Smith v. Brown

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant-prisoner’s habeas petition challenging his Indiana conviction on attempted murder charge arising out of defendant’s confrontation with another prisoner, even though defendant argued that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to mount any sort of defense on his behalf. While record established that counsel presented “poor defense” of defendant by only cross-examining victim, failing to cross-examine certain eye-witnesses to offense, and making only perfunctory closing argument, presumption of error under Cronic, 466 U.S. 668, did not apply, since defense counsel subjected state’s case to some meaningful adversarial testing during counsel’s opening statement and cross-examination of victim. Moreover, any error was harmless, where weight of state’s evidence was overwhelming, since three eye-witnesses stated that defendant had approached victim from behind and started to stab victim with half-scissors under circumstances where other half of scissors was found in defendant’s pocket.