DISCLAIMER: Any unofficial case summaries below are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
121182P.pdf 03/14/2013 Thomas Morelos v. United States
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 12-1182
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Sioux City
[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.