Greg Miller was charged with cruelty to children for maliciously causing cruel and excessive physical and mental pain to a child under the age of 18 and with family violence battery for intentionally causing visible bodily harm to Wintress Goodrum, with whom he had previously resided. A jury acquitted Miller of cruelty to children and convicted him of simple battery as a lesser included offense of family violence battery in connection with the offense against Goodrum. In Miller v. State Miller I ,1 we affirmed Greg Miller’s conviction. This case makes its second appearance before this court on remand from our Supreme Court, which concluded in Miller v. State Miller II ,2 that we erroneously eliminated or diluted the “reasonable probability” standard of the prejudice prong set forth in the Strickland 3 test when evaluating Miller’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim.4 Consequently, Miller II vacated Division 2 of our opinion and remanded the case for further consideration of that issue.5 Accordingly, our judgment in Miller I is vacated as to Division 2.
As stated in Miller II , The benchmark for judging any claim of ineffectiveness must be whether counsel’s conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result. There are two components to the inquiry: First, the defendant must show that counsel’s performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the “counsel” guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable. Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable. The Strickland Court set forth the appropriate test for determining prejudice: The defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.6 In Miller I ,7 we did not utilize the “reasonable probability” language, concluding instead that Miller’s claim of ineffectiveness failed because even assuming counsel’s deficient performance, Miller had not shown that “but for counsel’s error, the outcome of the case would have been different.”8 Applying the appropriate standard on remand, we again conclude that Miller’s claim fails because of his inability to satisfy the prejudice prong of Strickland .
