United States v. Lee, No. 11-1380 (8th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseDefendant and codefendant were convicted of conspiring to violate and violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, 18 U.S.C. 1962(c)-(d), and for three murders in aid of racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1959. At issue on appeal was whether defendant received ineffective assistance based on counsel's use of peremptory strikes during voir dire. Counsel's race based jury selection strategy was designed to produce a jury that would closely scrutinize the government's case and be less likely to impose the death penalty. While this strategy did not create the desired result, no evidence had been provided to show that the resulting jury was biased against defendant. Therefore, the court concluded that defendant's claim for ineffective assistance of counsel failed. Further, the court rejected defendant's constitutional challenges to his death sentence, as well as defendant's challenges to the government's reliance on three aggravating factors which were accepted by the jury. Accordingly, the court affirmed the order dismissing defendant's petition for habeas corpus relief.
Court Description: Prisoner case - habeas. Lee's trial counsel's use of peremptory strikes based on race in violation of Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42 (1992) did not deprive him of effective assistance of counsel; Lee's constitutional challenges to his sentence were rejected in his direct appeal and cannot be relitigated by way of a petition for postconviction relief under Section 2255; other challenges to the death sentence were outside the scope of the certificate of appealability.
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