Court Opinion

ID: 9463397
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:05:06.417545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:04.305667
License: Public Domain

WEBSTER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
In his opinion on petitioner’s direct appeal, Judge (now Chief Justice) Seiler of the Missouri Supreme Court carefully analyzed the claim of excessiveness and held that there was no abuse of discretion by the trial court in refusing to reduce the sentence. State v. Agee, 474 S.W.2d 817, 820 (Mo. 1971). In his opinion on petitioner’s motion for postconviction relief, Judge Billings of the Missouri Court of Appeals considered appellant’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and found that his trial counsel was not ineffective. Agee v. State, 512 S.W.2d 401, 403-04 (Mo.App.1974).
I cannot agree that this ineffective assistance claim is now unexhausted simply because a possible consequence of counsel’s alleged ineffectiveness (i. e., sentence enhancement) was not expressly called to the attention of the state courts.
Resolution of any ineffectiveness claim involves answering two questions. First, was counsel’s conduct of the case so ineffective as to be characterized as ineffective assistance under the governing standard? Second, if the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, was the defendant prejudiced by counsel’s dereliction? See United States v. Easter, 539 F.2d 663, 666 (8th Cir. 1976); McQueen v. Swenson, 498 F.2d 207, 218 (8th Cir. 1974). The Missouri Court of Appeals answered the first question in the negative, and did not reach the second. The majority, apparently entertaining some doubts about the state court’s conclusion that counsel was not ineffective, concludes that petitioner’s failure to raise a particular instance of prejudice in the state courts now prevents us from addressing the merits of his claim. In fact, it does not.
The exhaustion requirement was not meant to provide state courts with more than one full and fair opportunity to decide a question which is properly presented to them for review. See Wilwording v. Swenson, 404 U.S. 249, 250, 92 S.Ct. 407, 30 L.Ed.2d 418 (1971); Eaton v. Wyrick, 528 F.2d 477, 480 (8th Cir. 1975). It is not necessary to' exhaustion that the state courts have ruled on the merits of the claim; it is sufficient that they have been properly presented with the opportunity to do so. See Picard v. Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 275-76, 92 S.Ct. 509, 30 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971); Eaton v. Wyrick, supra. A state court presented with an ineffective assistance claim is properly presented with the opportunity to rule on all possible prejudice appearing in the record flowing from the alleged errors of counsel. That the court did not reach the issue of prejudice, or that a particular instance of prejudice was not enumerated by counsel, does not mean that the ineffective assistance claim was not presented.
The Court’s ruling portends a rash of new habeas corpus claims arising out of state convictions in which the punishment was assessed by a jury. Even if the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel has been considered and disposed of, a petitioner may now claim that the alleged enhancement of *1329sentence due to ineffective assistance must be separately and independently considered, first by the state courts and then by the federal courts.
To return this case to the state courts for consideration of the possible effect of evidentiary matters which they have already considered upon a sentence which they have already reviewed is akin to reinventing the wheel.
I would affirm the judgment of the District Court on the basis of its well-reasoned opinion.