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

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15-1174

CORTEZ JONES,

Petitioner-Appellee,

v.

VICTOR CALLOWAY,

Respondent-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 08 C 4429 — James B. Zagel, Judge

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 19, 2016 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 15, 2016

____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Circuit Judge. After a bench trial in Cook County 

Circuit Court, Cortez Jones was convicted of murder for the 

1999 shooting death of Friday Gardner. In his federal habeas 

petition, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254, Jones alleged that his trial 

counsel was constitutionally ineffective in violation of the 

rule of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). The 

factual basis for this claim was his attorney’s failure to 

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present the testimony of Michael Stone, a codefendant who 

was tried separately. Stone confessed to the crime and has 

consistently maintained that he—and he alone—shot

Gardner. Stone’s story matched the physical evidence and 

some (though not all) of the eyewitness testimony. Indeed, a

jury convicted Stone of murdering Gardner before Jones’s 

bench trial began, and Stone was willing to testify for Jones

had he been asked.

But Jones fumbled his Strickland claim in state court by 

failing to submit an affidavit from Stone, as Illinois law 

requires. The state appellate court found the claim procedurally defaulted but also rejected it on the merits based on 

the existing record, holding that the failure to call Stone was 

a matter of “trial tactics or strategy” and thus immune from 

constitutional scrutiny.

Ruling on Jones’s § 2254 petition, the district court excused the procedural default based on new evidence of 

Jones’s actual innocence—namely, Stone’s testimony. After 

an evidentiary hearing, the judge concluded that the state 

appellate court unreasonably applied Strickland and that trial 

counsel’s failure to present Stone’s testimony was constitutionally ineffective representation. The judge accordingly 

granted the petition and ordered Jones retried or released.

We affirm. The judge’s decision to excuse the procedural 

default was sound, as was his merits ruling. Trial counsel’s

failure to call Stone cannot reasonably be classified as a mere 

matter of trial strategy within the range of objectively reasonable professional judgments. Omitting the available 

testimony of the man who admits to being the lone shooter

was both constitutionally deficient performance and prejudicial.

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No. 15-1174 3

I. Background

A. The Murder of Friday Gardner

Around midday on September 12, 1999, three men wearing masks broke into a second-floor apartment at 6102 South 

May Street on Chicago’s south side. Michael Stone shared 

the apartment with his cousins Latonya Cheeks, Felicia 

Anderson, and Michella Anderson. Corey Grant, Felicia’s 

fiancé, also lived there. Grant and Michella were home when 

the break-in occurred, and one of the masked men beat 

Grant with a baseball bat. The intruders then stole some 

jewelry, a bag of marijuana, and $200 in cash before fleeing 

the apartment.

Stone and Felicia Anderson arrived home soon after the 

assault and robbery. Stone called Michael Carter, his halfbrother, and told him what happened. Carter, whose nickname is “Junior,” was upset by the news. Driving in his car 

not far from the May Street apartment, Carter spotted his 

friend Cortez Jones, the petitioner, and told him about the 

robbery. Jones hopped into the car with Carter and the two 

men drove to the May Street apartment.

Carter introduced Jones to the others and the group discussed the identity of the assailants. Suspicion fell on Friday 

Gardner, a cousin and frequent houseguest of Rena Phillips, 

who lived in the apartment across the hall. It’s not clear who 

first suggested that Gardner was involved—Carter, Felicia, 

Michella, or Jones—but everyone assumed the perpetrators 

came from the neighborhood. And they all knew that 

Gardner kept a van parked on the street outside the May 

Street apartment.

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Carter and Jones then left the apartment, located

Gardner’s van, broke into it, and stole the radio. This was 

apparently an effort to lure Gardner onto the street. Jones 

denies participating in this theft, but it’s undisputed that he 

and Carter then left the neighborhood together and did not 

return until around nine or ten o’clock that evening in 

response to a page from Stone.

At about ten o’clock, Gardner appeared on the street outside the May Street apartment. Carter and Jones approached 

him and got into an argument so heated that Stone, who was 

still in the second-floor apartment, heard the commotion 

from the window. The argument also drew the attention of 

many neighbors.

Stone kept a .380-caliber pistol in the basement of the

apartment building. As the situation on the street intensified, 

he retrieved the gun and went outside to watch the argument from the alley. Stone maintains that he saw Gardner 

draw and aim a handgun at Carter and Jones, so he approached from the alley and fired his .380 pistol at Gardner 

three times. He says he shot Gardner to protect Carter, his 

half-brother. Two shots hit their mark: Gardner died at the 

scene with two .380-caliber bullets in his abdomen. Three 

.380-caliber shell casings were found near the body. No gun 

was found on Gardner’s person, but trial testimony suggested that someone may have removed one from his hand after 

the shooting.

