United States Second Circuit

District court judgment denying plaintiff's petition for habeas corpus relief is reversed and remanded where: 1) the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's deferential standard of review for a claim resolved on the merits by a state court is not displaced when a district court conducts additional fact finding in habeas proceedings; and 2) the court unreasonably applied clearly established federal law in concluding that that plaintiff received the effective assistance of counsel at his trial, as trial counsel's performance was objectively unreasonable and there is a reasonable probability that but for counsel's unprofessional errors the result of the proceeding would have been different.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/24/2009
• Published 06/24/2009

Judges

• JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judge:, Before WALKER, CABRANES, and RAGGI, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Erik Bierbauer (John A. Laufer, on the brief), Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, New York, NY, for Petitioner-Appellant George Wilson.


• For Appellees:
  
• Malancha Chanda, Assistant Attorney General (Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General of the State of New York, on the brief, Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, and Roseann B. MacKechnie, Deputy Solicitor General for Criminal Matters, of counsel), Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, NY, for Respondent-Appellee William Mazzuca.