Breaux v. Magnolia Petroleum Co.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding that trial counsel’s failure to consult with and call an expert on narcotics to challenge officers’ accounts of a drug transaction, which were central to the government’s case, fell below the norms of professional standards
• finding probable cause to search and arrest defendant where other individual in observed hand-to-hand discarded small item upon seeing police
• trial counsel’s decision was not strategic because it “didn't occur to [him] to” consult with an expert witness (alteration in original)
• “A reviewing court must rely upon trial counsel’s actual decision-making process, . . . rather than invent a post hoc rationalization . . . .”
• “[C]ounsel’s deficiency must have resulted in substantial prejudice.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).