Stone, Carter, and Jones fled the scene. Carter and Jones 

were arrested the next day, and Stone turned himself in to 

Chicago police the following day. Stone immediately confessed to shooting Gardner using his .380-caliber handgun.

He said he did it in defense of his half-brother. The 

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.380 pistol was never recovered; Stone said he threw it in 

some bushes as he fled the scene.

B. Trial and State Postconviction Proceedings

All three men were charged with first-degree murder.

The charges against Stone and Carter were tried jointly to a 

jury. The prosecution’s theory was that both Stone and 

Carter fired shots at Gardner. As an alternative theory 

against Carter, the prosecutor argued that if Stone alone shot

Gardner, then Carter was responsible under an accountability theory because he planned the crime with Stone and 

helped lure Gardner onto the street. Stone testified in his 

own defense, telling the jury that he shot Gardner with his 

.380 handgun to prevent him from shooting Carter. The jury 

found both defendants guilty. They were sentenced to 

30 years in prison. See Carter v. Duncan, 819 F.3d 931, 935–37 

(7th Cir. 2016).

Jones’s case was tried separately, and he opted for a 

bench trial. The prosecution’s sole theory at his trial was that 

Jones was the shooter; accountability theory played no part. 

The prosecution’s case rested on testimony from several 

eyewitnesses, but their accounts diverged in significant 

respects.

As we’ve noted, Gardner’s cousin Rena Phillips lived in 

the apartment across the hall from Stone and his cousins.

Her son Antonio lived with her, and both Phillipses testified 

that they saw Jones shoot Gardner at very close range. 

Antonio said he watched the argument from his apartment 

window and saw Jones pull out a gun; he said Carter also 

had a gun. He testified that Jones was so close to Gardner 

that he had to take a step back in order to extend his arm 

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and fire the first shot. He estimated that Jones’s gun was 

only about an inch away from Gardner when he pulled the 

trigger. Antonio testified that after the first shot was fired, he 

ran down the stairs and heard two more shots as he ran. 

When he reached the street, he saw Carter and Jones running away from the scene.

Rena Phillips said she and her boyfriend Paul Calmese 

had just pulled up outside the building when the confrontation started. Tommy Gaston, a friend of Gardner’s, was also 

on the street that night. Rena testified that she saw Jones 

shoot Gardner twice at close range. She also said Carter had 

a gun and fired shots at Gardner.

Gaston’s version of events was quite different. He said he 

didn’t see a gun in Jones’s hand but thought he might have 

had one in his coat pocket and may have fired a shot 

through his coat. Gaston’s testimony conflicted with the 

account he gave on the night of the shooting. Back then he 

told the police that he saw Stone emerge from the alley and 

shoot Gardner. When questioned about this discrepancy at 

trial, Gaston denied that he changed his story.

The only eyewitness with no connection to either the victim or the three defendants was Cedric Taylor, a Chicago 

police officer. Officer Taylor was on duty and standing with 

his partner in front of a police station about a block west of 

the shooting. The station was across from the alley where 

Stone watched the argument unfold and from which he said 

he emerged and fired three shots at Gardner. Officer Taylor 

testified that as he glanced toward the alley, he saw muzzle 

flashes and heard two gunshots, then heard three more shots 

much louder than the first two. He ran toward the gunfire

and saw two men ducking down behind a Cadillac and two 

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men running away from the scene. One of the fleeing men 

carried a dark object that Officer Taylor said could have been 

a handgun. Officer Taylor and his partner gave chase but 

couldn’t catch up with the fleeing men.

The defense eyewitnesses gave still another—and quite 

different—account. Latonya Cheeks, Stone’s cousin and 

apartment-mate, said she heard Carter and Jones arguing 

with Gardner and saw Gardner draw a gun. She testified 

that Stone came running from the alley and shot Gardner; 

she said she heard three shots. Her trial testimony conflicted 

with her grand-jury testimony in one respect: In the grand 

jury, Cheeks said that Gardner was unarmed. Michella

Anderson, another Stone cousin and apartment-mate, told 

the court that she saw someone come from the alley and 

shoot Gardner and that Jones was not the shooter. She also 

testified that she saw Gardner with a gun. Neither Stone nor 

Carter testified.

The physical evidence introduced at trial was limited. 

