Court Opinion

ID: 9480698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:55:41.098247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:50.833052
License: Public Domain

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I am fully in accord with the result reached by the panel in this case. I write separately because I am not persuaded that the law of the case doctrine foreclosed the district court’s inquiry into the likelihood of the suppression motion’s success. Although Smith I dispositively determined that the failure to suppress the confessions was prejudicial, it did not address the likelihood of the motion’s success on the merits. Therefore, I do not believe the district court was precluded from examining that issue.
I join the panel’s conclusion however because, in my opinion, the district court’s holding that a motion to suppress would not have succeeded on the merits is erroneous. The district court erred in interpreting Strickland to require the plaintiff to *499establish as a certainty that the motion would have succeeded. Strickland only requires a showing of a reasonable probability that the trial result would have been different. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Given the critical role of the confessions in Smith’s conviction, a reasonable probability that the motion to suppress would have been granted would suffice in this case to find a Strickland violation. The record, as indicated in part by the majority opinion, provides compelling if not overwhelming support for a finding that the confessions would have been suppressed. This evidence is more than “sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome” of the case. Id. Because I would find a Strickland violation on the merits, I agree with the majority that the district court must be reversed and the writ should issue.