Opinion ID: 1383224
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The trial judge's efforts to expedite the trial

Text: Ferguson also claims that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to preserve the challenge to the court forcing trial to proceed late at night and for failing to preserve his related motion for mistrial. The record shows, however, that counsel adequately preserved these matters for this appeal. In addition, Ferguson contends that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object and preserve a challenge to the trial court's alleged efforts to expedite the entire course of the trial. He alleges, in particular, that the trial judge hurried through the trial so that he could go on a planned vacation. In support of the allegation, he states: 1) that the trial judge commented to the jury during voir dire that he intended to keep the trial moving along and he intended to complete the trial within two weeks; 2) that the trial judge allegedly remarked off the record that the case was interfering with his vacation plans; and 3) that the judge's wife and friends were present in the courtroom one day, apparently waiting for the trial to end. This evidence, even if true, does not in and of itself demonstrate trial court error. See State v. Engleman, 634 S.W.2d 466, 479 (Mo. banc 1982) (the trial judge should act with the purpose of maintaining orderly procedure and expediting the trial without denying the defendant any right to which he is entitled under law.). Moreover, Ferguson has not shown how he was prejudiced. Assuming the trial court erred, Ferguson's challenge still fails. In his Rule 29.15 motion, he did not claim counsel was ineffective for failing to preserve this challenge, and instead, he challenged the trial court's actions and rulings as a matter of trial court error, which, as the motion court properly determined, is not cognizable in a Rule 29.15 proceeding. Nevertheless, Ferguson attempts to transform this claim of trial court error into a cognizable ineffective assistance of counsel claim by citing United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 659-62, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984), for the proposition that external forces can render counsel constitutionally ineffective even when counsel performed as well as a reasonably competent attorney could have performed under the circumstances. This is true, however, only when the likelihood that any lawyer, even a fully competent one, could provide effective assistance is so small that a presumption of prejudice is appropriate without inquiry into the actual conduct of the trial. Id. at 659-60, 104 S.Ct. 2039. Here, such a presumption is not appropriate. Even if Ferguson could overcome the initial hurdle of demonstrating that counsel failed to exercise the customary skill and diligence that a reasonably competent attorney would perform under similar circumstances, he does not show that he was prejudiced by the trial court's actions.