French v. Warden, Wilcox State Prison, No. 12-15385 (11th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePetitioner, convicted for molesting his daughter and her friend, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254, arguing that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. Petitioner argued that his trial counsel failed to proffer evidence that one of his alleged victims had falsely accused him of kidnapping and his attorney’s failure to perfect the record for appeal caused the Georgia Court of Appeals to decline to address the issue. The court denied defendant's motion to supplement the record and his alternative motion to remand for an evidentiary hearing. The court also concluded that the state habeas court did not unreasonably apply Strickland v. Washington's prejudice prong. There is simply no evidence in the record of the fact of the prior false accusation or the testimony that cross-examination would have elicited which can be weighed on petitioner’s side to find there is a reasonable probability of a different result on appeal. Finally, petitioner's Confrontation Clause claims are procedurally barred. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
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