Court Opinion

ID: 9485937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:34:11.859821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:27.231552
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Like my colleagues, I yearn for a system under which one appeal resolves the entire case. Unfortunately, ineffective assistance of counsel eludes once-and-for-all disposition. Trial counsel cannot be expected to attack his own performance, and a new lawyer representing the defendant on appeal finds that it is impossible to upset a conviction by pointing to his predecessor’s actions. Why impossible? Because the absence of a complete record prevents definitive action. No matter how odd or deficient trial counsel’s performance may seem, that lawyer may have had a reason for acting as he did. Compare United States v. Myers, 892 F.2d 642 (7th Cir.1990), with United States v. Myers, 917 F.2d 1008 (7th Cir.1990). Or it may turn out that counsel’s overall performance was sufficient despite a glaring omission, or that the shortcoming did not prejudice the defendant. Compare United States ex rel. Cross v. DeRobertis, 811 F.2d 1008 (7th Cir.1987), with Cross v. O’Leary, 896 F.2d 1099 (7th Cir.1990). See Lockhart v. Fretwell, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993); Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The trial judge is best situated to assess overall performance and prejudice, yet a claim of ineffective assistance presented on direct appeal asks the court of appeals to act without the district judge’s views. The most any defendant can hope for is a remand to permit the development of the record. No surprise, then, that my colleagues have been unable to find a single case in which this circuit reversed a conviction on direct appeal because of deficient performance by trial counsel. The tenth circuit did this once, only to be reminded that a larger record was essential to evaluate counsel’s performance. United *474States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 667 (1984).
Rules of procedure should be designed to induce litigants to present their contentions to the right tribunal at the right time. For ineffective assistance, the court of appeals on direct appeal is the wrong tribunal at the wrong time. My colleagues recognize this. They say that a defendant whose trial lawyer represents him on appeal, or who needs additional evidence to make an effective argument of ineffective assistance, may present the argument under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 without risk of forfeiture. What puzzles me is their further conclusion that, if the defendant has a new lawyer on appeal, then counsel must take a futile step in order to preserve his client’s entitlement to judicial review of the trial lawyer’s performance. Having taken this doomed step, the defendant is foreclosed from making additional arguments under § 2255.
There are two loopholes: (a) if at the time of the direct appeal it “reasonably appeared that new evidence might be necessary” (opinion at 472), then the claim is preserved for litigation under § 2255; (b) if an important event occurs after the direct appeal, as it did in this case, the defendant then may present all of his grievances so that counsel’s performance may be assessed as a whole. From my perspective, these exceptions mean that a claim always is preserved for later resolution, because new evidence is always necessary if the defendant is to have a glimmer of success. An ineffective-assistance claim may be rejected routinely on the trial record, but it cannot prevail. Consider Guinan’s argument “that his trial counsel was inexperienced, unprepared, and failed to call crucial witnesses”, which the majority characterizes as “precisely the type of complaint that should be presented on direct appeal.” Opinion at 473. Inexperience or unpreparedness, divorced from concrete injury, is legally irrelevant; so Cronic holds. Failure to call essential witnesses might show both deficient performance and prejudice, but on direct appeal all we will have is defendant’s say-so that an uncalled witness was critical. To have any hope of success, the defendant must enlarge the record with affidavits establishing what testimony the witness would have provided if called, and demonstrate that his lawyer was actually aware of this potential testimony or grossly deficient in failing to find out about it. This is precisely the type of complaint that should not be presented on direct appeal. It must be developed in an evidentiary hearing.
My colleagues’ approach, establishing a rale of forfeiture when ineffective-assistance claims that could have been raised on the trial record are bypassed, makes sense only on the assumption that arguments of this kind should be presented as a rule — not in the exceptional case, but day in and day out. If new evidence1 is sometimes necessary and sometimes not, then district judges must inquire which is which before proceeding under § 2255. Far from simplifying and expediting the process of resolving ineffective-assistance claims, the majority’s approach complicates and extends it. Any lawyer worth his salt (and any pro se prisoner aware of this decision) will attach an affidavit or two to the motion under § 2255 and request an eviden-tiary hearing. The district judge will have to decide whether this additional evidence is necessary — and whether it “reasonably appeared” necessary to appellate counsel handling the direct appeal. Such a decision may be difficult to make without the testimony of appellate counsel, narrating his thinking in selecting issues for that appeal.
Bond v. United States, 1 F.3d 631 (7th Cir.1993), applying the approach of United States v. Taglia, 922 F.2d 413, 418 (7th Cir.1991), shows the nature of the problem. The district court denied a motion under § 2255 without reaching the merits, reasoning that thé record on the original appeal was enough to support an ineffective-assistance claim even though the defendant filed new information with the § 2255 motion. We disagreed with that assessment of the record and directed the district judge to hold a further hearing. Today the majority supplements the objective approach of Bond and Taglia with a subjective overlay: whether it “appeared” to counsel (“reasonably,” of course) that the record was sufficient at the time of the appeal. I doubt that this can be called a simplification. Would it not be better to *475adopt a clear rule that ineffective-assistance claims may be raised under § 2255?
