Opinion ID: 853980
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Use it or lose it

Text: The State maintains that the issue of trial counsel's effectiveness is known on direct appeal and therefore waived if not presented. This view would not differentiate at all among the various types of contentions that may support a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. There appear to be only a few states and no federal circuits adhering to that approach, cf. note 15 infra, and with good reason. As tribunals of last (or at least not first) resort, appellate courts review the work of other courts as reflected in the record. We agree with the Tenth Circuit that in the context of assessing ineffectiveness claims, typically a factual record must be developed in and addressed by the [trial] court in the first instance for effective review. United States v. Galloway, 56 F.3d 1239, 1240 (10th Cir.1995) (en banc) (footnote omitted). Where the record is incomplete, the reviewing court is poorly positioned to address the merits; nor does it have any reasonable ability to engage in factfinding or take new evidence. The State's approach might be more palatable if ineffective assistance were commonly easily resolved based on the trial record, but as already noted it often is not. Nor would a blanket ban on raising ineffective assistance of counsel in postconviction proceedings be fair to the defendant. Because of the presumption of competence, extrinsic evidence is needed in many cases: When the only record on which a claim of ineffective assistance is based is the trial record, every indulgence will be given to the possibility that a seeming lapse or error by defense counsel was in fact a tactical move, flawed only in hindsight. It is no surprise that such claims almost always fail. Taglia, 922 F.2d at 417-18. In addition, the rule that the State proposes appears to leave no place for ineffectiveness claims, such as counsel's undisclosed conflict of interest, not reasonably knowable until after direct appeal. Even under a use it or lose it approach, the question is not whether an evidentiary hearing will be held in some cases, but rather what procedure is available to develop the record. We disagree with the State that allowing appellate counsel to supplement the record in a hearing on a motion to correct error is sufficient where an appellate court concludes that additional evidence is needed. First, this implicitly requires appellate counsel to investigate facts outside the record in a frequently futile effort to unearth all possible ineffective assistance claims for presentation on direct appeal. As elaborated in Part V below, expecting appellate lawyers to look outside the record for error is unreasonable in light of the realities of appellate practice. Direct appeal counsel should not be forced to become a second trial counsel. Appellate lawyers may have neither the skills nor the resources nor the time to investigate extra-record claims, much less to present them coherently and persuasively to the trial court. Requiring any claim to be raised on direct appeal under pain of waiver forces upon appellate counsel a nasty dilemma: if he seeks reversal on the basis of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, the judgment is almost certain to be affirmed, barring the raising of the issue in collateral proceedings; if he does not, the government may contend in any collateral proceeding that he should have. Guinan, 6 F.3d at 472. Second, even if extra-record investigation were a fair burden to place on appellate counsel, we see little point in forcing the claim to be squeezed into the Procrustean bed of a motion to correct error. That procedure has never been viewed as a substitute for postconviction relief. Langley v. State, 256 Ind. 199, 204, 267 N.E.2d 538, 541 (1971) (motion to correct error provides an expeditious means by which a trial judge may have an opportunity to first correct his own errors while the circumstances surrounding the alleged error are still fresh in his memory). Moreover, some forms of ineffective assistance do not fit within any recognized ground for either a Trial Rule 59 or Trial Rule 60 motion. Both rules contemplate either error or new evidence that with reasonable diligence, could not have been discovered and produced at trial. Ind. Trial Rule 59(A)(1). The thrust of an ineffective assistance claim is often neither of these, but rather that trial counsel failed to present relevant evidence. To be sure, such a claim could be presented as any other ground under Rule 60(B)(8) (if it is within one year), but there is little reason to prefer that mode over a postconviction proceeding in the same court that can be conducted by counsel equipped to present it independent of any errors alleged on direct appeal. [13] Even if these procedures were a good fit for review of ineffective assistance claims, any attempt to adjudicate the adequacy of trial representation in a motion to correct error creates yet another round of litigationwith further expense and delay between the trial and postconviction proceeding. A use it or lose it rule has other undesirable consequences. A state-court finding of procedural default generally precludes review of the merits of the claim in federal collateral proceedings. [14] Thus if an ineffectiveness claim is waived if not presented on direct appeal, it may never be addressed on the merits by any court. The narrowing of federal habeas review since the 1970s reflects increasing deference to state courts in adjudication of federal constitutional claims arising out of state criminal trials: The States possess primary authority for defining and enforcing the criminal law. In criminal trials they also hold the initial responsibility of vindicating constitutional rights. Federal intrusions into state criminal trials frustrate both the States' sovereign power to punish offenders and their good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights. Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 128, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982) (citation omitted). Hence as a matter of procedural fairness a finding of waiver by an Indiana court must be predicated on a meaningful opportunity to litigate the claim. Alternatively, if an ineffectiveness claim found to be waived in our courts is nonetheless addressed on the merits in federal court, this State will have foregone the opportunity to correct the possible error before federal review of our judicial process. One goal of our postconviction rules is to minimize the level of federal constitutional error before federal review of the conviction: [O]ne of the functions of our post conviction remedy rules is to preserve what sanctity remains to this [S]tate's disposition of a criminal charge by allowing a convicted criminal defendant ample opportunity to present claims for relief in the courts of this state before resort must be had to the federal courts. Langley, 256 Ind. at 204, 267 N.E.2d at 541. An unnecessarily or unfairly restrictive waiver rule would frustrate this purpose. [15] The suggestion has been made that unless ineffectiveness is required to be raised on direct appeal, an excessive volume of postconviction evidentiary hearings will be required. However, if a hearing is necessary, it is not a significantly different burden on trial courts to consider the allegations of a postconviction claim for relief as opposed to the alternative of mid-appeal hearings. Moreover, not every claim requires a second hearing. Even if an ineffectiveness claim is preserved for postconviction review, it may be resolvable by a postconviction court without a hearing for failure to allege facts either in the current record or to be proved in an evidentiary hearingestablishing attorney incompetence. And because a postconviction claim may be disposed of by summary judgment, the procedures for piercing pleadings are available to resolve the matter without a hearing if there is no genuine issue of material fact. Ind. Post-Conviction Rule 1(4)(g); State v. Daniels, 680 N.E.2d 829, 831-32 (Ind.1997).