Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-19-01476/USCOURTS-ca7-19-01476-0/pdf.json

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

---

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 19-1476

CHRISTOPHER R. GISH,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

RANDALL HEPP, Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 3:15-cv-730 — James D. Peterson, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED NOVEMBER 7, 2019 — DECIDED APRIL 3, 2020

____________________

Before HAMILTON, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.

SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Christopher Gish pleaded guilty to 

first-degree reckless homicide in Wisconsin state court for 

killing his longtime girlfriend and the mother of his children. 

He appealed, claiming that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to investigate an involuntary intoxication defense. Police found Gish disoriented and delirious 

on the night of the killing, and he claimed that rare side effects 

from taking prescription Xanax affected his ability to 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
2 No. 19-1476

appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct. After the Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected the claim and affirmed his conviction, Gish turned to federal court and wound his way 

through a thicket of habeas proceedings. The district court 

held an evidentiary hearing but denied relief because Gish 

failed to show that his counsel’s deficient performance resulted in prejudice: even if counsel had investigated involuntary intoxication, that defense was so unlikely to succeed that 

Gish still would have pleaded guilty. We affirm.

I

A

Early in the morning on July 14, 2012, Wisconsin police 

found Christopher Gish soaking wet, unable to answer questions, and wandering in an unsteady manner on railroad 

tracks near the Milwaukee airport. The officers took Gish to 

the hospital, where he told paramedics that he had blacked 

out. He then proceeded to make a series of nonsensical statements suggesting that he did not understand his whereabouts. At one point, for instance, Gish stated that “all I saw 

was red” and “you are in my bedroom, why are you in my 

room?” Upon ascertaining Gish’s home address, the police 

entered and found his longtime girlfriend and the mother of 

his children, Margaret Litwicki, stabbed to death in a bedroom.

Once Gish’s condition stabilized, he agreed to an interview with the police. A videotape showed that Gish gained 

lucidity over the course of the questioning. Initially Gish denied any memory of the previous night, but later in the interview he confessed to stabbing Litwicki multiple times in his 

bedroom. He said he attacked Litwicki because he suspected 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
No. 19-1476 3

that she was having an affair and believed she might take his 

kids from him. 

Wisconsin authorities charged Gish with first-degree intentional homicide, which carries a mandatory sentence of life 

imprisonment. See WIS. STAT. §§ 939.50(3)(a), 940.01(1)(a). Nathan Opland-Dobs served as Gish’s court-appointed counsel. 

Gish told Opland-Dobs that he had taken prescription Lamictal and Xanax before the homicide and thought those medications may have induced his erratic behavior in a way that 

would afford some legal defense to the charge.

Opland-Dobs researched the effects of Lamictal, but not 

Xanax—a choice he later said he could not explain. He ultimately determined that any Lamictal-based defense would be 

futile and so advised Gish. When prosecutors later offered to 

accept a plea to first-degree reckless homicide, which carries 

a maximum sentence of 60 years, see WIS. STAT.

§§ 939.50(3)(b), 940.02(1), Opland-Dobs advised Gish to take 

it. Gish agreed, pleaded guilty, and received a sentence of 40 

years’ imprisonment and 20 years’ extended supervision. 

B

With the assistance of new counsel, Gish filed a direct appeal in Wisconsin state court. Counsel then filed what Wisconsin law calls a “no-merit report”—the functional equivalent of an Anders brief in federal criminal practice—representing that any appeal would be meritless and requesting permission to withdraw as Gish’s appointed lawyer. See WIS.

STAT. § 809.32 (setting out Wisconsin’s procedure for filing nomerit reports); accord Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 

(1967) (advising that “if counsel finds his case to be wholly 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
4 No. 19-1476

frivolous, after a conscientious examination of it, he should so 

advise the court and request permission to withdraw”). 

Gish responded to the no-merit report by insisting that he 

had a non-frivolous basis for appeal. He claimed that his trial 

counsel, Opland-Dobs, provided ineffective assistance by failing to pursue the affirmative defense of involuntary intoxication, a complete defense to homicide under Wisconsin law. 

