What Is Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel?

What does it mean to have a fair trial? The Bill of Rights sheds some light on the matter, and case law has further interpreted it. For example, a fair trial should take place soon enough after the original accusations that the defendant does not have to spend years in suspense about his or her future, but the court should take its time so that the parties have time to go through pretrial discovery, where they disclose their evidence to each other and let the other side’s evidence inform their strategy. The jurors should be unbiased, meaning that they do not have a personal connection to the defendant or witnesses or to a situation similar to the circumstances of the alleged crime. The defendant should also have representation by a professional attorney; pursuant to Gideon v. Wainwright, the court must appoint public defenders to represent defendants who do not have the resources to pay for their own legal counsel. Lawyers are only human, but if a lawyer makes a big enough mistake, it can count as a violation of the right to due process, and the defendant can appeal a conviction arising from the lawyer’s mistake. To find out more about appealing a wrongful conviction, contact a West Palm Beach criminal defense lawyer.

Appealing a Conviction Because a Lawyer’s Mistake Violated Your Right to Due Process

The Supreme Court decision Strickland v. Washington in 1989 established the right of defendants to appeal their convictions if the conviction resulted from a preventable error by the lawyer representing the defendant. A defendant’s claims pass the Strickland test if the defendant can prove that the lawyer’s error was an obvious deviation from the standard of practice and that it substantially affected the outcome of the case. In other words, the case passes the Strickland test if the conviction was the result of ineffective assistance of counsel.

The following are examples of ineffective assistance of counsel:

• The lawyer was absent from one or more court dates
• The lawyer defended the defendant against a charge other than the one that the defendant was facing
• The lawyer did not notice that the charges against the defendant violated the “no double jeopardy” rule

Meanwhile, defendants have not passed the Strickland test when the lawyer’s behavior breached professional standards but did not affect the outcome of the case and therefore did not violate the defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights. For example, appeals courts have upheld defendants’ convictions when the lawyer was so drunk that his blood alcohol content, according to a breathalyzer test administered minutes before the trial, was three times the legal limit, or when the defense lawyer was in such poor health that he died shortly after the trial.

Contact a West Palm Beach Criminal Defense Lawyer Today

Attorney William Wallshein has more than 41 years of experience, including five years as a prosecutor in Palm Beach County.  Contact William Wallshein P.A. in West Palm Beach, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

sunethics.com/le—ineffective-assistance.html