People v. Custer

Defendant was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, and entered open guilty plea, and was sentenced to 6 years. Defendant filed petition alleging unreasonable assistance of postconviction counsel, as counsel's failure to call witness to testify at evidentiary hearing was a matter of trial strategy, and Defendant did not argue that counsel failed to conduct any meaningful adversarial testing. Court properly denied postconviction petition after a 3rd-stage evidentiary hearing, and Defendant failed to demonstrate that he received unreasonable assistance of postconviction counsel. (HOLDRIDGE and O'BRIEN, concurring.)