Gish emphasized that he told Opland-Dobs all about the 

Xanax he had taken before the homicide and suggested that 

the medication may have affected his ability to discern right 

from wrong. See WIS. STAT. § 939.42(1). He supported this contention with police reports describing his delirium shortly after the homicide, medical records showing he had been prescribed Xanax, and information about Xanax’s side effects 

that he had found online and in textbooks. Gish then went a 

step further: he insisted that, had he known an involuntary 

intoxication was viable, he would have rejected the government’s plea and instead gone to trial. 

Appellate counsel responded by emphasizing that Gish 

never once suggested to his trial counsel, Opland-Dobs, that 

either the Xanax or Lamictal so affected his mental state as to 

prevent him from understanding the wrongfulness of his conduct. So, appellate counsel put it, “there wasn’t anything to 

investigate.”

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals evaluated Gish’s ineffective assistance claim under the familiar standards of Strickland 

v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Gish had to show that Opland-Dobs’s performance “fell below an objective standard of 

reasonableness,” id. at 688, and resulted in prejudice, meaning 

that there was “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
No. 19-1476 5

unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would 

have been different,” id. at 694. 

The Wisconsin court denied relief, concluding that any 

contention of ineffective assistance was so lacking—having no

“arguable merit”—that Gish could not even clear Strickland’s 

first hurdle of showing that Opland-Dobs’s performance was 

deficient. Indeed, the court wholesale adopted Gish’s appellate counsel’s version of events, disregarding Gish’s allegations in their entirety and even refusing to consider the police 

reports and other documents Gish submitted in support of his 

ineffective assistance claim. In effect, then, the Wisconsin 

court affirmed Gish’s conviction for the same reason suggested by his appellate counsel—“there wasn’t anything to investigate.” 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied review, and Gish 

then turned his attention to securing relief in federal court. 

II

A

Invoking 28 U.S.C. § 2254, Gish petitioned the district 

court for federal habeas relief, renewing his claim that Opland-Dobs provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to investigate a Xanax-based involuntary intoxication defense. To secure relief, Gish had to establish that the Wisconsin Court of Appeals’s decision “was contrary to, or involved 

an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal 

law,” or “was based on an unreasonable determination of the 

facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)–(2). 

Although ultimately denying relief, the district court did 

so only after holding an evidentiary hearing, taking 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
6 No. 19-1476

testimony, and receiving other evidence on the merits of 

Gish’s contention that Opland-Dobs should have pursued an 

involuntary intoxication defense. The district court determined the evidentiary hearing was warranted, and indeed 

necessary, because Gish, despite offering his prescription records, the police reports, and information about the side effects 

of Xanax, never had a reasonable opportunity to develop the 

factual basis for his claim on direct appeal in the state court. 

Even more, the district court found that Gish’s allegations, if 

true, supported his claim that Opland-Dobs performed deficiently. The state court’s back-of-the-hand rejection of Gish’s 

ineffective assistance claim, the district court concluded, reflected an unreasonable application of Strickland, for Gish had 

brought forth enough evidence on direct appeal to reasonably 

question the adequacy of Opland-Dobs’s representation in 

the trial court. 

B

Several witnesses testified at the evidentiary hearing. Gish 

testified on his own behalf and called pharmacology consultant James T. O’Donnell and his trial counsel Nathan OplandDobs. For its part, the state called Kayla Neuman, a chemist 

in the toxicology section of the Wisconsin State Laboratory of 

Hygiene, and Detective Brent Hart, who had interviewed 

Gish the morning he was apprehended.

The district court heard conflicting evidence about 

whether Gish took Xanax on the day he killed Litwicki. On 

the one hand, Gish testified that he told Opland-Dobs he had 

taken both Xanax and Lamictal on the day of the homicide. 

But Gish plainly stated in the interview with Detective Hart 

the morning of the homicide that he had last taken Xanax “[a] 

couple days” before, which, given the half-life of Xanax, 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
No. 19-1476 7

would suggest that its effects had worn off by the time of the 

killing. In much the same vein, a nurse who treated Gish at 

the hospital wrote in his patient visit records that Gish reported having sold his Xanax and Lamictal pills—suggesting 

that perhaps he had never taken them at all in the days before 

the homicide. And the district judge heard testimony that the 

police found no Xanax in a search of Gish’s home.

