Opinion ID: 364210
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the adequacy of counsel

Text: 43 Criminal defendants in this circuit have the constitutional right to an advocate whose performance meets a minimum professional standard. United States ex rel. Williams v. Twomey, 510 F.2d 634, 640 (7th Cir. 1975). The defendants here claim their counsel did not meet this constitutionally required minimum standard. 44 In considering a claim of ineffective assistance of counselwe start with a presumption that he was conscious of his duties to his clients and that he sought conscientiously to discharge those duties. The burden of demonstrating the contrary is on his former clients. 45 Matthews v. United States, 518 F.2d 1245, 1246 (7th Cir. 1975). See also, United States ex rel. Ortiz v. Sielaff, 542 F.2d 377 (7th Cir. 1976). We do not feel defendants have succeeded in overcoming the presumption of adequate assistance of counsel. 46 Defendants place primary emphasis on trial counsel's failure to request limiting instructions on the use of statements by co-defendants at the time of their admission and trial counsel's failure to request an instruction on identification. Defendants also allege that trial counsel should have moved to suppress the eyewitness identification of Henry Fleming by Mrs. Cochran and should have objected to the introduction of certain hearsay testimony. 12 47 None of these alleged failures by counsel rise to the level of a constitutional deprivation. As we stated earlier, defense counsel may well have decided not to draw the attention of the jury to damaging testimony by requesting limiting instructions at the time of admission. Nor do we consider the failure to move to suppress the identification of defendants as significant given the extreme unlikelihood that such motion would be granted. 13 We concede that it may have been preferable for counsel to have requested an instruction on identification and objected to the introduction of all hearsay evidence, but we adhere to the view that tactical or strategic errors during trial do not raise a presumption of failure to meet the constitutional guarantee of adequate counsel. United States ex rel. Williams v. Twomey, supra at 640. Were the situation otherwise, there would rarely be a criminal trial where some strategic or tactical error could not be seized upon as demonstrating ineffective assistance of counsel. Finally, we note that we are persuaded, after an independent examination of the record, that defense counsel did a commendable job in attempting to discredit testimony of government witnesses, objecting to the introduction of statements of non-testifying co-defendants as violative of Bruton, making other timely objections, and presenting the evidence in a light most favorable to defendants in opening and closing arguments. 14 48