Lyons v. Henderson, Warden

Summary

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio adopts the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation and dismisses Javon Lyons’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition with prejudice. The court concludes that the state court reasonably applied Strickland v. Washington to Lyons’s ineffective-assistance claim concerning advice about ballistic evidence and denies a certificate of appealability.

Holdings

1. Lyons failed to show that the Ohio Court of Appeals unreasonably applied Strickland in concluding that counsel's advice to accept a 25-year plea rather than risk life without parole was within the range of reasonable professional assistance.
2. Lyons failed to establish prejudice because he did not show a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's alleged errors concerning the ballistics evidence, he would have rejected the guilty plea and insisted on going to trial.
3. Lyons failed to rebut the state court's factual findings with clear and convincing evidence or demonstrate that those findings lacked support in the record; therefore, habeas relief was unavailable under § 2254(d)(2).

Questions Presented

1. Whether the Ohio court's rejection of Lyons's ineffective-assistance claim involved an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).
2. Whether the Ohio court's factual findings concerning counsel's advice, the ballistics evidence, and the likelihood that Lyons would have rejected the plea were unreasonable in light of the state-court record under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2).
3. Whether Lyons was entitled to habeas relief, a certificate of appealability, or authorization to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal.

Disposition

dismissed