☢ test - Í

Fennell v. State, 292 Ga. 834, 741 S.E.2d 877 (April 29, 2013). Malice murder and related convictions affirmed; no ineffective assistance based on “failing to articulate a race-neutral reason for striking a juror once the State opposed the defense's strikes. … Appellant does not enumerate as error the trial court's determination that the reason offered by defense counsel for striking juror number eight was pretextual; nor does he argue that the trial court erred by seating the juror. Instead, appellant argues counsel was deficient for failing to articulate a race neutral reason for striking the juror that the trial court would not have found to be pretextual. He has failed, however, to state what that race neutral reason should have been, or even assuming the existence of such a proper, race neutral explanation, to demonstrate that the outcome of the trial would have been different if the juror had not been seated. As found by the trial court, ‘the mere fact that a given explanation was unsatisfactory does not mean counsel was ineffective. There may not have been a better explanation.’” King v. State, 320 Ga.App. 90, 739 S.E.2d 654 (February 14, 2013). Conviction for aggravated sodomy affirmed; no ineffective assistance for failure to seek curative instruction, based on alleged improper comment by juror during voir dire. “Trial counsel considered the trial court's offer, including the court's caution that it might draw more attention to the comments, and declined, noting that there was ‘no way to unring the bell.’ Thus, trial counsel's refusal of the offer for curative instructions was a reasonable strategic decision, and such ‘strategic decisions do not amount to deficient performance.’ [Cit.]” Bright v. State, 292 Ga. 273, 736 S.E.2d 380 (January 7, 2013). Murder and related convictions affirmed; no ineffective assistance where “trial counsel failed to ask any individual questions of prospective jurors during voir dire. “In his opening statement, trial counsel explained to the jury that he did not ask any additional questions ‘because you qualify as jurors when you come in here, unless you know some of the witnesses.’ Given this explanation and the questions asked by the prosecutor, trial counsel's decision not to ask questions of individual jurors did not constitute deficient performance. See Harris v. State, 257 Ga.App. 819(2)(e) (572 S.E.2d 370) (2002) (finding no deficient performance when defense counsel did not conduct individual voir dire of two jury panels because he received all the information he needed from general voir dire); see also Cade v. State, 289 Ga. 805(4) (716 S.E.2d 196) (2011) (concluding trial counsel made reasonable strategic decisions in declining to pursue further questioning of two jurors). In addition, Bright has not presented any evidence that additional questioning of the potential jurors would have revealed an improper bias against him or established that the jurors were not qualified to serve. “ Shields v. State, 307 Ga. 830, 706 S.E.2d 187 (February 14, 2011). Convictions stemming from home invasion and attempted armed robbery affirmed; no ineffective assistance because counsel thought he only had six peremptory strikes instead of nine, especially since he only used five, anyway. “Although it is clear that Shields's lawyer misunderstood the number of peremptory challenges to which Shields was entitled, it does not follow that this misunderstanding necessarily affected his strategic decisions to strike only five prospective jurors. If the lawyer reasonably would have made the same strategic decisions – even if he knew that Shields was entitled to nine strikes – it cannot be said that the mistake of law affected the conduct or performance of the lawyer. And it is conceivable that he might still have struck the jury in precisely the same way for strategic reasons, regardless of whether he thought he had six, nine, or twenty peremptory challenges. Because Shields bears the burden of proving deficient performance, and because our inquiry properly is focused on the reasonableness of what trial counsel did – not what he thought – we think that Shields, to establish deficient performance, must prove that his lawyer's misunderstanding of the law actually affected his decisions about which, and how many, prospective jurors to strike. [fn: The idea that the inquiry should be framed in this way is not novel. In another context in which the thinking of counsel is alleged to have been corrupted – not by ignorance of the law, but by a potential conflict of interest – the United States Supreme Court has adopted the same approach, requiring proof that the potential conflict actually affected the way in which the lawyer acted at trial. See Mickens v. Taylor, 535 U.S. 162, 173-174(II), 122 S.Ct. 1237, 152 L.Ed.2d 291 (2002). And although it has not said so explicitly, it appears to us that the Supreme Court has applied the same analysis in cases that, like this one, involve a lawyer's misunderstanding of the law. In Williams [ v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 391(III), 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)] , the Court found that the lawyer had represented the defendant at trial in an objectively unreasonable way, and the Court carefully explained how a mistake of law caused the lawyer not to investigate the circumstances of the defendant's childhood, which in turn caused the lawyer to fail to present mitigating evidence to the jury. 529 U.S. at 395. This explanation suggests that it was important to the Supreme Court that the lawyer's misunderstanding of the law actually affected the way in which he tried the case. ] The record does not prove that the lawyer's mistaken thinking actually affected his conduct in selecting a jury.”