Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03648/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03648-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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1

The Honorable Scott O. Wright, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3648

___________

James Washington, Jr., *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Western

* District of Missouri.

Steve Moore; Jay Nixon, Attorney *

General, *

*

Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: June 20, 2005

Filed: August 30, 2005

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge. 

James Washington, Jr., appeals from the denial by the district court1

 of his

28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for relief from a state robbery conviction. He argues that

the district court erred by concluding that his attorney did not provide ineffective

assistance under the sixth amendment of the Constitution. We affirm.

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I. 

A Missouri jury convicted Mr. Washington of first degree robbery for forcibly

stealing a piece of electronic equipment from a department store by use or threatened

use of a dangerous instrument, see Mo. Rev. Stat. § 569.020. The jury was not

persuaded by Mr. Washington's alibi defense; he maintained that he was somewhere

other than the department store at the time of the robbery. Mr. Washington exhausted

his state post-conviction remedies before filing his § 2254 petition in the district

court. In this petition, Mr. Washington advanced eight separate arguments for the

proposition that his trial counsel had provided ineffective assistance. Only two are

relevant for this appeal. One is that his lawyer provided ineffective assistance by

neglecting to request a continuance to obtain a surveillance videotape from the

department store; the other is that the attorney provided ineffective assistance by

allowing an intern – a law student with a limited license to practice law, see

Mo. S. Ct. R. 13.01 – to present the bulk of the alibi defense. The district court

rejected these arguments, but later granted Mr. Washington's motion for a certificate

of appealability on these two issues.

II.

When reviewing a district court's denial of a § 2254 petition, we review

findings of fact for clear error and legal conclusions de novo. Evans v. Luebbers, 371

F.3d 438, 441 (8th Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 125 S. Ct. 902 (2005). A federal court

cannot grant habeas relief under § 2254 unless the state court's decision denying the

petitioner's claim "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly

established Federal law as determined by the Supreme Court" or "was based on an

unreasonable determination of the facts." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

The sixth amendment (as applied to the states through the fourteenth

amendment, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 342 (1963)) guarantees criminal

defendants the right to the effective assistance of counsel. U.S. Const. amend. VI;

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984). To establish ineffective

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assistance of counsel, a defendant ordinarily must show that "counsel's representation

fell below an objective standard of reasonableness," id. at 687-88, and that there was

prejudice, i.e., that there is "a reasonable probability that ... the result of the

proceeding would have been different" if counsel had performed adequately, id. at

694. A defendant need not demonstrate prejudice, however, if the circumstances

were "so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a

particular case is unjustified." United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 658-59 (1984).

Courts presume the existence of prejudice if the defendant was completely denied

defense counsel or if defense counsel "entirely fail[ed] to subject the prosecution's

case to meaningful adversarial testing." Id. at 659.

III.

Mr. Washington contends that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance

by neglecting to move for a continuance in order to obtain a surveillance tape from

the department store that was robbed. The reference to a continuance is a diversion;

the gist of the argument is that the attorney should have procured the surveillance

tape. Mr. Washington does not have the tape, but insists that it "may have"

exculpated him had it been presented at trial. The district court decided that

Mr. Washington did not demonstrate ineffective assistance because he never proved

that the tape existed and a witness testified that the tape showed nothing relevant. For

the purposes of this opinion, we assume that there was a surveillance tape.

A reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been

different is a probability sufficient to undermine our confidence in the of the outcome

of the trial. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. A consideration of Mr. Washington's

arguments and an examination of this record leaves our confidence unshaken. First,

Mr. Washington does not have the tape to show us, so we cannot assess its content

for ourselves. Second, the only testimony regarding the content of the tape indicates

that the tape was either irrelevant or inculpatory. One person testified that the tape

did not show the site of the robbery at the time that it occurred. The other individual

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to testify about the content of the tape said that it showed Mr. Washington in the area

of the store where the robbery occurred – a difficulty for Mr. Washington given his

alibi defense. We have no reason to think that the tape would have helped

Mr. Washington's cause, and thus the district court did not err in ruling that the state

court did not unreasonably apply Supreme Court precedent by deciding that

Strickland did not entitle him to relief.

IV.

Mr. Washington also maintains that his lawyer provided ineffective assistance

by allowing a law-student intern to put on the bulk of the defense. The intern

presented Mr. Washington's case-in-chief, handling the direct and re-direct

examinations of the alibi witnesses. During the intern's presentation, the prosecutor

made a number of evidentiary objections, and the prosecutor, intern, and judge joined

in several sidebar conferences. Mr. Washington cites the objections and conferences

as evidence that his attorney inadequately prepared and supervised the intern. And,

Mr. Washington asserts, the difficulties with regard to the intern do not end there, for

his attorney failed to take over from the intern when Mr. Washington asked him to

do so. These facts implicate Cronic's per se rule of prejudice, Mr. Washington

argues, because it was as if the attorney "had been absent from the trial itself." But

even if Cronic's rule is inapplicable, he maintains, these facts evince prejudice under

Strickland (though he does not explain how). The district court decided that

Mr. Washington's attorney did not render ineffective assistance because the intern

ably put the alibi defense before the jury. (For purposes of this opinion only, we

assume, without holding, that Mr. Washington's attorney inadequately trained and

supervised the intern, and refused to take the lead when asked to do so.)

We are not persuaded by Mr. Washington's arguments. We do not think that

these facts establish presumptive prejudice under Cronic. Mr. Washington was not

literally denied counsel, as his attorney was present throughout the entire trial. Also,

the prosecution's case was subject to adversarial testing: Mr. Washington's attorney

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presented opening and closing arguments, and the intern elicited testimony from two

witnesses to the effect that Mr. Washington was not at the department store at the

time of the robbery. These circumstances do not involve the sort of one-sidedness

that demands the application of Cronic's per se rule of prejudice. As for the

Strickland standard, we conclude that Mr. Washington has not demonstrated

prejudice: the intern's presentation was adequate in both substance and form.

Mr. Washington does not contend that the intern failed to introduce any evidence, and

after reviewing the transcript, we do not think that the intern's manner of presentation

was in any way prejudicially infirm. That being so, the state court did not

unreasonably apply Supreme Court precedent, and the district court did not err in

rejecting the claim.

V.

For the reasons indicated, we affirm the district court's denial of

Mr. Washington's § 2254 petition. 

______________________________

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