The district court also heard expert testimony about the 

possible effects of Xanax. Both parties’ experts agreed that 

Xanax can trigger hallucinations, agitation, rage, and hostile 

behavior. The state’s expert, Neuman, added that mixing 

Xanax with Lamictal can amplify these effects. Gish’s expert, 

O’Donnell, testified that the police finding Gish in a temporary delusional state was more consistent with Xanax intoxication than with the effects of mental illness. O’Donnell added 

that Gish could not appreciate the criminality of his conduct, 

but the district court found that conclusion speculative, 

backed by no medical evidence, and therefore not credible. 

Finally, the district court heard from Gish and OplandDobs regarding their plea discussions. For the most part, their 

accounts aligned: Gish testified that he had asked OplandDobs to consider defenses based on Xanax and Lamictal. Opland-Dobs did not dispute that aspect of Gish’s testimony, admitted that he failed to investigate Xanax, and expressed regret for that failure. He conceded that, given the evidence he 

had available to him in representing Gish, investigating 

Xanax would have been “appropriate” and he “didn’t give it 

enough consideration.” Opland-Dobs offered no justification 

for this failure, saying, “[w]hy I didn’t follow up on the 

Xanax, I can’t explain,” because ignoring that path “doesn’t 

seem like what I should have done.”

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
8 No. 19-1476

On the question of prejudice, Gish testified that he only 

pleaded guilty on the assumption that he would have had a 

“zero percent chance” of being acquitted at trial. He explained 

that there was “no sense” in “putting the family through” a 

trial “that was just a wish-wash,” where he believed he had 

no chance of prevailing. But Gish was equally clear that his 

decision may have been different had Opland-Dobs pursued 

the involuntary intoxication defense and told him it had some 

chance of prevailing. Even if that defense were a weak one, 

giving him as low as a “one-percent chance” of acquittal, Gish 

insisted he would have “always take[n] the chance” and 

rolled the dice at trial.

C

Aided by the evidentiary hearing, the district court proceeded to the merits of Gish’s ineffective assistance claim. The 

court made quick work of Strickland’s deficient performance 

prong by assuming that Opland-Dobs’s complete and admitted failure to evaluate a Xanax-based intoxication defense was 

unreasonable. Moving to Strickland’s prejudice prong, the 

court concluded that Gish fell short of showing he would 

have forgone the plea deal and gone to trial had Opland-Dobs 

pursued the defense. While Gish so testified, the district court 

was not willing to credit that testimony over other evidence 

pointing in the opposite direction. 

The district court placed particular emphasis on Gish’s 

statements to Detective Hart not only that he had last taken 

Xanax “[a] couple days” before the homicide, but also that he 

did not regret killing Litwicki in light of her alleged infidelity.

The district judge likewise highlighted Gish’s statement to the 

nurse that he had sold his prescriptions—a fact corroborated 

by the police’s failure to find any trace of Xanax in Gish’s 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
No. 19-1476 9

home. Considering this evidence in its totality, the district 

court determined that Gish had no reasonable prospect at trial 

of demonstrating the essential element of the intoxication defense—that he failed to appreciate right from wrong at the 

time of the homicide. The district court also found that the 

state’s plea offer was reasonably attractive, as it guaranteed 

Gish a maximum of 60 years rather than life imprisonment. 

Gish now appeals.

III

A

We begin with the decision of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the last state court to consider (at least a portion of) 

Gish’s ineffective assistance claim on the merits in a reasoned 

opinion. See Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188, 1192 (2018). Gish 

needs to show, as the district court recognized, that the Wisconsin court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law,” or 

“was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in 

light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 

28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)–(2). In answering that question, we 

must “train [our] attention on the particular reasons—both legal and factual—why state courts rejected [Gish’s] federal 

claims.” Wilson, 138 S. Ct. at 1191–92. Where, as here, the state 

court issued an explanatory opinion, we “review[] the specific 

reasons given by the state court and defer[] to those reasons if 

they are reasonable.” Id. at 1192.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected Gish’s ineffective

assistance claim on the ground that “there wasn’t anything 

[for his trial counsel, Nathan Opland-Dobs] to investigate.” 

With nothing to investigate, the reasoning ran, Opland-Dobs 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
10 No. 19-1476

could not have rendered ineffective assistance. It made no difference, the Wisconsin court added, that Gish sought on appeal to support his claim with police reports and other evidence showing that his prescription Xanax may have explained his delusional state at the time of the homicide. None 

of that evidence was before the trial court and that is all that 

mattered on the Wisconsin court’s reasoning. 

