CA6: CoA denied for federal defense counsel not pursuing claim SW violated state law

CoA denied for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim that defense counsel didn’t investigate the claim that the state court search warrant hadn’t been properly issued and then filed and was thus invalid. It wouldn’t be because there was essentially an admission there was a warrant signed by a judge. Boyd v. United States, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 107 (6th Cir. Jan. 4, 2021):

Reasonable jurists would not debate the district court’s conclusion that Boyd was not denied effective assistance of trial and appellate counsel. See Miller-El, 537 U.S. at 327. The district court’s findings and conclusions are supported by the record, and Boyd has not presented any basis for debate. Boyd’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims are conclusory and either refuted, or unsupported, by the record. See Wogenstahl v. Mitchell, 668 F.3d 307, 335-36 (6th Cir. 2012); Sutton v. Bell, 645 F.3d 752, 755 (6th Cir. 2011). Boyd erroneously concludes that “a search warrant never existed in this case” because the state-court manager stated that the state-court record does not include the search warrant and the state-court docket reveals that the search warrant was not filed in his case. He faults trial counsel for failing to contact the state court and discovering “that the warrant was never issued.” But the absence of the search warrant on the state-court docket does not mean that the search warrant was not issued. Rather, the search warrant, including all required information and signatures of the affiant and judge, was issued in his case. Boyd’s conclusory arguments do not undermine the warrant’s issuance.

CoA denied. The state court’s determination to believe one witness over another on the search issue was not an unreasonable application of law. Henry v. Gray, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 109 (6th Cir. Jan. 4, 2021).*

CoA denied. Defendant can’t show that he had standing to challenge somebody else’s CSLI for counsel to be ineffective. Powell v. United States, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 112 (6th Cir. Jan. 4, 2021).*

This entry was posted in Ineffective assistance, Reasonableness, Unreasonable application / § 2254(d), Warrant execution. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.