Ineffective assistance claim fails.

Byline: Barry Bridges

A Superior Court judge has denied a petitioner's application for post-conviction relief, concluding that his trial attorney did not render constitutionally ineffective assistance in his assault trial by not calling certain medical personnel or an expert witness to the stand to testify about the victim's injuries.

The petitioner, Kevin Storey, was convicted by a jury in 2012 of assault with a dangerous weapon and simple assault and battery following an altercation with his wife, Danielle Saleeba.

In his challenge of those convictions, Judge Susan E. McGuirl determined that the trial attorney's alleged shortcomings in mounting Storey's defense were reasonable strategic decisions. Even if, for the sake of argument, her legal performance was deemed deficient, the petitioner did not demonstrate a reasonable probability that the trial's outcome would have been different but for the attorney's errors, McGuirl found.

Thus, he did not show what is needed to prevail on ineffective assistance of counsel claims under the benchmark U.S. Supreme Court holding in Strickland v. Washington: that the representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and that he was prejudiced.

"This court will not 'meticulously scrutinize an attorney's reasoned judgment or strategic maneuver in the context of a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel,'" McGuirl wrote. "Here, the court is satisfied that counsel effectively investigated, weighed, and determined the appropriate course of action to take using her breadth of defense experience."

With the representation meeting the constitutional bounds guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, McGuirl also turned away the petitioner's other theories of post-conviction relief, such as his claims that the convictions on the two counts were inconsistent verdicts and that there was an error of law in categorizing his hands as a dangerous weapon.

The 15-page decision is Storey v. State, Lawyers Weekly No. 61-022-19. The full text of the ruling can be found here.

Storey was represented at the post-conviction stage by William V. Devine Jr. of Providence.

"The Strickland standard is a tough one, and beyond the immigration context of Padilla [v. Kentucky], it's not often that a petitioner prevails," Devine said. "So much hinges on tactics and strategy, and in this case the judge basically said she was not going to second-guess the trial attorney's actions in the moment."

Jeanine P. McConaghy argued on...