Three .380-caliber shell casings were found at the scene near 

Gardner’s body. No fingerprints were recovered from the 

casings. Gardner died from two gunshot wounds to the 

abdomen. Two .380-caliber bullets were recovered from his 

body, and forensic analysis established that the bullets were 

fired from the same firearm. The forensic and autopsy 

evidence was inconsistent with a shooting at close range, 

contradicting the testimony of Rena and Antonio Phillips.

In closing argument Jones’s attorney told the court that

the physical evidence and eyewitness accounts were too

widely divergent to support a finding of guilt beyond a 

reasonable doubt. Counsel also noted the jury’s verdict in 

the Stone/Carter trial and pointed out that the prosecution 

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had dramatically changed its theory of the case. The judge 

found Jones guilty and imposed a sentence of 30 years in 

prison.

The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed on direct appeal. 

Jones then pursued state postconviction relief alleging that 

the failure to call Stone as a defense witness at trial was 

constitutionally ineffective under Strickland. (He raised other 

arguments as well; none are relevant here.) The postconviction court summarily dismissed the petition because Jones 

had not included an affidavit from Stone, as Illinois law

requires. See 725 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/122-2. The Illinois Appellate Court held that this procedural violation was independently enough to affirm. People v. Jones, No. 1-05-1212, at 

6 (Ill. App. Ct. Sept. 26, 2006) (unpublished order) (holding 

that the procedural violation “alone justifies the summary 

dismissal of defendant’s petition”).

But the court went on to apply Strickland based on the 

existing record, holding that “counsel’s failure to call codefendant Stone as a witness is a matter of trial tactics or 

strategy, which is purely a matter of professional judgment 

and cannot support a claim of ineffective representation.” Id.

at 7. The court said that strategic decisions are immune from 

constitutional scrutiny unless counsel “entirely fails” to 

subject the prosecution’s case to adversarial testing. Id. at 7–

8. The court also held that the failure to call Stone was not 

prejudicial for two reasons: (1) It was “highly likely” that 

Stone would have invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to 

testify; and (2) “several eyewitnesses” testified that Jones 

shot the victim, so “the outcome of the trial would not have 

been different had counsel attempted to present the testimony of codefendant Stone.” Id. at 8.

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No. 15-1174 9

The decision was not unanimous. The dissenting judge 

concluded that Jones had “raised the gist of a meritorious 

claim of ineffective assistance” that warranted further 

development on remand. Id. at 9 (Wolfson, J., dissenting).

The Illinois Supreme Court denied review.

C. Jones’s § 2254 Petition

Jones then moved his case to federal court. His § 2254 petition reprised the Strickland claim stemming from his trial 

counsel’s failure to call Stone as a witness. The district judge 

found the claim procedurally defaulted but held an evidentiary hearing to give Jones an opportunity to satisfy the 

miscarriage-of-justice exception to procedural default. This 

required a showing of actual innocence. See generally Schlup 

v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298 (1995).

The judge heard testimony from several witnesses who 

had not testified at Jones’s trial. Felicia Anderson testified 

that she saw Gardner draw a gun during the argument and 

thought it was Carter who shot him. She said she ran from 

the scene screaming, “Junior shot him. Junior shot him.”

(Recall that Carter’s nickname is Junior.) But she admitted

that she only heard the gunshots and did not actually see 

Carter fire a gun. Paul Calmese, Rena Phillips’s boyfriend,

testified that he saw Stone approach from the alley but also 

saw Jones pull out a gun, though he did not see him fire it. 

Carter testified that Stone was the only person to fire a gun

and there was no plan to kill Gardner.

Most crucially, Stone testified that he—and he alone—

shot Gardner. He explained that as the argument on the 

street escalated, he retrieved his .380 handgun from the 

basement and positioned himself in the alley to watch the 

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confrontation. He said that he saw Gardner pull a gun from 

his front waistband, so he emerged from the alley and fired 

his .380 at Gardner three times to prevent him from shooting 

Carter, his half-brother. Stone confirmed that he turned 

himself in two days later and confessed in full to the police. 

He also testified that he and Jones weren’t friends, he didn’t 

plan the killing with Carter or Jones, and he never saw Jones 

with a gun that night.

The final important witness was Brian Dosch, Jones’s trial attorney. Dosch testified that he decided not to call Stone

as a witness at Jones’s trial because the police report summarizing his confession wasn’t consistent about whether he 

actually saw Gardner draw a gun before he fired the three 

shots.

