Post Conviction Claims of Counsel’s Conflict of Interest and Ineffective Assistance are Procedurally Barred.

Sontoya v. State, Minn.S.Ct., 5/1/2013.  The Minnesota Post Conviction Review Court, a/k/a/ Minnesota Supreme Court, issued its eighth opinion of the year from a post conviction proceeding.  A bit over sixty percent of the court’s opinions issued this year have been from the post conviction arena.

A jury convicted Mr. Sontoya of first degree murder while committing first degree criminal sexual conduct.  Read more here.  In this post conviction petition, Mr. Sontoya alleged that when he asked his trial attorney if he was representing a cousin of the victim in an unrelated federal narcotics case his attorney lied by saying, no.  Mr. Sontoya said that he only learned of this lie after his direct appeal, that his trial attorney thus had a conflict of interest, and that this conflict caused his attorney to fail to provide effective representation, a claim that he supported with a long laundry list of counsel’s omissions.

Justice G. Barry Anderson, writing an opinion joined only by four other members of the court, ignores the alleged lie and instead concludes that Mr. Sontoya either knew or should have known about his attorney’s representation of the victim’s cousin, and thus knew or should have known of the conflict.  This conclusion allows the court to invoke the rule of Knaffla that claims about which a defendant knew or should have known must be raised on direct appeal. 

Justice Page concurred in the judgment only.  He also ignored the alleged lie and instead recited Mr. Sontoya’s laundry list of counsel’s omissions.  He then points out that all of these omissions occurred during the trial or during the run up to the trial, and so, obviously Mr. Sontyoa knew and should have known about them.  Again, that makes the claim Knaffla barred.  Justice Page thought that should have been the end of it so that it was unnecessary to examine the conflict of interest claim.

Justice Paul Anderson also concurred only in the judgment.  He looked at the alleged lie and its alleged deceptions and concluded that it was a meritless claim:

[T]here is no merit to Sontoya’s claim that an indirect potential conflict based on a loose familial relation with the victim would be sufficient for a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel.

Justice Paul Anderson thought that should have been the end of it.  It not only isn’t necessary to reach the Knaffla question – if the claim is meritless then it’s not necessary to decide any Knaffla question - addressing it appears to impose a burden on defendants to independently investigate and verify claims made by their trial counsel (or would be trial counsel when the claims are made during the sales pitch).  That’s particularly tough in serious cases where the defendant is mostly likely sitting in a jail cell.