Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-92-08026/USCOURTS-ca10-92-08026-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Attorney General of the State of Wyoming
Appellee
John Miller
Appellant
Duane Shillinger
Appellee

Document Text:

F I _u .LJ 1) United State~ 0?~ut ~j' Appc~: : 'T'e,.,-r.. l .... ~••n ' .... UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS ~ .. . . , . ., .. ' 

JOHN MILLER, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

v. 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

DUANE SHILLINGER; ATTORNEY GENERAL OF 

THE STATE OF WYOMING, 

Respondents-Appellees. 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

SEP 2 3 1992 

ROBERT L. HOECKEE 

Clerk 

No. 92-8026 

(D.C. No. C91-0083B) 

(D. Wyo.) 

Before MOORE, TACHA, and BRORBY, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Petitioner-appellant John Miller appeals the district court's 

order denying his petition for writ of habeas corpus. Mr. Miller 

contends that the district court erred in rejecting each of his 

four grounds for relief. Each ground is based on the claim that 

Mr. Miller was provided ineffective assistance of counsel at trial 

and on appeal. 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppal. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 92-8026 Document: 010110353509 Date Filed: 09/23/1992 Page: 1
After reviewing the record and the briefs, we affirm for 

substantially the same reasons as the district court. We choose, 

however, to further address Mr. Miller's eighth and ninth 

arguments on appeal, which allege that the trial court erred in 

failing to hear his complaints regarding trial counsel and in 

failing to appoint new trial counsel. 

Mr. Miller contends that the trial court should have taken 

judicial notice of the fact that, during the course of his trial, 

this circuit had affirmed the grant of a writ of habeas corpus in 

an unrelated case because Mr. Miller's trial counsel had provided 

another prisoner with ineffective representation. Mr. Miller 

asserts that the case was widely reported in the press, and argues 

that the trial court should have taken notice of these events and 

either further investigated his complaints or appointed new 

counsel. 

We reject these arguments. "[A] court deciding an actual 

ineffectiveness claim must judge the reasonableness of counsel's 

challenged conduct on the facts of the particular case, viewed as 

of the time of counsel's conduct." Strickland v. Washington, 466 

U.S. 668, 690 (1984). It is thus irrelevant whether the trial 

court was aware of this circuit's decision in the other case. In 

his two notes to the trial court, Mr. Miller did not identify any 

specific facts to support the contention that his trial counsel 

was providing him with ineffective representation. In its reply 

to Mr. Miller, the trial court invited him to elaborate, but he 

did not respond to that invitation. In light of these facts, it 

was not an abuse of the trial court's discretion to refuse to 

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Appellate Case: 92-8026 Document: 010110353509 Date Filed: 09/23/1992 Page: 2
,appoint substitute counsel for Mr. Miller. See United States v. 

Johnson, 961 F.2d 1488, 1490 (10th Cir. 1992). Accordingly, we 

AFFIRM. The mandate shall issue forthwith. 

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ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Deanell Reece Tacha 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 92-8026 Document: 010110353509 Date Filed: 09/23/1992 Page: 3