The judge credited Stone’s testimony, reviewed it against 

the entire record, and concluded that it satisfied the actualinnocence gateway to a merits review of the procedurally 

defaulted Strickland claim. Moving to the merits, the judge 

found Stone’s testimony entirely consistent with his prior 

testimony at his own trial. Stone’s testimony was also consistent with the physical evidence and the testimony of some 

of the eyewitnesses; in contrast, the testimony of the prosecution’s eyewitnesses was inconsistent with the physical and 

forensic evidence. The judge could conceive of no justification for omitting Stone’s testimony at trial.

Accordingly, proceeding first under the deferential 

standard of § 2254(d), the judge held that the Illinois Appellate Court unreasonably applied Strickland by treating

counsel’s failure to call Stone as a mere strategic or tactical 

trial decision and declaring it immune from constitutional 

scrutiny. Next, reviewing the claim independently under 

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§ 2254(a), the judge concluded that counsel’s performance 

was both constitutionally deficient and prejudicial. The 

judge accordingly granted the habeas petition and ordered 

Illinois to retry its case against Jones or release him from 

custody.

Illinois asks us to reverse that decision.

II. Analysis

We review the district court’s factual findings in a habeas 

ruling for clear error; legal conclusions get independent 

review. Coleman v. Lemke, 739 F.3d 342, 349 (7th Cir. 2014).

A. Procedural Default and Actual Innocence

Section 2254(d) sets a high bar for state prisoners seeking 

federal habeas review. A federal court may not grant a state 

prisoner’s habeas petition unless the prisoner establishes

that the state court’s adjudication of his claim was “contrary 

to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly 

established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme 

Court.” § 2254(d)(1). At issue here is the Sixth Amendment 

right of the criminal accused to the effective assistance of 

counsel as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Strickland.

To obtain a merits review of his claim, however, Jones 

had to clear an additional high hurdle: procedural default.

As we’ve explained, the state postconviction court dismissed 

Jones’s Strickland claim because he failed to include a supporting affidavit from Stone or explain why an affidavit was 

unavailable. Illinois law imposes this procedural requirement, see 725 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/122-2, and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the lower court’s reliance on it. The 

appellate court noted that Jones was required to, but did not,

submit an affidavit from Stone indicating that “he would 

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have been willing to testify” and “what the substance of that

testimony would have been.” This procedural violation

alone, the court held, justified the summary dismissal of the 

Strickland claim.

Illinois courts regularly enforce the affidavit rule. See, e.g.,

Thompkins v. Pfister, 698 F.3d 976, 987 (7th Cir. 2012); see also 

People v. Collins, 782 N.E.2d 195, 198 (Ill. 2002). So the Strickland claim is procedurally defaulted. See Thomas v. Williams, 

822 F.3d 378, 384 (7th Cir. 2016) (explaining the two forms of 

procedural default, noncompliance with state procedural 

rules and failure to exhaust state remedies). And procedural 

default ordinarily precludes federal habeas review. Id.

A state prisoner can overcome a procedural default by 

establishing cause for the default and actual prejudice or by 

showing that the federal court’s failure to address his claim

on the merits would work a fundamental miscarriage of 

justice. See House v. Bell, 547 U.S. 518, 536–37 (2006); Schlup, 

513 U.S. at 314–15. This case concerns the miscarriage-ofjustice path to merits review.

The miscarriage-of-justice exception to procedural default requires the petitioner to make a convincing showing of 

actual innocence. McQuiggin v. Perkins, 133 S. Ct. 1924, 1929 

(2013); Schlup, 513 U.S. at 314–15. To pass through the actualinnocence gateway to a merits review of a procedurally 

barred claim, the petitioner must have “new reliable evidence—whether it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence—

that was not presented at trial,” Schlup, 513 U.S. at 324, and 

must persuade the district court that it is “more likely than 

not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in 

light of the new evidence,” id. at 327.

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No. 15-1174 13

“New evidence” in this context does not mean “newly 

discovered evidence”; it just means evidence that was not 

presented at trial. Id. at 322, 324. And because an actualinnocence claim “involves evidence the trial jury did not 

have before it, the inquiry requires the federal court to assess 

how reasonable jurors would react to the overall, newly 

supplemented record.” House, 547 U.S. at 538. The inquiry

considers “all the evidence, old and new, incriminating and 

exculpatory, without regard to whether it would necessarily 

be admitted under rules of admissibility that would govern 

at trial.” Id. (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).

The court must “make a probabilistic determination about 

what reasonable, properly instructed jurors would do.” 

Schlup, 513 U.S. at 329. 

