Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Should Be Renamed Incompetent Assistance of Counsel
Because, quite truly, that’s what the actual standard is. Ineffective assistance of counsel implies that the attorney wasn’t effective in getting his/her client an acquittal or dismissal of the charges. Clearly, that’s a ridiculous assumption, because if every criminal defendant deserved to beat his/her charges, what would be the point of the entire California criminal justice system?!
California’s standard of ineffective assistance of counsel is that the attorney was actually deficient or incompetent…and that the deficiency or incompetence resulted in prejudice to the defendant.
This means that it’s not enough to disagree with your attorney’s tactics, arguments, or objections. The court will assume that all of those types of decisions were part of an overall strategy (even if it was a bad one) unless the errors were so egregious that they actually fell below the professional standard of reasonable assistance.
So if you…or another impartial California criminal defense attorney…believe that you were unfairly prejudiced by your lawyer’s incompetence, you may prevail on a motion for ineffective assistance of counsel and be entitled to a new trial with a competent attorney.
