Opinion ID: 852583
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Effect of Deck

Text: As already explained, Roche found prejudice from failure to object to restraints, and Wrinkles rejected it. Both cases used the Strickland standard of a reasonable probability of a different result. Deck now teaches that prejudice from shackling is governed by the inherently prejudicial standard for constitutional error under Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). 544 U.S. at 635, 125 S.Ct. 2007. Rather than placing the burden on the defendant-petitioner to show a reasonable probability of a different result, an inherently prejudicial error requires the State to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the error has no effect on the ultimate resolution of the trial. Deck, therefore, establishes a stronger presumption of reversible error from failure to object to shackling than the Seventh Circuit applied in Roche or we applied in Wrinkles. We think, however, that Deck does not relieve the petitioner in post-conviction proceedings from the burden of establishing both the substandard performance and prejudice prongs of an ineffective assistance claim. Before Deck was decided, most claims of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object to shackles or jail garb were rejected based on lack of prejudice, even though the court explicitly or implicitly assumed substandard performance. We find only one published opinion that has addressed this issue after Deck. [5] The Eleventh Circuit, in Marquard v. Secretary for Department of Corrections, 429 F.3d 1278 (11th Cir.2005), addressed a post-conviction claim of ineffective assistance for failure to object to shackling at the penalty phase of a Florida death penalty case. There was no shackling at the guilt phase, but the defendant appeared in shackles at the penalty phase, and there was no inquiry establishing the necessity of shackles. The trial and direct appeal had occurred before Deck was handed down. In 2002, the Florida Supreme Court denied post-conviction relief. Like most pre- Deck decisions, that ruling addressed the claim of ineffective assistance for failure to object to shackling solely by finding no prejudice. Marquard v. State, 850 So.2d 417, 431 (Fla.2002). The primary issue in federal habeas, therefore, was the retroactivity of Deck's holdings that (1) unnecessary shackling at the penalty phase violated the Fourteenth Amendment and (2) its harmlessness must be established beyond a reasonable doubt. The Eleventh Circuit rejected Marquard's claim of ineffective assistance for three reasons. The first two grounds  Deck is not retroactive and counsel were not ineffective for failure to anticipate Deck's extension of the shackling ban to the penalty phase  do not resolve Stephenson's claim because Stephenson appeared in the stun belt at the guilt phase of his trial. The Eleventh Circuit also offered a third ground. The habeas court concluded that in a direct appeal Deck shifted the burden to the state to prove harmlessness of shackling without a specific-needs inquiry, but Deck did not address, much less alter, the burden and different required prejudice showing on Marquard's IAC shackling claim. Marquard, 429 F.3d at 1313. As a result, the defendant had the burden to establish prejudice under the Strickland standard. The law at the time of Marquard's direct appeal would not have supported either his claim of error for unnecessary shackling at the penalty phase or a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object to shackling at the penalty phase. It is clear that lack of retroactivity does not bar Stephenson's ineffective assistance claim at the guilt phase. The novel proposition in Deck was that shackling during the death penalty phase violates the Fourteenth Amendment. At the time of Stephenson's trial, the points relevant to the guilt phase were already established law: unnecessarily shackling at the guilt phase of trial (or at trial in a non-death case) violates the Fourteenth Amendment; jail garb is inherently prejudicial; and the State bears the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that an inherently prejudicial practice had no effect on the determination of guilt or the penalty. In short, the principles set forth in Deck that are relevant to Stephenson's case were all established by earlier precedent. Marquard therefore did not directly address the situation we have before us, where Stephenson's stun belt at the guilt phase required a specific-needs inquiry under the law in place at the time of his trial and direct appeal. We nevertheless think Marquard is correct that Strickland governs the prejudice prong of Stephenson's claim of ineffective assistance for failure to object to shackling.