The actual-innocence standard isn’t deferential to the 

verdict, like the legal standard for evaluating challenges to 

the sufficiency of the evidence. Id. at 330 (“[T]he mere existence of sufficient evidence to convict [is not] determinative ... .”); see also Hayes v. Battaglia, 403 F.3d 935, 940 (7th 

Cir. 2005) (Flaum, J., concurring) (“Unlike a review of the 

sufficiency of the evidence which focuses on whether a 

rational juror could have convicted, a habeas court considering actual innocence ... determin[es] whether rational jurors 

would have convicted.”).

We have one last important doctrinal point: Procedural

actual-innocence claims like this one are evaluated differently than substantive claims of actual innocence. Schlup, 

513 U.S. at 316–17. In a substantive actual-innocence claim, 

the petitioner’s new evidence must be strong enough to 

convince the court that his sentence is constitutionally 

intolerable “even if his conviction was the product of a fair 

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trial.” Id. at 316. In a procedural—or “gateway”—actualinnocence claim, the petitioner’s new evidence need only

establish sufficient doubt about his guilt to justify a conclusion that his sentence is a miscarriage of justice “unless his 

conviction was the product of a fair trial.” Id. Put slightly

differently, a petitioner satisfies the gateway standard if his

new evidence raises “sufficient doubt about [his] guilt to 

undermine confidence in the result of the trial without the 

assurance that the trial was untainted by constitutional 

error.” Id. at 317.

The district judge credited Stone’s testimony and concluded, based on the entire record, that the gateway actualinnocence standard was met. We defer to the judge’s credibility determination, see Coleman, 739 F.3d at 350, and agree

that the new evidence of actual innocence warrants a merits 

review of Jones’s Strickland claim.

In brief, the decisive evidentiary points are these: Stone 

turned himself in two days after the crime and immediately 

confessed to shooting Gardner. From the beginning he has 

consistently maintained that he alone shot Gardner and that 

he did not plan the crime with either Carter or Jones. He 

says he used his .380 pistol and fired three times. That 

account matches the physical and forensic evidence; the 

accounts of the prosecution’s eyewitnesses do not. His 

testimony is also corroborated at least in part by some of the 

eyewitnesses (e.g., Cheeks, Officer Taylor, and Calmese). 

And Stone’s testimony in the district court was entirely 

consistent with his testimony at his own trial.

The eyewitness testimony, moreover, was all over the 

map. No two witnesses gave the same account of the shooting. Antonio and Rena Phillips gave roughly similar descripCase: 15-1174 Document: 52 Filed: 11/15/2016 Pages: 24
No. 15-1174 15

tions, but their version of events—that Jones shot Gardner at 

very close range—is directly contradicted by the physical 

evidence, which showed no signs of a close-range shooting.

Gaston, a third prosecution eyewitness, said only that he 

thought Jones had a gun in his coat pocket and may have 

fired a shot through his coat. But he told the police on the 

night of the shooting that he saw Stone emerge from the 

alley and shoot Gardner, so his testimony is at best a wash. 

The remaining eyewitnesses at least partially corroborate 

Stone’s testimony.

In short, we agree with the district judge that the new evidence, considered in light of the entire record, raises sufficient doubt about Jones’s guilt to undermine confidence in 

the verdict without the assurance that it was untainted by 

constitutional error. Stone’s testimony, together with the 

other new evidence presented at the hearing, raises reasonable doubt about Jones’s guilt. Had this evidence been presented, we think it’s more likely than not that Jones would 

have been acquitted.

Illinois resists this conclusion by analogizing this case to 

Coleman, but the analogy is superficial at best. In Coleman, as 

here, an Illinois prisoner serving a sentence for murder tried 

to pass through the actual-innocence gateway to a merits 

review of his procedurally defaulted Strickland claim. 

739 F.3d at 347–49. That’s where the similarities end. The 

new evidence in Coleman consisted largely of the testimony 

of the codefendant; the district court rejected the claim 

because the codefendant had serious credibility problems. Id. 

at 350.We affirmed, noting that the codefendant had demonstrated an “inability to present a consistent account of his 

whereabouts on the day of the murder,” told several verCase: 15-1174 Document: 52 Filed: 11/15/2016 Pages: 24
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sions of his involvement in the murder, and attested to facts 

that did not match the physical evidence at the scene. Id. The 

codefendant was also the petitioner’s friend, which undercut 

the credibility of his testimony. Id.

