Jones v. Calloway

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant’s habeas petition challenging his 1999 murder conviction on ground that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call witness who was willing to testify that he was only shooter who had killed victim. While defendant had procedurally defaulted said issue by failing to include affidavit from witness in state-court, post-conviction proceedings, Dist. Ct. could properly act on merits of said issue, where defendant presented “new evidence” in form of said witness’ testimony to establish his actual innocence. Moreover, trial counsel’s failure to call said witness could not be classified as mere matter of trial strategy, where: (1) witness’ inconsistent statement to police that formed basis of counsel’s decision not to call witness pertained to immaterial issue; (2) witness’ proposed testimony was consistent with other physical and forensic evidence at crime scene and was partially corroborated by other eye-witness testimony; and (3) testimony of proposed witness raised sufficient doubt about defendant’s guilt so as to undermine confidence in jury’s guilty verdict. Ct. further rejected govt. argument that defendant’s actual innocence claim must be rejected because record showed that he was guilty of charged murder under accountability theory.