stating “the trial court could rationally infer that the appellant’s trial attorneys made a difficult tactical decision to leave Wyatt on the jury because, even though she was an assistant district attorney, she was still preferable to the other prospective jurors against whom they exercised their allotted peremptory challenges”
How later courts described this case
- stating “the trial court could rationally infer that the appellant’s trial attorneys made a difficult tactical decision to leave Wyatt on the jury because, even though she was an assistant district attorney, she was still preferable to the other prospective jurors against whom they exercised their allotted peremptory challenges”
- explaining that “unless there is a record sufficient to demonstrate that counsel’s conduct was not the product of a strategic or tactical decision, a reviewing court should presume that trial counsel’s performance was constitutionally adequate”
- noting that, “unless there is a 10 record sufficient to demonstrate that counsel’s conduct was not the product of a strategic or tactical decision, a reviewing court should presume that trial counsel’s performance was constitutionally adequate”
- noting that, “unless there is a record sufficient to demonstrate that counsel’s conduct was not the product of a strategic or tactical 29 decision, a reviewing court should presume that trial counsel’s performance was constitutionally adequate”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
WOMACK, J.,
filed a concurring opinion.
I do not agree that the case involves the Sixth-Amendment doctrine of implied bias (see supra, at 692-95). I think the juror was subject to a challenge for cause because she was, in the language of Code of Criminal Procedure article 35.16(c)(1), “related in the third degree of consanguinity ... to any prosecutor in the case.” She was related in the zero degree of consanguinity to a prosecutor in the case — she was a prosecutor in the case, as was every other prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office.
I concur in the judgment of the Court to remand the cause to the Court of Appeals, but I would have that court decide whether it was ineffective assistance for the appellant’s attorney to fail to challenge the prosecutor.