State ex rel. Clayborn L. Walker v. Frank, 2007 WI App 142, PFR filed 6/1/07
For Walker: Amelia L. Bizzaro
Issue: Whether counsel deficiently advised Walker to waive ES revocation, in that counsel determined that investigation of alternatives to revocation would be futile.
Holding:
¶14 Dudley’s decision to advise Walker to waive the revocation hearing is within the core of a lawyer’s responsibility to devise the best strategy to protect a client’s interests. … ¶15 “[S]trategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690. The issue is, therefore, whether Dudley’s reliance on what he knew was the adamant opposition to alternatives to revocation by the agent following the agent’s Plotkin analysis, and Dudley’s assessment that the administrative law judge who would preside over the revocation hearing would almost never consider alternatives for absconders, especially in face of the agent’s opposition, and Dudley’s desire to get for Walker at least the perception that Walker was being cooperative so as to lessen the chance that the administrative law judge’s recommendation to the reconfinement court would be more severe than the agent’s two-year recommendation, made his decision not to explore alternatives to revocation deficient performance. We agree with the circuit court that it did not. ¶16 … We agree with the circuit court’s assessment that, based on its findings of fact, the likelihood that the alternatives to revocation identified by Walker at the evidentiary hearing on his petition for a writ of habeas corpus would have been accepted by the administrative law judge in lieu of revocation was virtually nil. … ¶17 A lawyer’s failure to investigate is not deficient performance if he or she reasonably concludes, based on facts of record, that any investigation would be mere wheel-spinning and fruitless. See Greiner v. Wells, 417 F.3d 305, 321 (2d Cir. 2005) (“[W]hen there is ‘reason to believe that pursuing certain investigations would be fruitless or even harmful, counsel’s failure to pursue those investigations may not later be challenged as unreasonable.’”) (quoting Strickland in a slightly different context, 466 U.S. at 691). Based on the circuit’s findings of fact, this is the situation here. …
