Villarreal v. Colorado
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The Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case, along with "Hagos v. Colorado" (2012 CO 63), to address whether a determination on direct appeal that instructional error did not constitute plain error necessarily requires a determination in post conviction proceedings that trial counsel's failure to object to the erroneous instruction did not prejudice the defense. Upon review, the Court concluded that that a determination that an instructional error did not constitute plain error does not control a determination of prejudice under "Strickland v. Washington," (466 U.S. 668 (1984)), because the plain error and Strickland standards are not the same. "The plain error standard requires that an error impair the reliability of the judgment of conviction to a greater degree than the Strickland prejudice standard." Defendant Villarreal's ineffective assistance of counsel claim, nonetheless, failed under the separate, fact-specific Strickland analysis. Thus, the Court affirmed the court of appeals' judgment but on different grounds.
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