Opinion ID: 853980
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Alternative Approaches to Procedural Default

Text: Woods suggests we resolve this dilemma by following the logic of several Seventh Circuit decisions holding that an ineffective assistance claim that cannot be fully framed or evaluated without extrinsic evidence may be presented for the first time in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Guinan v. United States, 6 F.3d 468 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Taglia, 922 F.2d 413 (7th Cir.1991). The State does not dispute that the record on direct appeal did not reveal the details of Rhetts' conflict, but argues that it makes no difference for purposes of waiver. The State maintains that if we adopt the Seventh Circuit standard, the exception will swallow the rule because the petitioner will be able to avoid procedural default simply by pointing to  some evidence outside the record that he could claim was relevant to an allegation of ineffectiveness of trial counsel. The State argues that the proper remedy where extrinsic evidence is needed to evaluate the merits of an ineffectiveness claim is to permit appellate counsel to develop the additional facts in a hearing on a motion to correct error. See generally Ind.Crim. Rule 16; Ind. Trial Rule 59. Neither Woods nor the State argues for the view, followed in many state [11] and federal courts, [12] that ineffective assistance of trial counsel, irrespective of the nature of the contentions, can (or even must) be postponed until collateral review. Nonetheless, for the reasons set forth below, we conclude that the most satisfactory resolution of a variety of competing considerations is that ineffective assistance may be raised on direct appeal, but if it is not, it is available in postconviction proceedings irrespective of the nature of the issues claimed to support the competence or prejudice prongs.
The State maintains that the issue of trial counsel's effectiveness is known on direct appeal and therefore waived if not presented. This view would not differentiate at all among the various types of contentions that may support a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. There appear to be only a few states and no federal circuits adhering to that approach, cf. note 15 infra, and with good reason. As tribunals of last (or at least not first) resort, appellate courts review the work of other courts as reflected in the record. We agree with the Tenth Circuit that in the context of assessing ineffectiveness claims, typically a factual record must be developed in and addressed by the [trial] court in the first instance for effective review. United States v. Galloway, 56 F.3d 1239, 1240 (10th Cir.1995) (en banc) (footnote omitted). Where the record is incomplete, the reviewing court is poorly positioned to address the merits; nor does it have any reasonable ability to engage in factfinding or take new evidence. The State's approach might be more palatable if ineffective assistance were commonly easily resolved based on the trial record, but as already noted it often is not. Nor would a blanket ban on raising ineffective assistance of counsel in postconviction proceedings be fair to the defendant. Because of the presumption of competence, extrinsic evidence is needed in many cases: When the only record on which a claim of ineffective assistance is based is the trial record, every indulgence will be given to the possibility that a seeming lapse or error by defense counsel was in fact a tactical move, flawed only in hindsight. It is no surprise that such claims almost always fail. Taglia, 922 F.2d at 417-18. In addition, the rule that the State proposes appears to leave no place for ineffectiveness claims, such as counsel's undisclosed conflict of interest, not reasonably knowable until after direct appeal. Even under a use it or lose it approach, the question is not whether an evidentiary hearing will be held in some cases, but rather what procedure is available to develop the record. We disagree with the State that allowing appellate counsel to supplement the record in a hearing on a motion to correct error is sufficient where an appellate court concludes that additional evidence is needed. First, this implicitly requires appellate counsel to investigate facts outside the record in a frequently futile effort to unearth all possible ineffective assistance claims for presentation on direct appeal. As elaborated in Part V below, expecting appellate lawyers to look outside the record for error is unreasonable in light of the realities of appellate practice. Direct appeal counsel should not be forced to become a second trial counsel. Appellate lawyers may have neither the skills nor the resources nor the time to investigate extra-record claims, much less to present them coherently and persuasively to the trial court. Requiring any claim to be raised on direct appeal under pain of waiver forces upon appellate counsel a nasty dilemma: if he seeks reversal on the basis of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, the judgment is almost certain to be affirmed, barring the raising of the issue in collateral proceedings; if he does not, the government may contend in any collateral proceeding that he should have. Guinan, 6 F.3d at 472. Second, even if extra-record investigation were a fair burden to place on appellate counsel, we see little point in forcing the claim to be squeezed into the Procrustean bed of a motion to correct error. That procedure has never been viewed as a substitute for postconviction relief. Langley v. State, 256 Ind. 199, 204, 267 N.E.2d 538, 541 (1971) (motion to correct error provides an