This case is not comparable. Here, the district judge explicitly credited Stone’s testimony, finding it consistent over 

15 years and multiple tellings, and consistent with the 

physical and forensic evidence. As we remarked in Coleman,

“[w]e almost never disturb this type of finding by the district 

court.” Id. “[D]eterminations of witness credibility can 

virtually never be clear error.” United States v. Stewart, 

536 F.3d 714, 720 (7th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted). 

Illinois also argues that even if the new evidence casts

serious doubt on its theory that Jones was the shooter, his 

actual-innocence claim must be rejected because he is guilty 

under an accountability theory. This argument is new in 

federal court; the prosecutor’s narrative at trial was that 

Jones shot Gardner twice at close range. Criminal liability on 

an accountability theory requires proof of shared criminal 

intent or participation in a common criminal design. See 

People v. Redmond, 793 N.E.2d 744, 755 (Ill. App. Ct. 2003). To 

convict Jones of Stone’s act would have required evidence 

that they shared a criminal intent or participated in a common criminal design, and that’s lacking here. At most, the

evidence places all three codefendants at the scene and

suggests that they all suspected Gardner was involved in the

robbery and beating at Stone’s apartment and were upset 

about it. But the record does not support Illinois’s new 

theory that Jones and Stone schemed to kill Gardner.

To the contrary, Stone has consistently maintained that 

he acted alone and there was no plan to kill Gardner. The 

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No. 15-1174 17

judge found his testimony credible, consistent over 15 years

of retelling, and corroborated by the physical and forensic

evidence and the testimony of at least some of the eyewitnesses. Carter likewise testified that there was no plan to kill 

Gardner. The judge rejected Illinois’s new accountability 

theory as unconvincing, and we see no reason to disturb that 

ruling.

B. Strickland, § 2254(d), and § 2254(a)

Moving now to the merits of the Strickland claim, our first 

question is whether Jones has satisfied the demanding

requirements of § 2254(d). That requires us to decide whether the Illinois Appellate Court’s decision was “contrary to”

or “an unreasonable application of” clearly established 

federal law—here the Sixth Amendment right of the accused 

to effective counsel as interpreted in Strickland. The district 

judge held that Jones met the requirements of § 2254(d), and 

again we agree.

The familiar Strickland formula requires the petitioner to 

establish that his attorney’s performance was deficient—that 

is, objectively unreasonable—and the deficient performance

was prejudicial. 466 U.S. at 687–88. The first step in this

framework asks “whether, in light of all the circumstances, 

the identified acts or omissions were outside the wide range 

of professionally competent assistance.” Id. at 690. The

prejudice inquiry asks whether “there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result 

of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 694.

At Strickland’s first step, the petitioner will often need to 

overcome a “strong presumption” that “the challenged 

action might be considered sound trial strategy.” Id. at 689

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18 No. 15-1174

(internal quotation marks omitted). In Jones’s case the state 

appellate court classified the defense attorney’s decision not 

to call Stone as a mere choice of trial strategy and held that 

decisions of this sort are “generally immune” from scrutiny 

unless counsel “entirely fail[ed]” to subject the prosecution’s 

case to “meaningful adversarial testing.” That was an unreasonable application of Strickland for several reasons.

First, the Strickland presumption protects actual strategic 

trial judgments. “To avoid the inevitable temptation to 

evaluate a lawyer’s performance through the distorting lens 

of hindsight, Strickland establishes a deferential presumption 

that strategic judgments made by defense counsel are reasonable.” Mosley v. Atchison, 689 F.3d 838, 848 (7th Cir. 2012).

“But the presumption applies only if the lawyer actually 

exercised judgment.” Id. A court adjudicating a Strickland 

claim can’t just label a decision “strategic” and thereby 

immunize it from constitutional scrutiny. In Jones’s case the 

state appellate court had no basis in the record to classify 

counsel’s failure to call Stone as a strategic trial choice. Id.

(“[O]n the limited record before the state courts, it was 

unreasonable to find summarily that trial counsel chose not 

to call Jones and Taylor as a matter of strategy.”). Because 

there was no postconviction hearing in state court, Dosch’s 

actual reason for omitting Stone was then unknown.

As a general matter, a defense attorney’s failure to present a material exculpatory witness of which he was aware

qualifies as deficient performance. See id. at 848–49; Toliver v. 

Pollard, 688 F.3d 853, 862 (7th Cir. 2012); Goodman v. Bertrand, 

467 F.3d 1022, 1029 (7th Cir. 2006); Washington v. Smith,

219 F.3d 620, 628–29 (7th Cir. 2000). There’s no doubt that 

Stone’s testimony was exculpatory and highly material. 

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Without an explanation from Dosch about his reason for not

calling Stone, there was no factual foundation for the state 

appellate court’s determination that he omitted Stone as a 

matter of trial strategy.

Second, a defense attorney’s decisions “are not immune 

from examination simply because they are deemed tactical.” 

