{"id":11736,"date":"2010-10-01T11:15:23","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T16:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=11736"},"modified":"2010-10-01T11:15:23","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T16:15:23","slug":"wrong-advice-about-civil-commitment-law-constitutes-ineffective-assistance-of-counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/10\/wrong-advice-about-civil-commitment-law-constitutes-ineffective-assistance-of-counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrong Advice About Civil Commitment Law Constitutes Ineffective Assistance of Counsel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last spring, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Padilla v. Kentucky<\/em> that an attorney\u2019s incorrect advice regarding the deportation consequences of a guilty plea might violate the client\u2019s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. \u00a0Padilla <\/em>was a surprisingly broadly worded expansion of the Sixth Amendment right into the realm of advice on the collateral consequences of a conviction. \u00a0Although Padilla <\/em>raised more questions than it answered, the decision may prove an extraordinarily important one in light of the proliferation of collateral consequences over the past couple of decades.<\/p>\n

Now the Eleventh Circuit has indicated that Padilla<\/em> does indeed extend beyond deportation advice. \u00a0In Bauder v. Dep\u2019t of Corrections<\/a><\/em> (No. 10-10657), the court affirmed a grant of habeas relief based on an attorney\u2019s incorrect advice that the petitioner would not face the possibility of civil commitment as a sexually violent predator if he pled no contest to a stalking charge.<\/p>\n

In addition to its extension of the\u00a0Padilla<\/em> reasoning to a new collateral consequence, Bauder<\/em> strikes me as quite significant for at least two reasons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, <\/em>the Eleventh Circuit agreed that the lawyer\u2019s advice was unreasonably poor even though the reach of the underlying SVP civil commitment law was not yet clear. \u00a0Although it was not certain that the law would be interpreted to reach Bauder\u2019s stalking offense, the lawyer\u2019s assurance that Bauder had nothing to fear constituted ineffective assistance \u2014 the lawyer should have at least warned Bauder of the risk of civil commitment. \u00a0The case thus provides insight into the meaning of effective assistance in the context of legal uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Second, the district court found that Bauder\u2019s lawyer not only provided unreasonably poor performance, but that Bauder was prejudiced by the bad advice. \u00a0Padilla <\/em>itself remanded for the lower court to determine prejudice, leaving the prejudice analysis uncertain when the defendant argues that he has pled guilty as a result of bad advice. \u00a0In Bauder<\/em>, however, the district court found prejudice where the evidence of guilt was not overwhelming, the defendant had maintained his innocence (he pled no contest), and the lawyer admitted that he would have advised going to trial had he anticipated the defendant would be indefinitely committed under the SVP law. \u00a0It seems that this very interesting aspect of the district court decision in Bauder <\/em>was not appealed.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last spring, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Padilla v. Kentucky that an attorney\u2019s incorrect advice regarding the deportation consequences of a guilty plea might violate the client\u2019s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. \u00a0Padilla was a surprisingly broadly worded expansion of the Sixth Amendment right into the realm of advice on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-legal-practice","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}