expeditious means by which a trial judge may have an opportunity to first correct his own errors while the circumstances surrounding the alleged error are still fresh in his memory). Moreover, some forms of ineffective assistance do not fit within any recognized ground for either a Trial Rule 59 or Trial Rule 60 motion. Both rules contemplate either error or new evidence that with reasonable diligence, could not have been discovered and produced at trial. Ind. Trial Rule 59(A)(1). The thrust of an ineffective assistance claim is often neither of these, but rather that trial counsel failed to present relevant evidence. To be sure, such a claim could be presented as any other ground under Rule 60(B)(8) (if it is within one year), but there is little reason to prefer that mode over a postconviction proceeding in the same court that can be conducted by counsel equipped to present it independent of any errors alleged on direct appeal. [13] Even if these procedures were a good fit for review of ineffective assistance claims, any attempt to adjudicate the adequacy of trial representation in a motion to correct error creates yet another round of litigationwith further expense and delay between the trial and postconviction proceeding. A use it or lose it rule has other undesirable consequences. A state-court finding of procedural default generally precludes review of the merits of the claim in federal collateral proceedings. [14] Thus if an ineffectiveness claim is waived if not presented on direct appeal, it may never be addressed on the merits by any court. The narrowing of federal habeas review since the 1970s reflects increasing deference to state courts in adjudication of federal constitutional claims arising out of state criminal trials: The States possess primary authority for defining and enforcing the criminal law. In criminal trials they also hold the initial responsibility of vindicating constitutional rights. Federal intrusions into state criminal trials frustrate both the States' sovereign power to punish offenders and their good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights. Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 128, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982) (citation omitted). Hence as a matter of procedural fairness a finding of waiver by an Indiana court must be predicated on a meaningful opportunity to litigate the claim. Alternatively, if an ineffectiveness claim found to be waived in our courts is nonetheless addressed on the merits in federal court, this State will have foregone the opportunity to correct the possible error before federal review of our judicial process. One goal of our postconviction rules is to minimize the level of federal constitutional error before federal review of the conviction: [O]ne of the functions of our post conviction remedy rules is to preserve what sanctity remains to this [S]tate's disposition of a criminal charge by allowing a convicted criminal defendant ample opportunity to present claims for relief in the courts of this state before resort must be had to the federal courts. Langley, 256 Ind. at 204, 267 N.E.2d at 541. An unnecessarily or unfairly restrictive waiver rule would frustrate this purpose. [15] The suggestion has been made that unless ineffectiveness is required to be raised on direct appeal, an excessive volume of postconviction evidentiary hearings will be required. However, if a hearing is necessary, it is not a significantly different burden on trial courts to consider the allegations of a postconviction claim for relief as opposed to the alternative of mid-appeal hearings. Moreover, not every claim requires a second hearing. Even if an ineffectiveness claim is preserved for postconviction review, it may be resolvable by a postconviction court without a hearing for failure to allege facts either in the current record or to be proved in an evidentiary hearingestablishing attorney incompetence. And because a postconviction claim may be disposed of by summary judgment, the procedures for piercing pleadings are available to resolve the matter without a hearing if there is no genuine issue of material fact. Ind. Post-Conviction Rule 1(4)(g); State v. Daniels, 680 N.E.2d 829, 831-32 (Ind.1997).
Some courts resolve these varying considerations by holding that a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel is waived if withheld until the collateral stage unless the petitioner has a valid reason for the postponement. Under this view, good cause for waiting can be shown by any one of either (1) trial counsel was also appellate counsel; (2) the claim could not be developed without new facts; or (3) at the time of the direct appeal, it reasonably appeared that new evidence would be needed, even though it has since become clear that the trial record was adequate grounds for judging the merits of the claim. Guinan, 6 F.3d at 472. [16] We have recognized the first of these. Spranger v. State, 650 N.E.2d 1117, 1121 (Ind.1995); cf. Matter of Sexson, 666 N.E.2d 402 (Ind.1996) (trial counsel violated Indiana Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7(b) by arguing own ineffectiveness on direct appeal). The second and third grounds of this approach are theoretically sound, but ultimately in our view generate more complexity and unpredictability than is desirable. In application this approach raises the thorny problem of identifying the ineffectiveness claims that are available on direct review. There are bound to be complications and uncertainty in determining whether extrinsic evidence reasonably appeared to be needed at the time of direct appeal to assess the merits of the claim. The postconviction court will