The district court was right to call the Wisconsin court’s 

decision an unreasonable application of Strickland’s deficient 

performance prong. Return to the state court’s insistence that 

Gish’s claim lacked merit because (and only because) he never 

put his evidence before the trial court. That reasoning fails to 

meet the claim Gish raised on direct appeal—ineffective assistance of his trial counsel, Nathan Opland-Dobs. As the Wisconsin court would have it, Gish—while being advised by 

Opland-Dobs—somehow and some way (and apparently on 

his own) had to put before the trial court evidence to support 

a claim that Opland-Dobs had violated the Sixth Amendment 

by not pursuing an involuntary intoxication defense. Yet the 

trial record lacked evidence of Gish’s ineffective assistance 

claim precisely because, by the very terms of the claim, Opland-Dobs’s deficient performance occurred during the trial 

court proceedings. Gish, in short, necessarily needed to support his claim with evidence outside the trial record, for there 

was no other way he could have demonstrated his ineffective 

assistance claim or rebutted his appellate counsel’s view (as 

reflected in the no-merit report) that the claim was frivolous.

This is not the first time we have found fault with the exact 

reasoning the Wisconsin Court of Appeals employed in rejecting Gish’s ineffective assistance claim. In Davis v. Lambert, we 

explained that “it would defy logic to deny [a state habeas 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
No. 19-1476 11

petitioner] an evidentiary hearing on whether his counsel’s 

failure to investigate the witnesses violated Strickland on the 

ground that he did not fully present those witnesses’ testimony to the state courts.” 388 F.3d 1052, 1061 (7th Cir. 2004). 

Similarly, in Mosley v. Atchison, we concluded that a state 

court unreasonably applied Strickland’s performance prong 

by disregarding a defendant’s showing on appeal that his trial 

counsel failed to pursue two potential alibi witnesses and instead assuming that counsel’s choice reflected a strategic determination. 689 F.3d 838, 848 (7th Cir. 2012). 

We chart the same course here and have little difficulty 

concluding that the Wisconsin Court of Appeals’s denial of 

Gish’s ineffective assistance claim rooted itself in an “unreasonable application” of Strickland’s deficient performance 

prong as well as an “unreasonable determination of the facts 

in light of the evidence [Gish] presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)–(2). Gish brought forth specific evidence that, if accepted as true, would have demonstrated that Opland-Dobs rendered deficient performance in 

failing to pursue a potential involuntary intoxication defense. 

See Jones v. Wallace, 525 F.3d 500, 503 (7th Cir. 2008) (noting 

that where a petitioner in state custody is “not at fault for failing to develop the factual record” of his ineffective assistance 

claim, we “look only to whether, if proven, his proposed facts 

would entitle him to relief”). The Wisconsin Court of Appeals’s contrary conclusion reflected an unreasonable application of Strickland. In these circumstances, the same error satisfies § 2254(d)(2), for the Wisconsin court’s categorical disregard of Gish’s evidence resulted in a rejection of his ineffective assistance claim on an unreasonable view of the facts. At 

the very least, all of this was enough, as the district court recognized, to warrant an evidentiary hearing—to afford Gish an 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
12 No. 19-1476

opportunity to develop the merits of his claim, an opportunity 

he never received in state court. Like the district court, then, 

we proceed to the merits of Gish’s ineffective assistance claim. 

B

In considering Gish’s claim, we need say very little on 

Strickland’s first prong. Opland-Dobs testified in the district 

court and admitted in no uncertain terms that he never assessed a Xanax-based involuntary intoxication defense. We 

can assume this admitted failure is enough for Gish to show 

deficient performance. See Pole v. Randolph, 570 F.3d 922, 943 

(7th Cir. 2009) (opting to “assume that counsel’s performance 

was deficient and move on to the second part of the analysis” 

because the petitioner could not show prejudice). 

This brings us to the primary issue on appeal: whether Opland-Dobs’s failure to pursue an involuntary intoxication defense prejudiced Gish. Our review proceeds de novo (and not 

under the deferential standard of § 2254(d)) because this dimension of Gish’s claim is one the Wisconsin Court of Appeals never reached and considered. That court stopped at 

Strickland’s first prong. In these circumstances, the Supreme 

Court has instructed, we treat the two prongs of Strickland as 

divisible and review the prejudice prong by taking our own 

fresh look at the evidentiary record developed in the district 

court. See Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 390 (2005) (reviewing 

Strickland prejudice de novo because the state court did not 

reach that issue); see also Thomas v. Clements, 789 F.3d 760, 

766–67 (7th Cir. 2015) (collecting cases adhering to this same 

approach). 

