Court Opinion

ID: 9743598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:37:53.42762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:42.285923
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring in result and dissenting.
I too would affirm the conviction. I agree that defense counsel’s professional performance in representing appellant before and during the trial was not, when considered as a whole, deficient in the constitutional sense. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). However, in so concluding, I cannot regard counsel’s failure to object to the testimony of Officer Kelley that he did not believe appellant’s self-defense claim to be anything other than a patent and unreasonable professional error. This was tantamount to Officer Kelley testifying that he believed appellant guilty as charged.
There is no perspective from which the failure to object to such shenanigans can be regarded as anything other than error. Head v. State (1988), Ind., 519 N.E.2d 151.
Finally, I regard the maximum sentence to be manifestly unreasonable in light of appellant’s lack of criminal history. Credit for this mitigating circumstance should be reflected in the sentence. I would reduce this maximum sixty-year sentence to fifty-years.