 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Perry v. State12/10/1999
arial balance between defense and prosecution that the trial was rendered unfair and the verdict rendered suspect." Lockhart v. Fretwell, supra, 506 U.S. at 369, 113 S. Ct. at 842, 122 L. Ed. 2d at 189 (quoting from Kimmelman v. Morrison, supra). It is a high threshold, a difficult test to meet. As we pointed out in Oken v. State, supra, 343 Md. at 284, 681 A.2d at 44, citing Williams v. State, 326 Md. 367, 374-76, 605 A.2d 103, 106-07 (1992), and Bowers v. State, 320 Md. 416, 425-27, 578 A.2d 734, 738-39 (1990), the petitioner must show "that there is a substantial possibility that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different," although that test "should not focus solely on an outcome determination, but should consider `whether the result of the proceeding was fundamentally unfair or unreliable.'" Oken v. State, supra, 343 Md. at 284, 681 A.2d at 44, quoting from Lockhart v. Fretwell, supra, 506 U.S. at 369, 113 S. Ct. at 842, 122 L. Ed. 2d at 189.
In Kimmelman v. Morrison, supra, the Court dealt with a similar situation. An important item of evidence in a rape case was a bedsheet, seized from the defendant's home without benefit of a warrant, that contained semen stains and hair samples which other evidence connected to the defendant and the victim. Counsel objected at trial to admission of the bedsheet, on Fourth Amendment grounds, but, because he had not moved to suppress the evidence before trial, as required by the New Jersey equivalent of Maryland Rule 4-252, the objection was held to have been waived. Counsel contended that he was unaware of the seizure of the bedsheet until it was offered at trial, but that unawareness, suspect in itself because of certain information forwarded to him by the prosecutor, in any event stemmed from his failure to conduct any discovery. He conducted no discovery, he said, because he believed that it was the State's obligation to supply discovery without request, a belief that the Supreme Court found wholly without foundation. Morrison's conviction was affirmed, and the case reached the Supreme Court on Federal habeas corpus. The claim was ineffective assistance of counsel based on the attorney's failure to move timely to suppress the evidence arguably seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S. Ct. 3037, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1067 (1976), the Court held that, when a State has provided an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim, a State prisoner may not be granted Federal habeas corpus relief on the ground that evidence obtained in violation of that Amendment was admitted at his/her trial. The issue presented in Kimmelman was whether that approach also applied to a Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of counsel when the ineffective assistance stemmed from the failure to raise or preserve the Fourth Amendment claim.
The principal holding of the Court was that Stone did not apply to the Sixth Amendment claim. The Fourth Amendment was not a trial right, but a general protection for all citizens against governmental intrusion; to prevail, the defendant need show only that the search or seizure in question was unlawful and that it violated his reasonable expectation of privacy. The right to counsel, on the other hand, is a fundamental right of criminal defendants, designed to assure fairness and the legitimacy of the adversary judicial process. The essence of an ineffective assistance claim, as noted, is that counsel's error upset the adversarial balance to the point that the trial was rendered unfair and the verdict suspect. When the incompetence rests entirely on the failure to litigate a Fourth Amendment claim, the defendant mus
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
By using the system, you agree to TERMS OF SERVICE
|