Opinion ID: 1768435
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Whether Petitioner was denied the right to the effective assistance of counsel on appeal.

Text: ¶ 47. Goodin argues that he was denied adequate representation on direct appeal, and that there was a reasonable probability that, if he had been adequately represented, the result of his appeal would have been different. Goodin states that appellate counsel failed to raise a majority of the prosecutorial misconduct claims available; failed to raise the dying declaration issue; and failed to raise trial counsel's conduct as to the mental health/insanity/competency issue ¶ 48. Appellate counsel did raise one issue concerning misconduct over closing argument, which this Court seemed to find meritorious, except for the fact that Goodin was overwhelmingly guilty, which made the prosecutor's conduct irrelevant. It does not appear that this Court would have found any of the other issues concerning misconduct to amount to reversible error, if they had been raised, where the previous issue did not rise to this level. In addition, these other issues would have been procedurally barred on direct appeal because there was no contemporaneous objection at trial. This Court finds that failure to raise these other issues was not ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. ¶ 49. As to dying declaration, the merits of that issue are discussed next. In summary, this Court finds that the trial court did not err in admitting the statement of Willis Rigdon; therefore, appellate counsel was not ineffective for failure to raise it on direct appeal. ¶ 50. As to mental health/insanity/competency, there is little in the appeal record to make much of an argument. None of the reports made by either Dr. O'Brien or Dr. Guild were made a part of this record in Goodin's direct appeal. Judge Gordon made no findings on the record and entered no orders on the mental capacity of Goodin. Goodin took the stand and testified. While his testimony may not have been articulate or effective, this testimony did not demonstrate that Goodin was insane. This issue is without merit.