have to undertake the difficult task of seeing the case through appellate counsel's eyes, possibly long after the direct appeal was decided. The potential exists for efforts of both counsel and courts to be wasted on both direct appeal and collateral review in satellite litigation over the application of a complicated waiver standard. [17] Permitting all claims of ineffectiveness to be raised in postconviction proceedings if ineffectiveness was not raised on direct appeal offers a bright-line rule that is understandable. It is preferable over requiring ineffectiveness to be raised on direct appeal because the track record for ineffectiveness claims demonstrates that most require additional evidence to assess their merits. Cf. Guinan, 6 F.3d at 473 (Easterbrook, J., concurring) (No surprise, then, that my colleagues have been unable to find a single case in which this circuit reversed a conviction on direct appeal because of deficient performance by trial counsel.). Finally, and more importantly, assessment of a claim of ineffective representation requires consideration of the overall performance of counsel and a reasonable probability that the alleged error affected the outcome. State v. Moore, 678 N.E.2d 1258, 1261 (Ind.1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 1528, 140 L.Ed.2d 678 (1998). Because these factors rarely lend themselves to resolution in isolation, the effectiveness of the representation should be resolved in a single proceeding. [18] For the reasons outlined, a postconviction hearing is normally the preferred forum to adjudicate an ineffectiveness claim. We nonetheless agree that potential for administrative inconvenience does not always outweigh the costs of putting off until tomorrow what can be done today: If there is no reason for delay in presenting a claim, the delay should not be countenanced, for there is a considerable social interest in the finality of criminal proceedings. Taglia, 922 F.2d at 418. If we are dealing with an improperly incarcerated defendant, the cause of justice is plainly better served by making that determination as soon as possible. The same is true even if a retrial is required. Resolving record-based ineffectiveness claims on direct review also has some doctrinal appeal because it is more consistent with the residual purpose of postconviction proceedings. Langley, 256 Ind. at 204-05, 267 N.E.2d at 541 ([T]he permissible scope of review on direct appeal is well defined and broader than that permitted by collateral attack through post conviction relief.). These considerations can be largely met under a procedure that allows a defendant to suspend the direct appeal to pursue an immediate petition for postconviction relief. Davis v. State, 267 Ind. 152, 368 N.E.2d 1149 (1977); see also Hatton v. State, 626 N.E.2d 442 (Ind.1993) (reiterating vitality of Davis procedure). This should cover the exceptional case in which the defendant prefers to adjudicate a claim of ineffective assistance before direct appeal remedies have been exhausted. Because of the Davis procedure, the direct appeal is not necessarily an obstacle to speedy adjudication of the adequacy of the representation, as recent cases in which the procedure was invoked for that purpose demonstrate. See Coleman v. State, 694 N.E.2d 269 (Ind. 1998); Brown v. State, 691 N.E.2d 438 (Ind. 1998). Although not to be used as a routine matter in adjudicating the issue of trial counsel's effectiveness, [19] a Davis request may be appropriate where the claim asserted arguably requires a certain level of fact finding not suitable for an appellate court. Lee v. State, 694 N.E.2d 719, 721 n. 6 (Ind.1998), petition for cert. filed, 67 U.S.L.W. 3362 (U.S. Sept. 24, 1998) (No. 98-6205).
As already noted, some grounds supporting an assertion of inadequate representation will not be reasonably knowable, much less fully factually developed, until after direct appeal. For the reasons given, the doors of postconviction must be open to adjudicate ineffective assistance if it is not raised on direct appeal. The defendant must decide the forum for adjudication of the issue direct appeal or collateral review. The specific contentions supporting the claim, however, may not be divided between the two proceedings. The administrative disadvantages to an approach that would require the defendant essentially to split an ineffectiveness claim between record-based and other contentions also apply to voluntary bifurcation. We note again that we recently held that ineffective assistance of trial counsel is not available in postconviction if the direct appeal raises any claim of deprivation of Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Sawyer v. State, 679 N.E.2d 1328 (Ind.1997); Bieghler v. State, 690 N.E.2d 188, 200-01 (Ind. 1997) (citing Sawyer ); but cf. Galloway, 56 F.3d at 1242 (holding that presentation of ineffectiveness claim on direct appeal did not foreclose assertion in federal habeas proceedings of additional grounds for finding inadequate representation). As a practical matter, this rule will likely deter all but the most confident appellants from asserting any claim of ineffectiveness on direct appeal. It will certainly deter some. Nonetheless, the concerns for prompt resolution of claims lead us to permit ineffective assistance to be raised within or without the procedure available pursuant to Davis. In sum, we hold that a Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, if not raised on direct appeal, may be presented in postconviction proceedings. However, if ineffective assistance of trial counsel is raised on direct appeal by a Davis petition or otherwise, the issue will be foreclosed from collateral review.