Opinion ID: 4520930
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: C.’s credibility.

Text: Under Strickland, counsel’s “strategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable.” 466 U.S. at 690. “[C]ounsel cannot be adjudged incompetent for performing in a particular way in a case, as long as the approach taken might be considered sound trial strategy.” Chandler v. United States, 218 F.3d 1305, 1314 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted). For a petitioner to show that his counsel’s conduct was unreasonable, he must establish that “no 27 Case: 15-15793 Date Filed: 03/31/2020 Page: 28 of 29 competent counsel would have taken the action that his counsel did take.” Id. at 1315. Here, the Fourth District reasonably applied Strickland by determining that counsel’s failure to object to certain hearsay testimony that bolstered V.C.’s credibility did not constitute ineffective assistance. See Lundberg, 127 So. 3d at 568–69. It is true that Mr. Lundberg’s counsel likely could have raised successful objections to the testimony in question. For example, V.C.’s parents and aunt testified that they initially did not believe V.C., but later could see that she was telling the truth; V.C.’s father testified that he took V.C. to a counselor, who told him that he believed V.C.’s allegations “without a doubt”; and Detective Dennis testified that she believed V.C. was not deceptive. The Fourth District nonetheless found that counsel’s failure to object to hearsay testimony that bolstered V.C.’s credibility constituted part of his trial strategy, see Lundberg, 127 So. 3d at 568–69, and we conclude that its ruling did not constitute an unreasonable application of Strickland. Mr. Lundberg’s counsel explained that because the trial court did not suppress Mr. Lundberg’s confession to Ms. Figueroa, he chose a strategy designed to discredit V.C.’s testimony, and highlight Ms. Cassaude’s possible manipulation of V.C. At trial, counsel focused on revealing to the jury all the efforts that V.C.’s parents made to determine that she was telling the truth. Such an approach could permit the jury 28 Case: 15-15793 Date Filed: 03/31/2020 Page: 29 of 29 to conclude that reasonable doubt existed because even V.C.’s parents did not initially believe her. On this record, the Fourth District reasonably concluded that counsel engaged in a reasonable trial strategy based on his consideration of the facts and law of the case. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690. The district court therefore properly denied relief on this claim.