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Gaines v. Sikes

Defendant's habeas petition raising an ineffective assistance claim was not completely unsupported, since he introduced a transcript showing that his attorney did not object to the trial court's improper charge on intent.

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We granted Robert Gaines a certificate of probable cause to appeal the denial of his petition for habeas corpus. Because we agree with Gaines that the habeas court relied upon an incomplete analysis of the law when evaluating his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and that the habeas court erred when it concluded that Gaines had failed to support his contention that a constitutionally-impermissible charge had been given at Gaines’s trial, we reverse the habeas court’s ruling.

Gaines was convicted of malice murder and armed robbery in March 1976; this Court affirmed his conviction and sentence. Gaines v. State, 239 Ga. 98 236 SE2d 55 1977. In April 1998, Gaines filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus alleging, inter alia, that the trial court erred by giving a constitutionally-impermissible jury charge on intent, in violation of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510 99 SC 2450, 61 LE2d 39 1979, and that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to this jury charge error. The habeas court denied the petition, finding that Gaines had failed to introduce any evidence to support his contentions and that Gaines’s attorney had rendered reasonably effective assistance “meeting the criteria set forth in the case of Pitts v. Glass, 231 Ga. 638 203 SE2d 515 1974.”

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