U.S. ex rel. Hampton v. Leibach, 347 F.3d 219, 249 (7th Cir. 

2003). The state appellate court treated the Strickland presumption as essentially unrebuttable. That too was clearly 

contrary to Strickland.

The state court’s evaluation of the prejudice question was 

likewise unreasonable. The court declared that Jones had the 

burden to show that “but for counsel’s shortcomings, the 

outcome of the proceeding would have been different.” 

People v. Jones, No. 1-05-1212, at 6–7. The court then gave two 

reasons why Jones hadn’t met this standard: First, it was 

“highly likely” that Stone would have invoked his Fifth 

Amendment privilege not to testify; second, “several eyewitnesses” testified that Jones shot Gardner. For these 

reasons, the court held, “the outcome of the trial would not 

have been different had counsel attempted to present the 

testimony of codefendant Stone.” Id. at 8.

This reasoning reflects a patent misunderstanding of 

Strickland’s prejudice standard. The state court asked too 

much of Jones. He did not need to show that the result of the 

trial would have been different but for counsel’s error; he only 

needed to show a “reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding 

would have been different.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694 (emphasis added). As we’ve noted before, “[t]his is not a mere 

detail or a quibble over word-smithing.” Mosley, 689 F.3d at 

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850. It’s a substantive point, and one that both the Supreme 

Court and we have made before. See Williams v. Taylor, 

529 U.S. 362, 405–06 (2000); Mosley, 689 F.3d at 850. In

Mosley, for example, the Illinois Appellate Court took the

same approach to the prejudice question as it did here; we 

held there that the error easily satisfied § 2254(d)’s steep 

standard of review. 689 F.3d at 850. Indeed, we held in

Mosley that an Illinois appellate decision applying an identically phrased prejudice formulation was clearly contrary to 

Strickland. Id. (citing Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. at 405–06).

The same conclusion follows here.

Finally, the state court’s reasons for its no-prejudice finding were so flawed as to fall outside the bounds of reasonable judicial disagreement. First, the court surmised that

Stone probably would have refused to testify. Perhaps, but 

the court’s supposition was speculative; at that time there 

was no basis in the record to know one way or the other. 

And as the dissenting judge noted, if Stone had refused, he 

would have been an unavailable witness and his testimony 

from his own trial would have been admissible. People v. 

Jones, No. 1-05-1212, at 9–10 (Wolfson, J., dissenting) (citing 

People v. Johnson, 517 N.E.2d 1070, 1074 (Ill. 1987); MICHAEL 

H. GRAHAM, CLEARY & GRAHAM’S HANDBOOK OF ILLINOIS 

EVIDENCE § 804.2 (7th ed. 1999)). Second, the court noted that 

“several eyewitnesses” testified that Jones shot Gardner, 

“which would have diminished the effectiveness of Stone’s 

prior testimony had it been admissible.” Id. at 8. Indeed, two 

eyewitnesses—Antonio and Rena Phillips—testified that 

Jones shot Gardner at close range, but the physical evidence 

contradicted their story. A third witness—Gaston—said only 

that he thought Jones had a gun in his coat pocket and may 

have fired through his coat. But he also told the police on the 

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No. 15-1174 21

night of the shooting that he saw Stone emerge from the 

alley and shoot Gardner. Against these very weak prosecution witnesses, Stone’s confession would have been powerful.

For all these reasons, Jones has satisfied the requirements 

of § 2254(d). When a habeas petitioner successfully discharges his burden under § 2254(d), it will often be the case 

that his entitlement to relief naturally follows; but not “always and automatically.” Mosley, 689 F.3d at 853. “Whether 

the petitioner is actually entitled to relief—whether under 

§ 2254(a) he is in custody in violation of the Constitution and 

or laws or treaties of the United States—is a separate question.” Id. In this case the two inquiries overlap so significantly that Jones’s entitlement to relief flows easily from our 

§ 2254(d) conclusion. Still, we think it best to address the 

§ 2254(a) question separately, though we can be brief.

At the evidentiary hearing, Brian Dosch, Jones’s trial 

counsel, offered no objectively sound reason for his decision 

not to present Stone as a witness at Jones’s trial. He conceded that Jones asked him to call Stone. When he was asked 

whether Stone’s testimony “would’ve been very helpful to 

Cortez Jones,” he replied, “Yes” and “Oh yes” and “Yes.” He 

acknowledged that he was fully aware of the content of 

Stone’s testimony because he had watched the Stone/Carter 

trial. He could offer only one reason for omitting Stone as a 

witness: The police report describing Stone’s confession 

contains some contradictory statements about whether he 

actually saw Gardner with a gun. According to the report, at 

one point during his confession, Stone admitted that he 

might not actually have seen a gun in Gardner’s hand. But 

the report also clearly states that Stone told the interrogating 

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officers that Gardner drew a gun during the argument and

aimed it at Carter.

