204
Opinion of the Court
Argersinger, supra, at 29 (citing Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145 (1968)). But they do not control the question whether a showing of prejudice, in the context of a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel, requires a significant increase in a term of imprisonment.
The Seventh Circuit's rule is not well considered in any event, because there is no obvious dividing line by which to measure how much longer a sentence must be for the increase to constitute substantial prejudice. Indeed, it is not even clear if the relevant increase is to be measured in absolute terms or by some fraction of the total authorized sentence. See Martin v. United States, 109 F. 3d 1177, 1183 (CA7 1996) (Rovner, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). Although the amount by which a defendant's sentence is increased by a particular decision may be a factor to consider in determining whether counsel's performance in failing to argue the point constitutes ineffective assistance, under a determinate system of constrained discretion such as the Sentencing Guidelines it cannot serve as a bar to a showing of prejudice. Compare Spriggs v. Collins, 993 F. 2d 85, 88 (CA5 1993) (requiring a showing that a sentence would have been "significantly less harsh" under the Texas discretionary sentencing scheme), with United States v. Phillips, 210 F. 3d 345 (CA5 2000) (finding prejudice under the Sentencing Guidelines when an error by counsel led to an increased sentence). We hold that the Seventh Circuit erred in engrafting this additional requirement onto the prejudice branch of the Strickland test. This is not a case where trial strategies, in retrospect, might be criticized for leading to a harsher sentence. Here we consider the sentencing calculation itself, a calculation resulting from a ruling which, if it had been error, would have been correctable on appeal. We express no opinion on the ultimate merits of Glover's claim because the question of deficient performance is not before us, but it is clear that prejudice flowed from the asserted error in sentencing.
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007