Opinion ID: 853369
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Precedent to Date

Text: To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a petitioner must show two things: (1) the lawyer's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-88, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); and (2) 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. Effectiveness of counsel is a mixed question of law and fact. Id. at 698, 104 S.Ct. 2052. The specific problem presented today is the relationship of Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000), to our decision in State v. Van Cleave, 674 N.E.2d 1293 (Ind.1996), as it relates to the prejudice prong of the analysis. Van Cleave held that to set aside a conviction, a petitioner who has pleaded guilty must establish that there is a reasonable probability that he would not have been convicted had he gone to trial. 674 N.E.2d at 1306. Until Van Cleave, most Indiana courts had cited the passage from Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59, 106 S.Ct. 366, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985), described below, to the effect that it was sufficient to set aside a conviction if the postconviction court concluded that there was a reasonable probability the petitioner would not have pleaded guilty and would have gone to trial. Most, if not all, of these statements were in the course of denying relief for failure to meet even that standard, and do not address how this showing could be made. Nonetheless, this mantra was repeated a number of times without challenge. See, e.g., Burse v. State, 515 N.E.2d 1383, 1385-86 (Ind.1987). Van Cleave, 674 N.E.2d at 1297-98, rejected the Burse formulation, and in doing so relied in part on Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 369, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993). In Fretwell, the United States Supreme Court elaborated on the prejudice prong of Strickland : [A]n analysis focusing solely on mere outcome determination, without attention to whether the result of the proceeding was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, is defective. Fretwell, 506 U.S. at 369, 113 S.Ct. 838. This Court took the view that Fretwell amplified Strickland 's prejudice prong by requiring the petitioner to show that the result of a proceeding was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, in addition to showing that the outcome would have been different but for counsel's mistakes. Williams, however, made clear that Fretwell did not alter the preexisting Strickland showing. In Williams, the United States Supreme Court held that Fretwell did not require a showing that the conviction or sentence was unfair or unreliable to establish the prejudice prong of a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel in all cases. 529 U.S. at 391-93, 120 S.Ct. 1495. Rather, Fretwell applies in the rare instance where the likelihood of a different outcome attributable to an incorrect interpretation of the law should be regarded as a potential `windfall' to the defendant rather than the legitimate `prejudice' contemplated by . . . Strickland. Id. at 392, 120 S.Ct. 1495. Williams made clear that the prejudice is to be measured by the oft-quoted reasonable probability of a different result set forth in Strickland. The issue is therefore whether the conclusion reached in Van Cleave was correct without the support we found in Fretwell for that result.