Court Opinion

ID: 9486074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:37:14.290474+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:30.989499
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the judgment and the opinion of the court.
1.
In my view, the petitioner’s claim must fail on the first prong of the test for constitutionally inadequate counsel established by the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). As Judge Easterbrook has detailed in the first part of his concurring opinion, it simply cannot be said that defense counsel’s performance fell below “an objective standard of reasonableness.” I respectfully suggest that, in this regard, our dissenting colleagues have not given sufficient heed to the Supreme Court’s admonition that:
Judicial scrutiny of counsel’s performance must be highly deferential. It is all too tempting for a defendant to second-guess counsel’s assistance after conviction or adverse sentence, and it is all too easy for a court, examining counsel’s defense after it has proved unsuccessful, to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable.
Id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. at 2065.
2.
One other matter is worthy of note in this case. The district court declined to grant the petitioner a certificate of probable cause in this case. This appeal proceeded only because a judge of this court granted the certificate after its initial denial by the district court. Although we affirm the judgment of the district court on the merits, we do so by a close vote and only after en banc *1149consideration, a procedure reserved for only the most troublesome of issues.
The failure of the district court to grant a certificate of probable cause in this case is symptomatic of the growing tendency in some of the district courts of this circuit to measure such applications, either explicitly or implicitly, by an inappropriately high standard. In applying this standard a district court ought to require “ ‘something more than the absence of frivolity,’ ” Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 893, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 3394, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1988), quoting Blackmun, “Allowance of In Forma Pauperis Appeals in § 2255 And Habeas Corpus Cases,” 43 F.R.D. 343, 352 (1967). The requisite showing is “ ‘a higher one than the “good faith” requirement of § 1915.’ ” Id. It requires that the issue under review be “ ‘debatable among jurists of reason’ ” and at least one that a court could resolve in a different manner. Barefoot, 463 U.S. at 893 n. 4, 103 S.Ct. at 3395 n. 4, quoting Gordon v. Willis, 516 F.Supp. 911, 913 (N.D.Ga.1980).
All courts are under a great deal of pressure to remain in control of their dockets and new devices to triage effectively the filings that overwhelm us must be found. In the meantime, however, we must adhere to a principled application of existing standards of law and remain case-deciding, not case-processing institutions.