Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court· 1/30/1991

Commonwealth v. White

Citations

565 N.E.2d 1185
409 Mass. 266
1991 Mass. LEXIS 51

How courts have described this case

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

noting that review of tactical and strategic decisions should be performed in a deferential manner, so as “to avoid characterizing as unreasonable a defense that was merely unsuccessful’j (internal citations omitted
rejecting claim of ineffective counsel where “defense counsel made difficult strategic choices based on discussion with the defendant, and after reasonable consideration of the law and facts relating to the plausible options”
reviewing court should “avoid characterizing as unreasonable a defense that was merely unsuccessful”
reasonable tactical decision not to call witness who would have testified that complainant changed story where witness would also have testified that defendant changed story
“In cases where tactical or strategic decisions of the defendant’s counsel are at issue, we conduct our review with some deference to avoid characterizing as unreasonable a defense that was merely unsuccessful”
no ineffective assistance where any benefits defendant would have realized from testimony largely offset by harm from other aspects of testimony

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Abrams, Greaney, Liacos, Lynch, Nolan, O'Connor, Wilkins

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Cited by

68 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

9 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

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