Goodman, Warren v. Bertrand, Daniel
2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 26985, 467 F.3d 1022 (2006)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
When evaluating a Sixth Amendment claim for ineffective assistance of counsel, courts must assess the cumulative effect of all of counsel's errors to determine prejudice, rather than evaluating each error in isolation. The proper standard for prejudice is the one set forth in Strickland v. Washington, which asks whether there is a 'reasonable probability' of a different outcome, not the heightened 'fundamentally unfair or unreliable' standard from Lockhart v. Fretwell, which applies only in unusual circumstances.
Facts:
- On July 28, 1992, an individual robbed a Kohl’s Food Store in Milwaukee, holding cashier Ilene Retzlaff and manager Daniel Kollath at gunpoint before fleeing.
- Police later stopped Mark Smith and Larry Ross. Smith confessed to being a lookout and, in a deal with prosecutors, implicated Warren Goodman as the gunman.
- During a police lineup, the store manager, Kollath, initially identified another person as the robber before later choosing Goodman in a subsequent lineup.
- The store cashier, Retzlaff, did not identify Goodman in the lineup; instead, she chose another individual as the person who most resembled the robber.
- After Goodman's first trial, accomplices Ross and Percy Sallis also agreed to testify against Goodman in exchange for recommendations for more lenient sentences.
Procedural Posture:
- Warren Goodman's first trial in Wisconsin state court for armed robbery and being a felon in possession of a firearm ended in a hung jury and a mistrial.
- Following a second trial in the same court, a jury convicted Goodman, and he was sentenced to twenty-two years' imprisonment.
- Goodman filed a post-conviction motion in the trial court alleging ineffective assistance of counsel, which was denied.
- Goodman, as appellant, appealed to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, which affirmed the trial court's denial.
- Goodman then filed a state habeas petition, which was denied by the trial court, affirmed by the Court of Appeals, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied review.
- Goodman filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, which denied the petition.
- Goodman, as appellant, appealed the district court's denial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does the cumulative effect of a defense attorney's multiple errors—including failing to subpoena a key exculpatory witness, opening the door to the admission of prior convictions, and failing to object to prosecutorial misconduct—constitute ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, warranting habeas corpus relief?
Opinions:
Majority - Williams, Circuit Judge
Yes. The cumulative effect of defense counsel's errors amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The state court's decision was both 'contrary to' and an 'unreasonable application of' the standard established in Strickland v. Washington. First, the state court applied the wrong legal standard for prejudice, incorrectly using the heightened 'fundamentally unfair or unreliable' test from Lockhart v. Fretwell instead of the correct Strickland test, which requires only a 'reasonable probability that... the result of the proceeding would have been different.' Second, even if the correct standard had been applied, the state court's decision was unreasonable because it failed to consider the cumulative impact of counsel’s errors. Counsel's pattern of deficiencies included failing to subpoena a critical exculpatory witness who was present at the first trial that resulted in a hung jury, opening the door to evidence of Goodman’s prior armed robbery convictions, failing to request a limiting instruction for prejudicial testimony, and failing to object to multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct. The totality of these errors, especially in a case hinging on witness credibility, sufficiently undermines confidence in the trial's outcome and therefore establishes prejudice under Strickland.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces that the prejudice prong of the Strickland test requires courts to conduct a cumulative-effect analysis, assessing the combined impact of all of counsel's errors. By rejecting an atomized approach where each error is dismissed as harmless in isolation, the court ensures that a 'death by a thousand cuts' scenario does not deprive a defendant of their Sixth Amendment rights. The ruling also clarifies the narrow application of the Lockhart v. Fretwell prejudice standard, cementing Strickland's 'reasonable probability of a different outcome' as the governing test for the vast majority of ineffective assistance claims. This case serves as a strong precedent for petitioners arguing that a pattern of professional errors, rather than a single glaring mistake, rendered their trial fundamentally unfair.
