Walker v. Griffin

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s habeas petition challenging his 40-year sentence on robbery charge, where said sentence was based in part on defendant’s qualification for career-offender treatment under Indiana statute requiring govt. to establish that defendant had been convicted of two prior unrelated felonies in specific sequence. While defendant argued that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise issue that govt. had failed to establish commission date for one prior conviction, which precluded finding that defendant was habitual offender, record contained strong inference that sequence of prior offenses met criteria for habitual statute, and thus it was unlikely that defendant would have been given new trial had appellate counsel raised issue of missing commission date. Moreover, Double Jeopardy would not have barred state court from remanding case to introduce evidence of commission date.