Cook v. Foster, No. 18-2214 (7th Cir. 2020)
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After a 2005 home invasion, Cook and Egerson were charged with armed robbery, armed burglary, false imprisonment, battery, theft, and mistreatment of an animal causing death. Cook claimed that Hall, not Cook, was Egerson’s accomplice. He was sentenced to 40 years’ imprisonment.
The Seventh Circuit granted Cook habeas relief. Applying the “Strickland” standard, Cook demonstrated that Wisconsin’s court of appeals unreasonably assessed his contention that he did not receive the effective assistance of counsel. In a trial that the presiding judge later characterized as unworthy of confidence, Cook’s attorney failed to locate or produce Hall, a long‐time friend of Egerson, friends with two women accomplices, and ex‐boyfriend of the victims’ daughter. Hall resembles Cook in appearance. The court also noted counsel’s failure to object to hearsay testimony, unsupported by a proper foundation, about cell phone records; failure to bring out the de facto immunity given the women accomplices in exchange for their testimony; failure to object to a victim’s unanticipated in‐court identification of Cook; withdrawal of question to an accomplice about Hall’s possession of a gun immediately before the crimes; and failure to object to testimony that Cook temporarily discontinued his police interrogation. To establish prejudice, Cook did not need to prove “that counsel’s deficient conduct more likely than not altered the outcome in the case” but only had to show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result would have been different.
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