Opinion ID: 1570872
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Cronic

Text: ¶ 34. Johnson analyzes the same above-referenced errors under U.S. v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984), for the proposition that his counsel failed to subject the trial to meaningful adversarial testing. In Cronic, the U.S. Supreme Court found that [t]here are ... circumstances that are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified. Id. at 658, 104 S.Ct. 2039. The Court in Cronic set forth three situations in which prejudice was presumed: (1) when counsel is completely denied; (2) when counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing; (3) and when counsel is called upon to render assistance under circumstances where competent counsel very likely could not. Id. at 659-60, 104 S.Ct. 2039. The Supreme Court has also held that a correct analysis falls under Strickland, not Cronic, when respondent's argument is not that his counsel failed to oppose the prosecution throughout the sentencing proceeding as a whole, but that his counsel failed to do so at specific points. For purposes of distinguishing between the rule in Strickland and that of Cronic, this difference is not of degree but of kind. Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685, 697, 122 S.Ct. 1843, 152 L.Ed.2d 914 (2002) (emphasis added). The case sub judice is properly analyzed under Strickland, as Johnson argues specific failures of his counsel, not failure as a whole. Therefore, we find Johnson's argument of error under Cronic to be without merit.