As the district judge noted, this discrepancy in the police 

report may have been important to Stone’s defense, but it 

had little significance to Jones. Stone testified that he shot 

Gardner to protect Carter, his half-brother, so whether he 

saw Gardner with a gun was crucial to his defense. But 

Stone’s reason for firing the shots was unimportant to Jones;

the key was his consistent testimony that he—and he 

alone—shot Gardner. The why of his actions was largely 

irrelevant, but his confession to being the sole shooter mattered a great deal. The ambiguity in the police report about 

whether he actually saw Gardner with a gun was not an 

objectively reasonable basis to omit his testimony.

On the prejudice question, we don’t need to say much 

more than we’ve already said. Because the evidence—new 

and old—satisfies the actual-innocence standard, it necessarily also satisfies the Strickland test for prejudice. There is a 

reasonable probability that Jones would have been acquitted 

had his counsel presented Stone’s testimony.

Illinois argues that the jury in the Stone/Carter trial must 

have found Stone unpersuasive, so it follows that he would 

not have been a persuasive witness for Jones. But the two 

trials were different in important ways. First, as we’ve 

already noted, the jury’s rejection of Stone’s “defense of

brother” defense has no bearing on the case against Jones. To 

repeat, what’s important in Jones’s case is not Stone’s reason 

for shooting Gardner but his consistent admission that he 

alone shot Gardner.

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The jury convicted Carter too, of course, but that isn’t 

conclusive on the prejudice question in Jones’s case. The case 

against Carter was submitted to the jury on a theory of 

accountability; that is, the jury could convict Carter even if it 

rejected the prosecution’s theory that both he and Stone 

were armed and fired shots at Gardner. True, Carter’s 

conviction means that the jury at least accepted that Carter 

and Stone shared a common plan to kill Gardner and to that 

extent must have found Stone unpersuasive. But the case 

against Jones wasn’t tried on an accountability theory, which 

in any event would have been weaker against Jones than it 

was against Carter. 

The prosecution maintained in both trials that Gardner

was murdered in retaliation for the robbery and beating at 

the May Street apartment. The evidence against the two 

men, however, was not identical for purposes of an accountability theory of guilt. Unlike Carter, Jones had no connection to Stone, Grant, or any other residents of the apartment. 

Indeed, Jones met Stone and the others for the first time on 

the day of these events. Moreover, Stone paged Carter to 

summon him back to the scene after 9 p.m., and it is entirely 

plausible to infer that Carter would know that his brother 

owned a gun and would be armed. No evidence suggests 

that Jones would have known this. With no direct evidence 

of a plan (and the prosecution had none), Jones would have 

been in a stronger position to argue that he was unaware 

that Stone would be armed and intended to shoot Gardner. 

A final point before we move on: For unknown reasons 

the judge in the Stone/Carter trial excluded Stone’s statement to police, which was consistent with his trial testimony 

and thus would have bolstered his credibility. Though not 

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necessarily decisive, prior consistent statements usually bear 

favorably on a witness’s credibility. Indeed, Stone’s consistency was an important factor in the district judge’s 

actual-innocence determination. We can safely assume that 

Stone’s prior consistent statement would have been an 

important factor in Jones’s trial too.

Second, the case against Jones was tried to the court, and 

bench trials proceed on a subtly different calculus. At the 

evidentiary hearing, Dosch told the district judge that he 

watched Stone testify at his trial and thought he was “nothing special” on the witness stand and “wasn’t a great witness.” But he immediately backpedaled on this point, saying,

“I suppose he was adequate.” It’s not clear what Dosch 

meant by this testimony; he did not elaborate. But whatever 

Stone’s shortcomings as a witness, it’s reasonable to think 

that the judge presiding at Jones’s trial could dispassionately 

account for any communication difficulties or rough edges 

in evaluating the substance of his testimony. We note again 

that the district judge credited Stone’s testimony in the 

§ 2254 proceeding. In the end, the cost of calling Stone at the 

bench trial was so small—and the benefit of having his 

testimony was so great—that Dosch’s decision not to call 

him was plainly prejudicial. 

Jones has established that he is in custody in violation of 

his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of 

counsel and is therefore entitled to relief under § 2254(a).

The district judge was right to grant the petition for a writ of 

habeas corpus.

AFFIRMED.

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