Opinion ID: 580722
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Lack of Effective Assistance of Counsel

Text: 52 Stone finally contends that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. He makes the following arguments in support of his position: (1) that the district court refused to allow his trial counsel to withdraw in the face of a clear conflict of interest; (2) that the district court's scheduling interfered with the representation by his new trial counsel (who represented Stone jointly with the initial attorney); (3) that the district court interfered with his counsel's cross-examination at various points in the trial; (4) that the prosecutor made an improper remark about defense counsel during closing argument to which defense counsel failed to object; (5) that defense counsel blundered in introducing the evidence about Mock, because that evidence enabled the government to elicit testimony that the police had previously seized a methamphetamine lab from Stone's address. 53 Several of these complaints--such as the scheduling issue and the alleged interference with cross-examination--are not in reality claims based on ineffective assistance of counsel; if Stone cannot identify error in the district court's scheduling or evidentiary rulings themselves, then whatever disadvantage they caused him was not attributable to counsel. Nor do we perceive any reversible error in the district court's rulings referenced in (2) and (3) above or in the prosecutor's comment referenced in (4) above. Ineffective assistance of counsel was not raised below, so even the points that are genuine claims of this nature are not properly reviewable on this direct appeal. See United States v. Armendariz-Mata, 949 F.2d 151, 156 (5th Cir.1991); United States v. Higdon, 832 F.2d 312, 313-14 (5th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1075, 108 S.Ct. 1051, 98 L.Ed.2d 1013 (1988). 11