Thursday, June 21, 2007

Ineffective Assistant of Appellate Counsel -- when appellate counsel is same as trial counsel

In a recent decision, Duncan v. Indiana, March 9, 2007, the Indiana Court of Appeals made this obvious observation (emphasis added):


The Woods court did not hold than an ineffective assistance of counsel claim must be presented by way of a post-conviction proceeding. It did say that an ineffective trial counsel argument is not lost by failure to raise it in direct appeal. . . . This refinement brought about by the Woods decision is most meaningful when appellate counsel was also trial counsel and could not be expected to assert his own incompetence on appeal.

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