainant said and that the poor complainant identified hill in a while in a photo spread or that person did not testify and additionally in failing to object to evidence found in the home during the search and in the computer the state tropp court found that the detectives testimony violated the confrontation clause in the hearsay rule that the computer was unlawfully searched and the counsel performed efficiently in failing to object however the court found there was no prejudice because he'll come fast in other words they just relied on the and in the invisible confession to cure the prejudice resulting from the heard from three extraneous events complain us and not heard hearsay testimony regarding the fore yet the court recommended relief be denied based on lack of prejudice so you had this conflicting find and i followed jackson saying well your ultimate conclusion there was no prejudice doesn't flow intellectually from your finding the state's case would have been less compelling and the court of criminal appeals obviously recognizing the problem remanded to the crown court to fix that inconsistency one way or the other and once we got back to the truck court where the state says look judge if you stick with your findings that the state's case would be less compelling explain so here we are and i guess that is you know some of the things that happened we have elected judicial review are concerned about the political ramifications of decisions especially in cases like this  know the judge changed the fine without any new information coming before her it seemed to me that there was an anomaly that evidence held to be it made it in violation of the united states constitution could be used to defeat the prejudice an i c quite so that's the argument that was basically made in the district court and the district judge who is absolutely wonderful found that this issue was closed and difficult whether the state court could properly things that are supported by the record this is a legal conclusion and the question is whether that legal conclusions on reasonable under strict so i want to focus on what was the prejudice and then what is the correct standard post conviction context there was no prejudice because of a b c and did but let's look at what the prosecutor did at the time of trial to analyze whether the state thought this evidence was important at the trial and i'm talking about  extraneous in requesting the maximum sentence and his argument was basically you didn't hear from the fourth guy but you got the gist of what happened to what the detective said and you can figure out for yourselves why he didn't that the confession cannot properly be considered to defeat the prejudice problem of an icy klein stated otherwise evidence obtained in violation of the united states constitution can't be used to cure the prejudice of a sixth amendment not against him at the trot now that's as close as we get but remember we don't have to have a case on all fours because the issue here is did the state court unreasonably apply strickland and there is nothing in strictly in fact nothing in race let me just address it for a minute i think the jury clearly could have considered the fourth extraneous to be the most serious especially in light of the prosecutor's argument as to how badly this person was he couldn't even come into the courtroom to testify so the jury heard and explained that should not have her and so if you if you believe that you know this to be assessment of punishment a sort of a global significant if you're the guy serving the extra five yeah ideas but this court is that in the context of the federal sentencing guidelines this six months is enough so to apply the sprigged standard to discretionary system and not apply it to the federal system you know ah i question the validity of that but in this case what you have is you have the state court fact finding the first the court petitioner argues that he was prejudiced because the jury heard of sexually assaulting five young men instead of four on these facts that is not about four other attacks in this case and does not claim to be innocent of any of that it jury wife testimony from four victims describing the horrific  victims given all the evidence and the arguments that the state made for the need for the maximum punishment in the state hideous courts no prejudice finding we subjectively reasonable and of course even w with that argument is completely unresponsive to the reasons the state argued for some of punishment this was because this was a calculated and violent sexual predator who detective of course could have still describe his investigation into these offenses there were still photographs of the zip ties there were there was going to be other evidence describing a similar investigation five attacks so here we are in a hospital where there's already been concessions and if you if you fight back against the idea that this defendant has has committed any of these crimes if you do anything other and ask for  very damaging evidence from from from from these victims describing just how they were terrorized and sexually brutalized if petitioner's happens so how would you suggest that we deal with  everything evidence that the jury heard the the conclusion of no prejudice is is of course objectively reasonable as well i do want to to point already and a newspaper article this is a this is a fairly straightforward case of there not being any prejudice and certainly nowhere close to the type of aspects of the confession absolutely he could the confession was admitted it could be used by the lawyer for anyone he wanted to use it was the cia the testimony of this should have been admitted the confession was there the lawyer made the best out of a bad situation by tak regard to his argument that the prosecutor strategy was just argue for the maximum punishment because this guy's a sexual predator and he terrorized these people if you could have done it with three extraneous offenses why did criminal court your conscience is prosecutor you want to keep your conviction you don't put it never mr violates the constitution and you know it violates the constitution and then have you know if you get a conviction in the newspaper headlines and some of the lawyers i'm the two three what is enough to wear the incremental value of another human being suffering adds doesn't add to the senate's i mean do you do whatever and don't you have to convince us that that is the case we fans even if he didn't testify i cannot conceive anyone under the sun that could have happened first of all the detective couldn't testify to what c b told him second the newspaper article doesn't name any confession i'm not challenging the confessions in this ability at this point i'm challenging the use of the confession by the state maybe this court to defeat the prejudice prong of the strickland point this issue is an issue that can only be raised on federal habeas that's the practical aspect of the system we've created here the supreme court is not going to grant cert of a state maybe it's where there is no opinion by the highest court of the state it can only come up through the federal system and when you come up