Opinion ID: 1382779
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutional Effectiveness of George's Trial Counsel

Text: George asks for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on the grounds that he was convicted without the effective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether counsel's conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). To establish that his counsel's performance was constitutionally ineffective, George must show that his counsel's performance was below an objective standard of reasonableness and that the deficient performance actually prejudiced him. Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
We can quickly dispense with George's claim that his lawyer should have objected when the prosecutor elicited testimony from the victim about his sexual orientation. George raised this claim below (and in Wisconsin) on the grounds that his conviction was secured through a violation of state law. This, of course, does not make out a claim for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which covers only prisoners in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a); see Lambert v. Davis, 449 F.3d 774, 778-79 (7th Cir.2006) (citing Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 68, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991)). Converting the claim to an ineffective assistance claim would not get him anywhere either. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals agreed with his lawyer's interpretation of the statute and found that the evidence was properly admitted. We are obviously not going to displace Wisconsin's interpretation of its own law with our own, much less find George's counsel ineffective for adopting a view of Wisconsin law that has been ratified by the state's appeals court. See Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 691, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975) ([S]tate courts are the ultimate expositors of state law and ... we are bound by their constructions except in extreme circumstances not present here. (citation omitted)). This claim must therefore fail.
The parties dispute whether George's failure to cross-examine claim was reached on the merits in Wisconsin court, although the state does not dispute that the issue has been properly preserved. Whether the state courts reached the issue matters only for the purpose of the standard of review we should apply. George raised this ineffectiveness issue in an identical form in the Wisconsin courts in his postconviction motion for a new trial, his brief on his direct appeal to the Wisconsin court of appeals, his reply brief on direct appeal, and his petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. If any of the Wisconsin courts ruled on the merits of the issue, our review is constrained by the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). See Canaan v. McBride, 395 F.3d 376, 382 (7th Cir.2005) ([The AEDPA] standard only applies ... to a claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings. (quotation omitted)). If AEDPA does not apply, we review the state court decisions as law and justice require, a more generous standard. Id. at 383 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2243). The district court found that the ineffectiveness issues had been ruled on by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals and that the court held that the decision not to impeach the complaining witness was one of strategy. Such an application of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), the district court found, was not unreasonable or contrary to Supreme Court precedent. We are not sure that the state court was so clear about this issue. The Wisconsin court divided George's claims into five classes, ranging from general claims of ineffectiveness to more specific allegations of failure. It appears that the specific claim before usthe failure to cross-examine claim was treated in the former class of general claims of ineffectiveness. The court wrote: Several of George's claims of ineffective assistance failed because he did not call appropriate witnesses at the postconviction hearing. The only witnesses called at the postconviction hearing were George, his trial attorney and an Appleton police officer who investigated the [George's] uncharged earlier incidents of sexual assault and intimidation by weapons. None of these witnesses' testimony established trial counsel's deficient performance or prejudice. George alleges ineffective assistance because his counsel failed to investigate some defenses, did not call witnesses to support those defenses and did not effectively cross-examine [the victim] about drinking and drug use. He faults his counsel for not producing jail inmates to impeach [the victim's] testimony and for not locating other motel guests to learn whether they heard anything during the assaults. To prevail on these issues, George was required to call these witnesses at the Machner hearing to establish that they were willing to testify and that they would have provided exculpatory information. Without the testimony from these witnesses, it would be pure speculation to conclude that his defense was prejudiced by his counsel's failure to present their testimony. George, 2004 WL 1276965, at , ¶ 10 (footnote omitted). There's a lot therebut notably missing is an analysis of the specific claim we are considering here. We could infer, as the district court did, that the Wisconsin court found that the absence of witnesses doomed the claim, but we hesitate to apply a stricter standard of review without a clearer indication that Wisconsin fully considered George's claim on the merits. See Canaan, 395 F.3d at 382 (As a practical matter, a federal court cannot apply the deferential standard provided by § 2254(d) in the absence of any state court decision on the issue.); see also Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 534, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003) (In this case, our review is not circumscribed by a state court conclusion with respect to prejudice, as neither of the state courts below reached this prong of the Strickland analysis.). Unfortunately for George, our standard of review matters little because even under the more generous standard, the claim must fail. At the outset, we note that we can conceive of a case in which a failure to impeach a testifying victim who lied about his sexual orientation would satisfy the Strickland test for deficient performance causing prejudice to the defendant. The problem for the defendant here is that he has given us no reason to think that this is that case. From the petitioner's brief, here is the entire factual basis of George's ineffectiveness