Meadows v. Lind, No. 19-1320 (10th Cir. 2021)
Annotate this CaseA trial judge excused several hard-of-hearing potential jurors from the venire of defendant Kenneth Meadows’ trial for sex offenses. Trial was to be held in a small, rural Colorado district court that lacked sufficient amplification equipment. Meadows’s trial lawyer objected to the excusals, but chose not to seek a continuance of jury selection to obtain equipment from a different location. Meadows was convicted. On direct appeal to state court, Meadows raised the juror dismissal issue, but that argument was rejected by the Colorado Court of Appeals. The Colorado Supreme Court denied certiorari review, and Meadows was unsuccessful in state post-conviction collateral proceedings. Meadows then challenged his conviction by filing a petition for federal habeas corpus relief, arguing his attorney’s performance at the state trial amounted to constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel because counsel failed to object to the excusal of, or seek accommodations for, hard- of-hearing jurors. The district court denied Meadows’s petition. The Tenth Circuit affirmed, finding: (1) Meadows’s trial counsel was not constitutionally ineffective; and (2) Meadows failed to show any actual prejudice resulting from his trial counsel’s performance because he provided no reason to believe the excusal of the jurors resulted in a fundamentally unfair trial.
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