Opinion ID: 797646
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Ege's Free-Standing Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Claim

Text: 63 In order for a habeas petitioner to succeed on a free-standing ineffective assistance of counsel claim, even if the claim has been used in another guise as cause to excuse procedural default, the petitioner must still demonstrate: (i) deficient performance of counsel, and (ii) prejudice, meaning the deficient performance deprived petitioner of a fair proceeding. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). If a petitioner can make this showing, and if the state court nevertheless denies her relief, then this Court will consider the state court's application of Strickland to have been objectively unreasonable, and we will grant the writ. As discussed in Part III.A of this opinion, however, we decline to review the merits of Ege's free-standing ineffective assistance claim on habeas because we believe this claim is time-barred under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1). IV 64 For the reasons discussed above, this Court AFFIRMS the district court's conditional grant of Petitioner Ege's writ of habeas corpus as to her due process claim, but REVERSES as to her free-standing claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Our partial reversal thus does nothing to upset the district court's July 22, 2005 order — namely, that Ege be released from custody unless the State of Michigan brings her to trial again within seventy days, subject to the exclusions from such period allowed by 18 U.S.C. § 3161.