The controlling substantive standard comes from Hill v. 

Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52 (1985). The Court decided Hill one year 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
No. 19-1476 13

after Strickland and did so to articulate what a defendant must 

show to establish that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance in advising him to plead guilty. First, and in full 

alignment with Strickland, the defendant must show that his 

counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. See id. at 58. Second, when it comes to prejudice, 

“the defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he would not have pleaded 

guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.” Id. at 59. The 

Court went further and addressed how the inquiry changes 

where, as here, counsel allegedly failed to advise his client of 

an affirmative defense. See id. at 59–60. In those circumstances, the Court explained, “the resolution of the ‘prejudice’ 

inquiry will depend largely on whether the affirmative defense likely would have succeeded at trial.” Id. at 59.

The standards announced in Hill map directly onto Gish’s 

claim and put him under an obligation to make a twofold 

showing. First, Gish had to show that Opland-Dobs performed deficiently in failing to investigate the Xanax-based 

defense. Second, Gish had to demonstrate that there existed a 

reasonable probability that, had his counsel investigated the 

defense, he would have rejected the plea offer and proceeded 

to trial with a likelihood of succeeding on the defense. See id. 

at 59. 

Gish urges a slightly different standard—one informed 

not only by Hill but even more by the Supreme Court’s decision in Lee v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1958 (2017). Like Gish, 

Jae Lee pleaded guilty after his trial counsel advised him that 

going to trial would be risky, and following a conviction, result in more jail time. See id. at 1963. But Lee had a consideration other than prison top of mind. He told his attorney he 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
14 No. 19-1476

was a noncitizen and “repeatedly asked him whether he 

would face deportation as a result of the criminal proceedings.” Id. Lee’s attorney reassured him that a guilty plea 

would not result in deportation. Lee relied on and followed 

the advice even though it was wrong. By pleading guilty to 

an aggravated felony, Lee faced mandatory deportation under the Immigration and Nationality Act—the precise outcome he wanted to avoid. See id. (citing 8 U.S.C. 

§§ 1101(a)(43)(B), 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii)). Lee later pursued federal 

habeas relief, arguing that his attorney had rendered ineffective assistance of counsel that resulted in severe prejudice. See 

id.

The Supreme Court agreed. Usually a defendant “without 

any viable defense will be highly likely to lose at trial,” and 

when “facing such long odds will rarely be able to show prejudice from accepting a guilty plea that offers him a better resolution than would be likely after trial.” Id. at 1966. For Lee, 

however, “avoiding deportation was the determinative factor”—the variable of “paramount importance”—in deciding 

whether to plead guilty or go to trial, while the time he spent 

in prison was relatively inconsequential to his litigation strategy. Id. at 1967–69. Lee’s counsel eliminated any doubt on the 

point, testifying that Lee would have gone to trial had he been 

properly informed that deportation would follow as automatic consequence of pleading guilty. See id. at 1967–68.

All of this led the Court to conclude that Lee “would have 

rejected any plea leading to deportation—even if it shaved off 

prison time—in favor of throwing a ‘Hail Mary’ at trial.” Id. 

at 1967. Lee’s laser focus on averting deportation, the Court 

underscored, showed that his counsel’s errors prejudiced 

him. Id. at 1967–68. 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
No. 19-1476 15

Gish labors to situate himself like Lee. He does so mindful 

of Hill, but of the view that Lee modifies the prejudice question. In Gish’s view, Lee teaches that he could show prejudice 

by now contending in federal habeas that he would have gone 

to trial on a Xanax-based defense even if that defense had only 

one percent chance of success. 

We disagree and see Lee as reinforcing, not transforming, 

Hill. In Lee the Court took care to observe that defendants 

without a viable defense would “rarely” be able to show prejudice from a guilty plea that reduces their sentencing exposure. See id. at 1966. Put most simply, the certainty of less jail 

time creates an incentive to avoid the longer shot of an acquittal at trial. See id. Lee was a rare exception: from Jae Lee’s perspective, the consequences of pleading guilty and going to 

trial were “similarly dire”—he would be deported either 

way—so he was willing to bet on “even the smallest chance of 

success at trial.” Id. at 1966–67. Properly informed, Lee would 

have found nothing attractive about a plea offer that reduced 

his prison time (a relatively minor concern for him) but guaranteed his deportation—the outcome he most wanted to 

avoid.

