State v. Bonds
Annotate this Case
The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals vacating Defendant's convictions based on ineffective assistance of counsel, holding that errors in the proceedings below did not prejudice Defendant.
In vacating Defendant's convictions the court of appeals concluded that trial counsel had been ineffective by failing to object to introduction and use of evidence about Defendant's silence while being arrested and by not objecting to the manslaughter jury instruction. The court ultimately concluded that Defendant was prejudiced by these instances of deficient performance. The Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the convictions vacated by the court of appeals, holding (1) trial counsel performed deficiently in failing to object to a certain jury instruction; and (2) assuming counsel was also deficient for not objecting to the State's use of Defendant's post-arrest, pre-Miranda silence against Defendant, Defendant failed to establish that there was a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different without these errors.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.