State v. Henderson6/30/2004
Submitted on Briefs: March 3, 2004
Henderson was charged with criminal possession of dangerous drugs. He pled guilty to the charge and received a five-year sentence. Afterwards, Henderson filed a petition for post-conviction relief asserting the ineffective assistance of counsel. The Missoula County Public Defender's office opposed his petition, and the District Court appointed other counsel for Henderson. After an evidentiary hearing, the District Court denied Henderson's petition for relief. He now appeals the District Court's denial of relief. We reverse the District Court.
The underlying facts of the original charge stem from a traffic stop of a suspected DUI at 4:25 a.m. on March 14, 1996; Henderson was the passenger. One of the sheriff's officers performing the stop reported that he observed an empty and unlabeled pill bottle on the floor of the vehicle. After asking Henderson to step out of the vehicle, the officer saw six yellowcolored pills on the seat. Henderson claims that he did not know the pills were there and that the pills were not his, but rather, belonged to the driver. The officer seized the pills, placed Henderson in the back of his patrol car and drove to St. Patrick's Hospital, where the pharmacist identified the pills as dextroamphetemine sulfite, a controlled narcotic. The officer then took Henderson to the jail, where it was discovered that he was on probation. Henderson was booked, and, during a routine search, white pills and yellow pills were found in his pocket. Those pills were never identified. Henderson claims the pills in his pocket were planted.
Henderson's sole issue on appeal is that the District Court abused its discretion in denying his assertion that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. Claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are mixed questions of law and fact. Strickland v. Washington (1984), 466 U.S. 668, 698, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2070, 80 L.Ed.2d 674, 700. Therefore, our review is de novo . State v. Jefferson , 2003 MT 90, 42, 315 Mont.146, 42, 69 P.3d 641, 42.
The Due Process clause requires that the trial process be fair. The requirements of the Sixth Amendment ensure the fairness of the procedure:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
U.S. Const. amend. VI; Strickland , 466 U.S. at 685, 104 S.Ct. at 2063, 80 L.Ed.2d at 69192. The right to counsel is also guaranteed under the Montana Constitution, Article II, Section 24. The effective assistance of counsel is critical to our adversarial system of justice; a lack of effective counsel may impinge the fundamental fairness of the proceeding being challenged. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 696, 104 S.Ct. at 2064, 2069, 80 L.Ed.2d at 693, 699. We have adopted the two-part Strickland test for measuring claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. State v. Boyer (1985), 215 Mont. 143, 147, 695 P.2d 829, 831. Under the first part, a defendant must show that counsel's performance was deficient. Second, the defendant must show that he was prejudiced by counsel's deficient performance. The defendant must show within a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's deficient performance, the result of the proceeding would have been different.
Under the first part of the Strickland test,
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Montana DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|