ALFRED WHITEHEAD v. STATE OF TENNESSEE - Articles

All Content

ALFRED WHITEHEAD v. STATE OF TENNESSEE

Posted by: Karen Belcher on Apr 27, 2020

Court: TN Court of Criminal Appeals

Attorneys 1: Jesse Lords, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Alfred Calvin Whitehead.

Attorneys 2: Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Brent C. Cherry, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Glenn R. Funk, District Attorney General; and Roger D. Moore, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

Judge(s): WOODALL

Alfred Whitehead, Petitioner, appeals from the post-conviction court’s order denying relief. On appeal, Petitioner claims that he received ineffective assistance of counsel as a result of trial counsel’s failure to object to “inflammatory and prejudicial statements” made by the State during opening statement and closing argument. We agree that the statements were improper and that trial counsel rendered deficient performance by failing to object, but we hold that Petitioner failed to “show that there [wa]s a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984). We, therefore, affirm the judgment of the post-conviction court.

Attachments: