SUPREME COURT DENIES WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS FOR INCOMPETENCE OF COUNSEL

December 7, 1941 may have been a day that lived infamy when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor but for Randy Joseph Moore December 7,1995 is the day. For on that day Moore, together with two friends, attacked Kenneth Rogers. After they bloodied him they tied him with duct tape and threw him into the trunk of a car. Then they drove him into the countryside and Moore shot and killed him.

That was just the first of his mistakes. He then told two people about the incident and gave a confession to the police. ¹

Prior to trial, at his attorney’s urging, he entered into a plea bargain. He plead to felony murder for the minimum sentence of 300 months.

He then filed a writ of habeas corpus alleging incompetence of counsel for failure to file a motion suppressing the confession prior to entering the plea. The state courts in Oregon denied the writ but the Ninth Circuit granted it. The United States Supreme Court, yesterday, reversed the Ninth Circuit’s granting of the writ and reinstated the conviction. ²

The Ninth Circuit ruled that trial counsel acted below the standard expected of counsel when he/she did not run the motion before urging Moore to accept the plea. But the Supreme Court pointed out that the key case of Strickland v. Washington required that prior to reversing a conviction for incompetence of counsel, trial counsel must not only be incompetent but the defendant must be prejudiced. In this case the Supreme Court said that Moore was not prejudiced. Moore admitted committing the murder to two people who could testify. Even if the confession to the police was excluded at trial there would still be the testimony of these two people.

Trial counsel was reasonable in urging Moore to take the plea. His lawyer was afraid that if the plea was not accepted the prosecutor may find additional evidence and Moore may end up facing life in prison or the death penalty. Any time a defendant pleads guilty before trial he/she as well as the district attorney is taking a risk. No one knows whether more evidence will be found or whether the government’s case would fold. By taking a plea bargain a defendant gets a sure thing and the district attorney gets a conviction, though perhaps for less time than he/she might get after trial. Under these conditions counsel’s advice was reasonable and on a writ of habeas corpus reasonableness is all that is necessary. The state court’s ruling was not an “unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law.” Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) a Federal Court cannot reverse a state court’s denial of habeas corpus unless the state court’s decision was an “unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law.” Since that could not be said in this case the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Oregon Supreme Court denying the writ.