We granted Stanley Crawford’s certificate of probable cause to appeal the denial of his petition for habeas corpus in order to determine whether the habeas court erroneously analyzed Crawford’s claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. We hold that the habeas court incorrectly applied Shorter v. Walters , 275 Ga. 581 571 SE2d 373 2002 and that when Crawford’s case is properly analyzed, he is entitled to habeas corpus relief. Crawford was represented at trial by attorney Cooper. After Crawford was convicted of armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery, attorney Mason was appointed to represent Crawford on appeal. Mason raised three issues before the Court of Appeals in Crawford’s appeal: the denial of Crawford’s motion for discharge and acquittal after the State failed to timely bring him to trial in compliance with his speedy trial demand; an ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim in which the only argument was that Cooper improperly placed Crawford’s character into evidence by questioning Crawford on direct about his prior criminal record; and the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. In Crawford v. State , 252 Ga. App. 722 556 SE2d 888 2001, the Court of Appeals affirmed Crawford’s convictions after carefully analyzing his enumerations. Pertinent to this habeas case, the Court of Appeals held that the speedy trial issue was procedurally defaulted because Crawford “failed to establish full compliance” with the applicable statute, OCGA § 17-7-171. Crawford , supra at 724 1. Specifically, the Court of Appeals recognized that the record failed to reflect that trial counsel had fulfilled the strict requirement that a defendant be in court “announcing ready for trial” in that the one pre-trial hearing that was transcribed and available for appellate review did not show that “Crawford announced ready and requested to be tried on the indictment.” Id.
Crawford subsequently filed a habeas petition in which he asserted, inter alia, that his appellate counsel was ineffective for raising the speedy trial issue as a separate enumeration of error rather than in the context of a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The habeas court found that Mason chose not to raise such a claim because Mason “did not think trial counsel was ineffective.” Mason recognized that Cooper, in presenting Crawford’s statutory speedy trial demand on the armed robbery charge, had cited to OCGA § 17-7-170 speedy trial demand in non-capital cases instead of OCGA § 17-7-171, the statute applicable to capital crimes such as armed robbery, and that Cooper made no formal announcement that Crawford was ready to be tried on the indictment when he and Crawford appeared at calls of the case during the two terms following the filing of the demand.1 The habeas court found that “Mason did not believe that using the wrong statute made the difference in the outcome of the motion for discharge. . . . He also did not think that Cooper was ineffective for not specifically announcing ready for trial. In fact Mr. Mason stated that he probably would have proceeded in a similar fashion.” After making these findings of fact, the habeas court referenced the appropriate law then concluded that Crawford’s claim failed because Crawford had not shown that Mason’s performance was deficient or that Crawford’s appeal was prejudiced by Mason’s performance.
