Winston v. Boatwright

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s habeas petition alleging that his trial counsel was ineffective when he used peremptory challenges to systematically eliminate all males from jury in defendant’s trial on second-degree sexual assault charge in violation of Equal Protection Clause and his 6th Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. Defense counsel’s intentional violation of Equal Protection Clause by using gender as factor to exclude potential jurors constituted conduct that fell below performance standards established by Strickland even though counsel explained, and Wisc. courts agreed, that said conduct was part of counsel’s trial strategy. Moreover, while said error would normally require automatic reversal of defendant's conviction, denial of habeas petition was appropriate since at time Wisc. courts rejected defendant’s claim by applying harmless error standard to intentional Batson violations, U.S. Supreme Court had not clearly indicated that said error required automatic reversal of defendant’s conviction.