Swaney v. State, Minn.S.Ct., 7/13/2016. Mr. Swaney is serving a life sentence without possibility of release. The supreme court affirmed his direct appeal back in 2010. In this post conviction go-round, Mr. Swaney made a lot of claims, most of which the post conviction court summarily denied under Knaffla. The post conviction court did hold an evidentiary hearing on three of Mr. Swaney's ineffective assistance of counsel claims: that his trial counsel had been ineffective by not obtaining the prison phone records of an inmate who claimed that Mr. Swaney made inculpatory statements to him; by not personally interviewing witnesses; and by being inexperienced.
Justice Dietzen concludes that Mr. Swaney is not entitled to any relief. Mr. Swaney claimed that this inmate had access to information about the crime other than from him, which the jury should have known. Justice Dietzen said, however, that because Mr. Swaney was unable to show what the contents of the inmate phone calls were, it was speculative whether production of those calls would have changed the outcome of the trial. To cover the bases, the Justice went on to say that even if the calls had supported Mr. Swaney's claim, the calls would have been impeachment evidence at most.
Mr. Swaney said it was ineffective for trial counsel to have sent out an investigator to interview witnesses, that counsel should have undertaken that role. Justice Dietzen rejects this claim as meritless, pointing out that sending out an investigator eliminates the risk that counsel would become a witness and thus unable to continue representation.
Finally, inexperience, by itself is not grounds to support an ineffective assistance claim. Inexperience can be a factor in judging counsel's performance but that's as far as it goes. Moreover, trial counsel's only apparent "inexperience" was not having previously tried a murder one case. However, counsel had two co-counsel who had tried murder one cases.
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