Court Opinion

ID: 9493999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:25:59.488133+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:09.505537
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Because I believe the majority too quickly concludes that Wilcox was not prejudiced by counsel’s rush toward a guilty plea, I respectfully dissent. In my view, the majority overstates the significance of Wilcox’s failure to move to withdraw his plea and minimizes the import of Hauge’s ballistics analysis. Given Wilcox’s conspicuous reluctance to accept the plea agreement proffered by the prosecution, I believe he would have seized upon even the slightest evidentiary support for a claim of self-defense. Although Hauge’s report does not conclusively identify the first shooter, it seems to me to be a foundation for creating reasonable doubt of Wilcox’s guilt, and as such could well have tipped a vacillating Wilcox to reject his attorneys’ rush to a guilty plea.
Wilcox’s allegations, if true, describe a violation of counsel’s “dut[y] to consult with the defendant on important decisions and to keep the defendant informed of important developments in the course of the prosecution.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). I would therefore remand to the district court for further inquiry into this ineffective-assistance claim.