Allen v. State4/2/2002
riminal Justice, Prosecution Function and Defense Function (3 rd ed. 1993)). *fn6
INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL
[ ] Appellant alleges that his defense counsel was deficient in several respects which denied him effective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 10. Our standard for reviewing such claims is as follows:
"When reviewing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the paramount determination is whether, in light of all the circumstances, trial counsel's acts or omissions were outside the wide range of professionally competent assistance. Herdt v. State, 891 P.2d 793, 796 (Wyo.1995); Starr v. State, 888 P.2d 1262, 1266-67 (Wyo.1995); Arner v. State, 872 P.2d 100, 104 (Wyo.1994); Frias v. State, 722 P.2d 135, 145 (Wyo.1986). The reviewing court should indulge a strong presumption that counsel rendered adequate assistance and made all significant decisions in the exercise of reasonable professional judgment. Herdt, at 796; Starr, at 1266; Arner, at 104; Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2065, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).
Under the two-prong standard articulated in Strickland and Frias, an appellant claiming ineffective assistance of counsel must demonstrate on the record that counsel's performance was deficient and that prejudice resulted. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064; Starr, at 1266; King v. State, 810 P.2d 119, 125 (Wyo.1991) (Cardine, J., dissenting); Campbell v. State, 728 P.2d 628, 629 (Wyo.1986); Frias, 722 P.2d at 145.
In other words, to warrant reversal on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, an appellant must demonstrate that his counsel failed to 'render such assistance as would have been offered by a reasonably competent attorney' and that 'counsel's deficiency prejudiced the defense of [the] case.' Lower v. State, 786 P.2d 346, 349 (Wyo.1990). 'The benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether counsel's conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.' Strickland, 466 U.S. at 686, 104 S.Ct. at 2064." Chapman v. State, 2001 WY 25, 6, 18 P.3d 1164, 1168-69 (Wyo. 2001) (quoting Grainey, 997 P.2d at 1038-39).
"We examine the conduct of defense counsel in light of all the circumstances in determining whether the identified acts or omissions fall outside the ambit of professionally competent assistance, bearing in mind the function of counsel is to make the adversarial testing process work in every case. We do not evaluate the efforts of counsel from a perspective of hindsight but, rather, we endeavor to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding counsel's challenged conduct and evaluate the professional efforts from the perspective of counsel at the time." Bloomquist v. State, 914 P.2d 812, 820 (Wyo. 1996) (quoting Dickeson v. State, 843 P.2d 606, 609 (Wyo. 1992)).
In evaluating the prejudice component, the test is whether there is a reasonable probability that counsel's errors affected the outcome of the trial, primarily concerning whether the result was unreliable or the proceeding fundamentally unfair. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). A "reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Id. at 694. However, an "analysis focusing solely on mere outcome determination, without attention to whether the result of the proceeding was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, is defective." Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 369, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 846 (1998); Newsted v. Gi
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