Mack v. Commissioner of Correction

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had previously been convicted of, inter alia, murder, appealed, following the denial of his petition for certification to appeal from the habeas court's judgment denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He claimed, inter alia, that the court improperly rejected his claim that his prior habeas counsel, M, had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to raise in his previous habeas action two claims of ineffective assistance against his criminal trial counsel, P. Held: The habeas court abused its discretion in denying the petitioner's petition for certification to appeal, as his challenge to the court's resolution of the issue was not frivolous and warranted appellate review. The habeas court properly rejected the petitioner's claim that M provided ineffective assistance by failing to raise claims in his prior habeas action that P had provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to certain evidence pertaining to the victim's autopsy in violation of his right to confrontation under the United States constitution, as the court properly determined that the petitioner failed to meet his burden of proving M provided ineffective assistance, the petitioner having failed to prove that P performed deficiently in failing to object to the admissibility of the autopsy report and certain testimony about the report. The petitioner's claim that the habeas court improperly rejected his claim that M provided ineffective assistance by failing to raise claims in his prior habeas action that P had provided ineffective assistance by failing to advise him regarding the availability of sentence review and to pursue such review on his behalf lacked merit, as, even assuming that P rendered ineffective assistance by failing to represent the petitioner with respect to sentence review, the petitioner failed to demonstrate that M performed deficiently by not raising a claim of ineffective assistance against P predicated on P's failure to seek sentence review