Eighth Circuit -- Thomas Morelos v. United States

Also sprach the Court clerk:

[PUBLISHED] [Bye, Author, with Murphy and Shepherd, Circuit Judges]
Prisoner case - habeas. Claim that trial counsel was ineffective regarding impeachment and cross-examination rejected; claim of ineffective assistance during closing argument is based on an inaccurate statement of the government's burden at trial and is rejected; any argument that the government did not prove the type of methamphetamine involved in the offense is meritless and counsel could not be ineffective in deciding not to raise the issue; court concludes that counsel's decision not to independently withdraw over the fact that he had prosecuted Morales in state court was within the range of professional assistance; nor was counsel's decision not to withdraw over the suspensions of his licenses in Nebraska and South Dakota beyond the range of professional assistance; because all of Morales's grounds for his claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel are unavailing, he cannot show that he suffered any prejudice from the manner in which counsel handled his direct appeal; claims of prosecutorial misconduct rejected without comment.

Thomas Morelos v. United States