Opinion ID: 1188886
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: This court's bias against Riley and his counsel for filing a class action federal lawsuit challenging SCR 250, which requires strict adherence to death penalty briefing schedules.

Text: In addition to Riley's ineffective assistance claims, he argues that he was denied actual assistance of counsel on his direct appeal because this court was biased against him and his attorney for filing a class action lawsuit in federal court challenging this court's rule requiring strict adherence to an expedited briefing schedule in capital cases. Riley cites no case law discussing actual assistance of counsel, including how such a claim would relate to the alleged bias or prejudice of the court before whom the defendant and counsel appear. Accordingly, he presents no authority for his claim. Although we would be warranted in refusing to consider Riley's claim for those reasons, we briefly discuss this claim. Riley's claim is, essentially, that his direct appeal was denied because of this court's bias against him. Riley claims that Justice Young's stinging dissent, which stated that Dahl should have been sanctioned for his dilatory conduct in failing to meet required and court-ordered deadlines, see 107 Nev. at 323-26, is evidence of bias against him. Riley also points out that he holds a record for the quickest denial of appeal of a death penalty case in the history of the State of Nevada. Reliance on these factors for the conclusion that this court is biased springs from pure speculation and implications that this court will not remain objective in deciding a death penalty case because it is upset with a lawyer for suing the court. Since there is nothing in the record to support these claims, and since Riley has presented no supplemental materials supporting these claims, we must assume that they are without support. Riley also argues, without further analysis, that [c]ounsel spent more time and energy fighting the court system than he did in preparing Riley's appeal. To the extent that this is an argument that counsel was therefore without time to represent him effectively on appeal, this argument must fail. This court engaged in an extensive review of the facts and law pertaining to all of Riley's claimed assignments of error. Thus, even if counsel had filed deficient appellate briefs that constituted performance below an objective standard of reasonableness, this court's analysis (the thoroughness of which is evidenced by a complete discussion of each of Riley's claimed points of error) precludes a finding of prejudice resulting from such a deficiency. Accordingly, Riley's claims of bias and ineffective assistance on appeal based on inadequate appellate briefing are without merit.