Opinion ID: 2010460
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Applying Cronic's Presumption Would Be Bad Public Policy

Text: If the Cronic standard were to be applied to Cooke, as the majority has declared, then a defendant's death penalty conviction could be overturned on Sixth Amendment grounds without any inquiry being made into counsel's actual performance at trial or into whether counsel's strategic decisions had any effect on the trial's outcome. [197] That result would have several detrimental public policy implications. First, the Cronic standard's economic costs are higher. Where a conviction is overturned, the State must decide whether to drop charges, negotiate a plea, or retry the case. In most death penalty cases where the evidence against the defendant is overwhelming and the nature of the crime is heinous, prosecutors are likely to seek a retrial. [198] Because under Cronic no analysis is undertaken to determine if any alleged error on the part of counsel could have or actually did play a substantial role in the defendant's conviction, the State would be forced to retry the cases. Thus, tax payers would effectively pay twice for retrial of cases where the evidence of guilt is so overwhelming that the second trial will almost unquestionably result in the same outcome as the first. Second, using Cronic as a metric for counsel's performance in a case such as this would negatively affect a defendant's ability to obtain the very counsel the Sixth Amendment requires. Not only is the right to counsel constitutionally protected, but also there are important practical reasons why it is required. Our judicial system is designed to promote the ultimate objective that the guilty be convicted and the innocent go free. [199] The right to counsel is important because it helps ensure that innocent individuals are not found guilty simply because they are ignorant of their constitutional rights. [200] The right to counsel mitigates that concern, because access to counsel's skill and knowledge is necessary to accord defendants the `ample opportunity to meet the case of the prosecution' to which they are entitled. [201] The majority's restriction of counsel's strategic options in capital cases would undermine defendants' right to counsel in two important ways. First, attorneys may be unwilling to serve in capital cases because of the intense scrutiny to which they would be subjected. Intensive scrutiny of counsel and rigid requirements for acceptable assistance could dampen the ardor and impair the independence of defense counsel, discourage the acceptance of assigned cases, and undermine the trust between attorney and client. [202] Finding counsel who are, both willing and able to take on capital cases constitutes a more severe problem than in ordinary criminal cases, because death penalty cases are so fundamentally different. Capital cases require perceptions, attitudes, preparation, training, and skills that ordinary criminal defense attorneys may lack. [203] Because most attorneys are neither capable of nor willing to handle a capital case, it is essential that the small percentage of attorneys trained in capital cases be willing to accept assignment. If attorneys with the skills to try capital cases are unwilling to do so, it will be difficult for Delaware to ensure that defendants receive adequate counsel. Even where attorneys are willing to defend capital defendants, there is a danger that the quality of their work could suffer. Defending capital defendants is a difficult job involving long hours, little pay, and extremely difficult decisions. There is a strong possibility that second guessing and criticizing every move that defense attorneys make could lead to systemic demoralization that would adversely effect the effort counsel invest in defending their clients. We conclude that the Majority applies the wrong standard for scrutinizing counsel's efforts, even though the Majority concedes that the litmus test is: [w]hether 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. The majority errs by focusing on counsel's obligation to acquiesce in Cooke's objective, rather than on whether Cooke received a fair trial with reasonably effective assistance of counsel that produced a just result. Nowhere does the Majority even suggest that a new trial where counsel blindly follows Cooke's irrational position would produce a more just outcome. Therefore, we respectfully dissent.