Maryland, Petitioner v. James Kulbicki (577 U.S. 1)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided October 5, 2015 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 577 U.S. 1 · 136 S. Ct. 2
- Decided
- October 5, 2015
- Term
- October Term 2015
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
PER CURIAM. A criminal defendant "shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." U.S. Const., Amdt. 6. We have held that this right requires effective counsel in both state and federal prosecutions, even if the defendant is unable to afford counsel. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 344, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). Counsel is unconstitutionally in effective if his performance is both deficient, meaning his errors are "so serious" that he no longer functions as "counsel," and prejudicial, meaning his errors deprive the defendant of a fair trial. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Applying this standard in name only, the Court of Appeals of Maryland held that James Kulbicki's defense attorneys were unconstitutionally ineffective. We summarily reverse. In 1993, Kulbicki shot his 22-year-old mistress in the head at pointblank range. The two had been ensnarled in a paternity suit, and the killing occurred the weekend before a scheduled hearing about unpaid child support. At Kulbicki's trial, commencing in 1995, Agent Ernest Peele of the FBI testified as the State's expert on Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis, or CBLA. In testimony of the sort CBLA experts had provided for decades, Peele testified that the composition of elements in the molten lead of a bullet fragment found in Kulbicki's truck…
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