Jackson v. Franke

An attorney will not be found to be constitutionally inadequate and ineffective if there is an unforeseeable shift in the case law.

Jackson filed for post-conviction relief following his appeal for conviction of first-degree sodomy. He assigned error to his trial counsel for providing “constitutionally inadequate and ineffective” assistance and to the post-conviction court for ruling in favor of the superintendent’s motion for judgment as a matter of law. Jackson argued that his counsel did not object to expert testimony on a “diagnosis relating to sexual abuse in the absence of physical corroborating evidence,” and found issue with evidence being excluded that could have defeated summary judgment as they were the “only evidence regarding the prevailing professional norms . . . and they establish that Jackson’s trial counsel fell short of those norms.” The Court found that there was no error in the exclusion of the evidence, as the evidence introduced is not essential in supporting the claim. In this case it comes down to whether Jackson’s counsel could have anticipated a shift in precedent and “that type of analysis typically depends on an objective assessment of the published case law at the point in time.” The testimony at issue was admissible according to the case law of the time, and there was no change in the precedent until eight years later. Affirmed.