“Ineffective Assistance” Is a Favorite of Jailhouse Lawyers But Is It Really Effective?
If you’re in Federal Prison reading this (we won’t report you like others) but you’re probably considering “ineffective assistance of counsel” or a 2255, but is that really effective?
According to the latest Justice Department data and a search of real time Lexis, ineffective assistance is granted at a rate of about .03%. So no it’s not really effective. Please keep in mind three important things.
The first thing is that “ineffective assistance of counsel” is basically accusing your attorney of malpractice and that bar is extremely high.
Just because you ended up in Federal Prison does not necessarily mean your counsel was ineffective.
You have one year from when your judgement was entered to file for ineffective, and not a day longer.
Ineffective Assistance of counsel is actually a “Motion to vacate, set aside, or correct a sentence” in most cases when a 2255 is granted it’s because there was an actual reason to vacate, set aside or correct a sentence.
There is a case many study in their 2L year of law school about ineffective where the attorney showed up drunk to court, and it still wasn’t granted.
Please keep this in mind. Ineffective assistance of counsel is a great way for a jailhouse lawyer to make some good commissary because it is a lengthy motion, but rarely, is it an effective motion.
