The Sixth Amendment guarantees not just the right to an attorney, but to effective assistance of counsel. When your attorney's performance was so deficient it undermined the reliability of your trial, you may have a constitutional claim — but the standard is deliberately high and rarely met.
The Supreme Court established the test for ineffective assistance of counsel in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). To prevail, a defendant must prove two things:
The attorney's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness — what a reasonably competent attorney would have done under the same circumstances. Courts give attorneys broad deference here. Decisions about strategy, which witnesses to call, and how to cross-examine are generally not grounds for a claim even if they turned out wrong.
There is a reasonable probability that, but for the attorney's errors, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different. "Reasonable probability" means enough to undermine confidence in the outcome — not just that a different result was possible, but that the deficiency mattered.
Both prongs must be satisfied. Proving deficient performance without prejudice fails. Proving prejudice without deficient performance fails. Courts often rule on the prejudice prong first because it's easier — if there was no prejudice, the claim fails regardless of how bad the lawyering was.
Courts have found deficient performance in cases involving:
What doesn't count: Strategic decisions made after reasonable investigation, even if they turned out wrong. An attorney who decided not to call a witness, chose not to pursue a particular defense theory, or waived opening statement as a strategic choice is generally protected — courts give wide deference to reasonable strategic judgments, even in hindsight.
Strickland was designed to be difficult to satisfy. The Court explicitly said it wanted to avoid turning every unsuccessful defense into a constitutional claim, and to preserve finality in criminal judgments. The result is that courts have granted ineffective assistance claims in only a tiny fraction of cases where defendants raise them.
Even when an attorney clearly failed — didn't investigate, didn't show up prepared, pushed an unwanted plea — defendants frequently can't prove prejudice. If the prosecution's evidence was overwhelming, it's hard to show that better lawyering would have changed the outcome.
This is one of the central failures of the public defender system: attorneys can provide constitutionally minimal representation — technically not ineffective — while still providing representation that no paying client would ever accept. The system tolerates a very wide band of inadequacy.
IAC claims are post-conviction claims — they're raised on appeal or in habeas corpus proceedings after a conviction, not during trial. You generally cannot raise an IAC claim while your case is ongoing. The exception is at the plea stage: Missouri v. Frye and Lafler v. Cooper (both 2012) extended Strickland to the plea bargaining process.
If you believe your public defender is not adequately representing you now — before conviction — your options are: ask to fire your public defender, invoke your right to self-representation, or document everything carefully to preserve an IAC claim for later.
If your public defender isn't doing the work, you can do it yourself — or supplement what they're doing. Brief analyzes your case so you know exactly what needs to be done before your next hearing.
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