Opinion ID: 796039
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cause and Prejudice/Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Text: 71 We note at the outset that [s]o confident is the government of the correctness of its [cause-and-prejudice] argument that it has not deigned to respond to the merits of the appeal. This was a tactical error. The government's confidence is unwarranted. Pasha v. Gonzales, 433 F.3d 530, 532 (7th Cir.2005). For the following reasons, Joseph has established cause and prejudice to excuse his procedural default. 72 Constitutionally [i]neffective assistance of counsel . . . is cause for a procedural default. Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986); see also Edwards v. Carpenter, 529 U.S. 446, 451, 120 S.Ct. 1587, 146 L.Ed.2d 518 (2000) (Not just any deficiency in counsel's performance will do . . .; the assistance must have been so ineffective as to violate the Federal Constitution. In other words, ineffective assistance adequate to establish cause for the procedural default of some other constitutional claim is itself an independent constitutional claim. (citation omitted)). Joseph argues that his procedural default should be excused because his trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to object to the flawed indictment and erroneous jury instructions. Joseph also claims the ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) as an independent claim for habeas relief. 13 Although Joseph must satisfy the AEDPA standard with respect to his independent IAC claim, he need not do so to claim ineffective assistance for the purpose of establishing cause. See Fischetti v. Johnson, 384 F.3d 140, 154-55 (3d Cir.2004). For the reasons discussed below, Joseph has established his IAC claim under the AEDPA standard, which necessarily means that he has also established ineffective assistance for the purpose of establishing cause. 73 IAC claims are governed by the test enunciated in the clearly established Supreme Court precedent of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). First, the defendant must show that counsel's performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the `counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Performance is measured against an objective standard of reasonableness, under prevailing professional norms. Id. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The second component of a Strickland claim is a show[ing] that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. A reasonable probability is less than a preponderance of the evidence, as a defendant need not show that counsel's deficient conduct more likely than not altered the outcome in the case. Id. at 693, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Instead, [a] reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. 74 The Ohio Court of Appeals, which was the last state court to issue a reasoned opinion on the issue, gave the following reasons for rejecting the argument that Joseph's counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the flawed indictment and erroneous jury instructions: 75 The flaw in the specification is very technical in nature, albeit the effect of this flaw has been an issue of significant importance to the case. This flaw in the precise wording of the specification was so subtle that neither the attorneys for the State nor the trial judge noticed it. Defense counsel's failing to notice this flaw does not rise to the level of deficient performance. 76 . . . 77 . . . Simply failing to object to an alleged error is insufficient to sustain a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, unless it is also shown that counsel violated an essential duty owed the client. The [failure to object to the jury instructions] do[es] not amount to deficient conduct resulting in prejudice affecting the fairness of [Joseph's] trial. Joseph I, 1993 WL 531858, at . 14 78 A number of recent cases have emphasized that defense attorneys have a constitutional duty to conduct adequate factual investigations. See, e.g., Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 125 S.Ct. 2456, 162 L.Ed.2d 360 (2005); Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003). Yet it can hardly be doubted that defense lawyers have a constitutional obligation to investigate and understand the law as well. See, e.g., Williams, 529 U.S. at 395, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (noting that counsel failed to conduct an investigation . . . not because of any strategic calculation but because they incorrectly thought that state law barred access to such records.); Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690, 104 S.Ct. 2052 ([S]trategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable . . . . (emphasis added)); Smith v. Dretke, 417 F.3d 438, 442-43 (5th Cir.2005) ([Defense counsel] failed to achieve a rudimentary understanding of the well-settled law of self-defense in Texas. By doing so, he neglected the central issue in his client's case. . . . This misunderstanding could have been corrected with minimal legal research. (footnote omitted)). 79 Here, the principal-offender specification was the only capital specification with which Joseph was charged and therefore was the only reason Joseph faced the death penalty. Thus, it was obviously the critical issue in the case. Simply reading the statute would have revealed that the specification requires the defendant to be the principal offender in the commission of the aggravated murder, not of the kidnapping. And minimal case research would have revealed that being the principal offender in the commission of the aggravated murder means that the defendant must have actually killed the victim. Yet Joseph's trial counsel failed to grasp either of these two basic points, as evidenced by his failure to object to the flawed indictment and erroneous jury instructions. The complete lack of understanding was further confirmed by counsel's own repeated mis-statements of the specification. And it was topped off by his failure to notice that the state conceded that it could not prove that Joseph actually killed the victim. 80 Understanding the elements of the specification that makes a defendant eligible for the death penalty is perhaps the most basic aspect of representing a capital defendant. We think this proposition obvious, but in any event it finds support in the standards for capital defense work articulated by the American Bar Association (ABA)—standards to which [the Supreme Court] long ha[s] referred as `guides to determining what is reasonable.' Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 524, 123 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052). The ABA Guidelines provide that [c]ounsel should conduct independent investigations relating to the guilt/innocence phase and to the penalty phase of a capital trial. ABA GUIDELINES FOR THE APPOINTMENT AND PERFORMANCE OF COUNSEL IN DEATH PENALTY CASES § 11.4.1(A) (1989). Counsel must procure [s]ources of investigative information, the first of which are the charging documents, which should be obtained and examined in the context of the applicable statutes and precedents, to identify . . . the elements of the charged offense(s), including the element(s) alleged to make the death penalty applicable . . . . Id. § 11.4.1(D)(1)(A). 15 In failing to understand even the basic elements of the principal-offender specification, the performance of Joseph's trial counsel was constitutionally deficient. 81 The state court attempted to diminish the failures of Joseph's counsel by calling the error in the specification technical and subtle. We think it inconceivable that a reasonable criminal defense attorney would find the difference between kidnapping and aggravated murder too technical and subtle, especially when this distinction provides the sole basis for receiving the death penalty rather than a life sentence. Under the state court's unreasonably low performance standard, criminal defense lawyers might also be permitted to confuse misdemeanor and felony, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, or even guilty and not guilty. Fortunately for Joseph and other criminal defendants, the prevailing professional norms under which Strickland performance is judged are not as low as the state court would have them. 82 The state court also attempted to minimize the deficiency of Joseph's counsel by noting that he was not the only one to misunderstand the specification—the prosecution and the trial judge similarly erred. We fail to see how the pervasiveness of the error excuses Joseph's counsel's performance. After all, Joseph was represented— and consequently was owed a constitutionally sufficient level of performance—by his counsel, not by the prosecution or the trial judge. Furthermore, when the prosecution and the trial judge are operating under a mistaken view of the law, the performance of defense counsel becomes more important, because he is then the only one left to correct the misunderstanding. Accordingly, we conclude that the state court unreasonably applied Strickland in concluding that the performance of Joseph's trial counsel was constitutionally adequate. 83 The prejudice inquiry is similarly straightforward. If Joseph's trial counsel had objected to the flawed indictment and erroneous jury instruction, then the players at trial would not have labored under an incorrect understanding of the capital specification, and there is a reasonable probability that the outcome would have been different (i.e., that Joseph would not have received a death sentence), in at least three identifiable ways. First, there is a reasonable probability that the prosecution, which conceded that it could not prove that Joseph actually killed the victim, would have declined to charge Joseph with the specification. Second, there is a reasonable probability that, given the prosecution's concession that it could not prove that Joseph actually killed the victim, a properly instructed jury would have found Joseph not guilty of the specification. Third, even if the jury still found Joseph guilty of the specification, there is a reasonable probability that a trial judge with a proper understanding of the specification would have intervened, either by setting aside the verdict after the guilt phase or by rejecting the jury's recommendation of a death sentence after the penalty phase. Thus, we have little trouble concluding that Joseph's defense was prejudiced by his trial counsel's deficient performance, and that the state court unreasonably applied Strickland in concluding otherwise. 84 Having determined that habeas relief is warranted on Joseph's independent IAC claim, it necessarily follows that Joseph has established cause to excuse the procedural default of his indictment and jury-instruction claims. Of course, Joseph must also establish the prejudice component of cause and prejudice. The Supreme Court has declined to provide a general definition of prejudice for purposes of cause and prejudice. United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 168, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982). Nevertheless, the Court has given some instructive content to the term by explaining that one way to establish the prejudice component of cause and prejudice is to establish Brady materiality. Banks v. Dretke, 540 U.S. 668, 691, 698, 124 S.Ct. 1256, 157 L.Ed.2d 1166 (2004); Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 282, 119 S.Ct. 1936, 144 L.Ed.2d 286 (1999). Given that Strickland prejudice is governed by a standard worded similarly to the Brady materiality standard, compare Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 433, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995) ([F]avorable evidence is material, and constitutional error results from its suppression by the government, if there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of the proceeding would have been different. (internal quotation marks omitted)), with Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (The defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.), 16 it follows that establishing Strickland prejudice likewise establishes prejudice for purposes of cause and prejudice. Mincey v. Head, 206 F.3d 1106, 1147 n. 86 (11th Cir.2000), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 926, 121 S.Ct. 1369, 149 L.Ed.2d 297 (2001); Prou v. United States, 199 F.3d 37, 49 (1st Cir.1999). Thus, Joseph has established cause and prejudice to excuse his procedural default. 85 We may now turn to the merits of Joseph's indictment and jury-instruction claims. As we noted above, the state declined to argue the merits of these claims. Therefore, it is not clear that the state is even appealing the district court's resolution of the merits in Joseph's favor. Accordingly, we discuss the merits (which we affirm) only briefly.