No principle of forfeiture we can establish alters the fact that in most cases an ineffective-assistance claim is best raised under § 2255. We can, however, require the parties and the district judges to search for needles in haystacks — to seek out the rare claim that could have been raised on direct appeal, and deem it waived. Instead of conducting this inquiry, only to conclude 99.44% of the time that the record on direct appeal was indeed inadequate (or “reasonably appeared” so) — or that appellate counsel was ineffective in failing to appreciate that trial counsel’s defects should have been presented to the panel hearing the direct appeal (ouch!) — the district court could turn straight to the merits. In most cases the claim may be dispatched expeditiously, as it was in this ease. The few ineffective-assistance cases in which the defendant has a serious argument escape forfeiture under my colleagues’ view (because, as I keep emphasizing, the trial record is always inadequate to support a successful claim of ineffective assistance). Inquiring whether a claim could have been raised on direct appeal thus has little potential to simplify collateral litigation and some potential to complicate it.
Two years ago we set a case for hearing in bane to decide whether, given the foredoomed outcome of ineffective-assistance claims on direct appeal, we should remit these contentions to § 2255. As the panel observed in United States v. Castillo, 965 F.2d 238, 243 (7th Cir.1992), every circuit is willing to tackle such contentions, if defendants are foolish enough to present them. See also Cronic, 466 U.S. at 667 n. 42, 104 S.Ct. at 2051 n. 42. “May present” does not imply “must present.” Whether failure to put one’s head on the chopping block surrenders an opportunity to use § 2255 continues to divide the circuits. Compare Billy-Eko v. United States, 968 F.2d 281, 283 (2d Cir.1992) (new appellate counsel’s failure to make ineffective-assistance claim on direct appeal bars resort to § 2255 in absence of cause and prejudice), vacated on confession of error, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 2989, 125 L.Ed.2d 685 (1993), and Beaulieu v. United States, 930 F.2d 805, 807 (10th Cir.1991) (same), with United States v. Casiano, 929 F.2d 1046, 1051 (5th Cir.1991) (use of § 2255 permissible unless deliberate’ bypass on direct appeal), and United States v. Schaflander, 743 F.2d 714, 717 (9th Cir.1984). Today’s majority steers a middle course, retaining a forfeiture rule with an escape hatch. The United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois supports this result, but his superiors do not. When asking the Supreme Court to permit Billy-Éko to present his contentions of ineffective assistance under § 2255, the Solicitor General concluded that “the preferable result from the perspective of the federal criminal justice system as a whole is that'[a defendant] should not be required [to raise an ineffective-assistance claim on direct appeal], and that he therefore need not show cause for' failing to do so in order to raise the claim in a motion under Section 2255.” Brief for the United States in Billy-Eko v. United States, No. 92-7897 (October Term 1992).
Three courts of appeals have held that ineffective-assistance claims are forfeited when not presented on direct appeal. The Solicitor General has confessed error on all three. I have mentioned Billy-Eko, from the second circuit. For others see Chappell v. United States, 878 F.2d 384 (7th Cir.1989) (table), vacated on confession of error, 494 U.S. 1075, 110 S.Ct. 1800, 108 L.Ed.2d 931 (1990); Diaz-Albertini v. United States, unpublished (10th Cir.1990), vacated, 498 U.S. 1061, 111 S.Ct. 776, 112 L.Ed.2d 839 (1991) (the Solicitor General doubted the court’s rationale but defended its judgment; the Supreme Court directed the tenth circuit to reconsider). Prosecutors may jettison devices limiting the scope of collateral review. E.g., Godinez v. Moran, — U.S. -, —— n. 8, 113 S.Ct. 2680, 2685 n. 8, 125 L.Ed.2d 321 (1993); Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231, 234 n. 1, 100 S.Ct. 2124, 2127 n. 1, 65 L.Ed.2d 86 (1980); Garlington v. O’Leary, 879 F.2d 277, 282-83 (7th Cir.1989); Barrera v. Young, 794 F.2d 1264, 1268-69 (7th Cir.1986). Cf. Granberry v. Greer, 481 U.S. 129, 107 S.Ct. 1671, 95 L.Ed.2d 119 (1987). The Solicitor General disdains rules of the kind Taglia represents. Nonetheless we go on as before. My colleagues direct district judges *476to enforce a forfeiture rule that neither prosecutors nor prisoners want. They do so, moreover, in a case that is cert-proof; by elaborating the rule of forfeiture and then deciding the claim on the merits, the majority makes its extended discussion effectively unreviewable. Review will come eventually, in light of the conflict and the Solicitor General’s position. I regret that we issue a set of instructions that will complicate things in the interim.
Lawyers who raise ineffective-assistance claims on direct appeal do their clients a grave disservice, because the inevitable loss will prevent the accused from raising the same claim later, when factual development would permit accurate resolution. Lawyers who do not raise ineffective-assistance claims on direct appeal create a risk that the court will deem the contention forfeited, but this is the lesser risk. Most meritorious claims may be adjudicated under my colleagues’ approach in § 2255 proceedings, provided appellate counsel withholds the arguments. Litigants and judges will, however, have to devote their scarce time to working through the complex of rules that permit this adjudication. I would take Occam’s Razor and slice off the wasted motion.