# Wilkerson v. State

> Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas · May 14, 1986 · 726 S.W.2d 542

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9645594

## Case

- **Full name:** Richard James WILKERSON, Appellant, v. the STATE of Texas, Appellee
- **Court:** Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas
- **Decided:** May 14, 1986
- **Citations:** 726 S.W.2d 542; 1986 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1276
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Teague
- **Judges:** Miller, Teague, Clinton
- **Cited by:** 413 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9645594

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding “there is nothing in the record to show that potential defenses were precluded or that a visit to the scene would have made any difference in the defense’s case[;] the failure of the attorneys to visit the scene does not militate against a finding of reasonable represe…
- holding that "[w]hen the affidavit contains information given by a named informant . . . the affidavit is sufficient if the information given is sufficiently detailed so as to suggest direct knowledge on his or her part"
- finding counselor=s failure to demand a competency hearing or put on an insanity defense reasonable where defendant appeared to understand the charges and cooperated with his attorney and no evidence indicated he was insane at the time he committed the crime
- stating that counsel = s failure to call a witness is irrelevant absent a showing that the witness was available and the defendant would benefit from the testimony
- stating that affidavit containing information given by a named informant is sufficient if the information given is sufficiently detailed so as to suggest direct knowledge

## Opinion text

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
In making the statement, “In determining whether a defendant has received ineffective assistance of counsel, we use the standard set forth in Strickland ¶. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984),” (My emphasis), and by what else is stated in the opinion, I believe that the majority opinion has implicitly, if not expressly, mandated that in all future cases what was stated and held in Strickland v. Washington, supra, will control whether trial counsel was or was not effective counsel.
In making the above statement, the majority opinion has, in my view, also buried without even a one-gun salute the opinion of Ex parte Duffy, 607 S.W.2d 507 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), which formerly was used to make the determination whether or not, as a matter of State law, trial counsel was effective. Based upon the above statement in the majority opinion, Duffy is now dispatched to Davey Jones’ footlocker, in order to take its place among so many of the other decisions of this Court that have recently been overruled by an aggressive and assertive majority of this Court.
The above, however, is simply just one more example of this Court’s aggressive and assertive majority’s attempts to mimic decisions by the United States Supreme Court. To this Court’s continuing abdication of its duty to act as an independent State judiciary, I respectfully dissent.
By this dissent, however, I do not mean to leave the impression that I agree with *555 everything else that is stated in the majority opinion — because I don’t.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9645594. Public record. Not legal advice.