claim: During the postconviction hearing, Mr. George testified that he told counsel, prior to trial, that [the victim] had had a homosexual relationship with someone at the restaurant where he worked: Question: Did you tell [trial counsel] that [the victim] had had a homosexual relationship with someone at Apollon Restaurant? Mr. George: Yes, I did. Pet'r Br. 31. This is not enough. To be entitled to federal habeas relief from a state court judgment, a petitioner must show that he is being held in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States. Gross v. Knight, 560 F.3d 668, 671 (7th Cir.2009) (emphasis added). To prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, George  must show that (1) his counsel's performance was deficient; and (2) this deficient performance prejudiced him. Id. (emphasis added). The responsibility is on the petitioner to overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (quotation omitted). It is incumbent on the petitioner to identify the acts or omissions of counsel that are alleged not to have been the result of reasonable professional judgment. Id. at 690, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Similarly, the petitioner must  affirmatively prove  the prejudice prong of his Strickland claim and  show that [the errors] actually had an adverse effect on the defense. Id. at 693, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (emphasis added). To demonstrate prejudice from counsel's deficient performance, `a defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.' Pole v. Randolph, 570 F.3d 922, 934 (7th Cir.2009) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052) (emphasis added). If a defendant is unable to make a sufficient showing on either component of the Strickland standard, we need not consider the other component. Id. (emphasis added). In other words, in Strickland, the Supreme Court made clear that a habeas petitioner has an obligation to show us why his counsel was ineffective. George just hasn't done so. Keep in mind that we are the fifth court to consider this claim. Petitioner has to give us some specific reason to believe that the other four courts got it wrong and that he is being detained in violation of the Constitution. Speculation based on hindsight is insufficient to make this showing. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Here, in order for us to grant the writ George seeks, he needs to offer some basis for us to believe that a witness was available to testify to the victim's sexual orientation and that there was a reasonable probability that this witness's testimony would have made a difference in the outcome of the trial. We have no idea who would testify about the victim's sexual orientation, the nature of the witness's relationship with the victim, or any hint as to the credibility of the testimony. [1] All of these factors would be important to both prongs of the Strickland analysis. Perhaps George would argue that the problem is not his counsel's failure to interrogate a particular witness but rather that his counsel should have pursued the leads that George offered him. For such a claim, he would need to prove that there was a witness who could have testified credibly about the victim's sexuality, that his counsel knew or should have known about the witness, and that there was a reasonable probability that such a witness's testimony would have made a difference in the outcome of his case. See id. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Once again, George's hint that there was a coworker of the victim who had a homosexual encounter or relationship with the victim is not enough. Faced with this need to affirmatively prove the ineffectiveness of his counsel, George has only offered us a reed that is far too thin to support his failure to investigate claim. See id. at 691, 104 S.Ct. 2052 ([A] particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to counsel's judgments.). Given the sparsity of details, we are unprepared to make a blanket assumption that a victim of a homosexual assault would necessarily be effectively impeached by revelations of a prior homosexual relationship. The relevance of the prior sexual relationship to the homosexual assault and the shame associated in reporting it is not obvious and should have been developed by the petitioner. It seems to us that, for instance, a homosexual man may be just as embarrassed about reporting sexual assault as a heterosexual man who suffered the same assault. As such, without more facts, George cannot show that counsel's failure to impeach the victim's testimony regarding his sexual orientation was unreasonable or prejudicial. Finally, we should mention that George's case did not turn in any sense on the sexual orientation of the victim. The defense George offered was not a consent defense. He denied that the assault ever happened and that the victim made it up to avoid paying a debt of $900 (the debt led to the initial confrontation on the streets of Appleton). But, George could not overcome the undisputed evidence at trial that showed that he was involved in an altercation at the victim's house, that the victim's abduction was serious enough for his friends to call the police, and that George took the victim to a hotel room in Green Bay. A consent defense may have made sense in clearing up the details within the evening's undisputed time frame (for example, it could have been argued that the evidence tended to show that the evening turned from a hostile one to a more companionable one). But the trial strategy was instead a direct attack on the victim's entire story. The choice to pursue this defense is not challenged and such a decision falls squarely within the realm of trial strategy and is thus subject to a strong presumption that the decision constituted effective advocacy. See id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052; Smith v. Gaetz, 565 F.3d 346, 354 (7th Cir.2009) (It is not this court's role to play Monday-morning quarterback concerning which was the better of two viable trial strategies.). At no point, not even in this court, does George assert that he had a consensual sexual encounter with the victim; perhaps because that is not true or perhaps because he would find such an assertion embarrassing or compromising of some other relationship. But there is no point in speculating about a defense that was not pursued. In the context of the defense George did present, the complaining witness's sexual orientation was at best a side issue. Failure to pursue this line of inquiry was not unreasonable and George's conviction was therefore not a result of a breakdown in the adversary process. Id. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052.