Opinion ID: 4556289
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Superior Court’s Denial of Green’s Motion

Text: Although Green requested an evidentiary hearing in the Motion, none was held. Instead the commissioner decided the Motion on the papers, which included an eight-hundred-page appendix that contained transcripts of the entire trial, the State’s response to the Motion with exhibits, trial and appellate counsel’s affidavits, and Green’s 36-page reply. The commissioner correctly initiated her analysis with a consideration of the procedural-bar rules found in Superior Court Criminal Rule 61(i), but also considered whether Green’s claims could withstand the prejudice analysis mandated by Strickland v. Washington.33 The commissioner ultimately “recommend[ed] that Green’s motion be denied as procedurally barred by Rule 61(i)(3) and (4) for failure 32 Id. at A908. 33 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984). 18 to prove cause and prejudice and as previously adjudicated.”34 Green filed timely objections to the Commissioner’s Report and Recommendation as permitted by Superior Court Criminal Rule 62(a)(5)(ii). After a cursory discussion of the merits of Green’s ineffective assistance-of-counsel claims, the Superior Court found that Green failed to demonstrate that, but for his trial counsel’s decisions, the outcome would have been different. The court therefore followed the commissioner’s recommendation and denied the Motion. We note—and will discuss in greater detail below—that the court adopted the Commissioner’s Report and Recommendation “in its entirety,”35 thus endorsing the commissioner’s procedural-bar analysis. Green appealed.