Harrington v. Richter

Attorney: ineffective assistance of counsel: The Ninth Circuit explicitly conducted a de novo review and found a Strickland violation; it then declared without further explanation that the state court’s contrary decision was unreasonable. But §2254(d) requires a habeas court to determine what arguments or theories supported, or could have supported, the state-court decision; and then to ask whether it is possible fair-minded jurists could disagree that those arguments or theories are inconsistent with a prior decision of this Court. AEDPA’s unreasonableness standard is not a test of the confidence of a federal habeas court in the conclusion it would reach as a de novo matter. Even a strong case for relief does not make the state court’s contrary conclusion unreasonable. Section 2254(d) is designed to confirm that state courts are the principal forum for asserting constitutional challenges to state convictions; to be deficient, counsel’s representation must have fallen “below an objective standard of reasonableness,” Strickland, 466 U. S., at 688; and there is a “strong presumption” that counsel’s representation is within the “wide range” of reasonable professional assistance, id., at 689. The question is whether counsel made errors so fundamental that counsel was not functioning as the counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Prejudice requires demonstrating “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id., at 694. “Surmounting Strickland’s high bar is never ... easy.” Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U. S.___, ___. Strickland can function as a way to escape rules of waiver and forfeiture. The question is whether an attorney’s representation amounted to incompetence under prevailing professional norms, not whether it deviated from best practices or most common custom. Establishing that a state court’s application of Strickland was unreasonable under §2254(d) is even more difficult, since both standards are “highly deferential,” 466 U. S, at 689, and since Strickland’s general standard has a substantial range of reasonable applications. The question under §2254(d) is not whether counsel’s actions were reasonable, but whether there is any reasonable argument that counsel satisfied Strickland’s deferential standard (U.S. S. Ct., 19.01.11, Harrington v. Richter, J. Kennedy).

Avocat : violation de son devoir de diligence dû à son client : le travail de représentation de l'avocat est déficient si sa qualité tombe au-dessous d'un standard raisonnable, apprécié de manière objective (jurisprudence Strickland). L'avocat bénéficie d'une forte présomption que la qualité se son travail se situe à l'intérieur du large cadre qui englobe toutes les activités qualifiées de raisonnables. La condition du dommage implique pour le client de démontrer que sans l'activité défectueuse alléguée il existe une probabilité raisonnable que le résultat de la procédure eût été différent.