Gish’s case is much different. The district court found that, 

unlike Jae Lee, Christopher Gish decided to plead guilty 

“based primarily on the prospects of success at trial.” Gish all 

but said so himself, testifying in the district court that he 

pleaded guilty because Opland-Dobs informed him that he 

had no chance of winning at trial. The district court further 

found that, in contrast with Lee’s persistent concern about deportation, nothing in Gish’s communications with OplandDobs indicated that some factor other than the prospect of 

success would have motivated Gish to go to trial. 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
16 No. 19-1476

Unlike Lee, then, Gish wanted to consider an involuntary 

intoxication defense because he thought it might provide a 

basis to defeat the homicide charge. What is more, Gish, unlike Lee, said not a word—neither to his trial counsel nor to 

the district court—suggesting that he was willing to forgo a 

meaningful reduction in his sentencing exposure (from mandatory life imprisonment to a maximum of 60 years) to avoid 

collateral consequences. Put another way, the record shows 

that Gish thought about whether to plead guilty or to go to 

trial in just the way the Supreme Court in Lee described as 

paradigmatic for most defendants—by comparing the probability of success at trial with the value of a reduced sentence 

from pleading guilty. 

On the record before us, then, we decline Gish’s invitation 

to deviate from the prejudice inquiry the Supreme Court articulated in Hill. The proper question therefore is whether 

there was a reasonable probability that Gish would have gone 

to trial on his affirmative defense, with the answer “depend[ing] largely on whether the affirmative defense likely 

would have succeeded at trial.” Hill, 474 U.S. at 59. 

C

In the end, we agree with the district court that Gish’s 

Xanax-based involuntary intoxication defense had no reasonable prospect of success at trial. Even assuming he could marshal the evidence required to get a jury instruction on the defense, we see no likelihood the defense would have persuaded 

a jury that Xanax rendered him unable to appreciate the difference between right and wrong at the time he stabbed Litwicki to death. Our confidence in this conclusion emerges 

from the detailed facts the jury would have learned:

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
No. 19-1476 17

• Gish told a hospital nurse that he sold his pills 

and no longer had any. 

• Gish told Detective Hart that he last took Xanax 

“[a] couple days” before the homicide. 

• The police who searched Gish’s home found no 

trace of Xanax. 

• Even if Gish had taken Xanax the day of the 

homicide, it was unlikely that he was the rare 

patient who would have experienced effects so 

extreme as to prevent him from appreciating 

the wrongfulness of his conduct. The district 

court found that the little evidence Gish offered 

on that front (from his expert witness, James 

O’Donnell) lacked credibility.

• In his interview with Detective Hart, Gish confessed to how he went about killing and abusing Litwicki—statements revealing an awareness of his own conduct.

• Gish also offered a clear motive for the crime—

that he suspected Litwicki was cheating on him 

and would take his kids away.

The combined weight of these facts would have left Gish 

with no likely prospect of prevailing on an involuntary intoxication defense and defeating the state’s robust case against 

him. By extension, then, and especially given Gish’s focus on 

offering a defense with a chance of succeeding, we have difficulty believing that Gish would have proceeded to trial and 

run the substantial risk of being convicted and receiving a 

mandatory sentence of life in prison. See Padilla v. Kentucky, 

559 U.S. 356, 372 (2010) (emphasizing that a petitioner 

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18
18 No. 19-1476

challenging a guilty plea must show “that a decision to reject 

the plea bargain would have been rational under the circumstances”); see also Woolley v. Rednour, 702 F.3d 411, 429 (7th 

Cir. 2012) (rejecting prejudice where the defendant had made 

the bare and unpersuasive allegation that wrongfully excluded witness testimony could have led to acquittal).

Because Gish cannot show prejudice from his trial counsel’s errors, we agree with the district court that he is not entitled to habeas relief on his ineffective assistance claim. We 

therefore AFFIRM.

Case: 19-1476 Document: 27 Filed: 04/03/2020 Pages: 18