Nunez v. United States came out of the sanctified and sanctimonious 7th Cir. yesterday and is one of those appeals that should've never removed the judges from their slumber swathed in the sheets of Justice. Not only did Mr. Nunez sign a waiver of appeal, his primary basis for relief was that he didn't make a voluntary plea because he couldn't understand his lawyer, when he admitted at his plea hearing that he speaks some English and could answer questions about his plea. Not likely.
His secondary claim was ineffective assistance, since his lawyer, perhaps in light of the waiver of appeal, didn't file a notice to the 7th Circuit. The metaphor Easterbrook chooses to demonstrate when counsel is ineffective is a little tenuous:
These decisions all rely on the holding of Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470 2000), that a criminal defendant has a statutory right to appellate review, and that when counsel utterly frustrates that right by failing to appeal on his client’s request, counsel’s performance is automatically ineffective. A lawyer who does not show up for trial might as well be a moose, and giving the defendant a moose does not satisfy the sixth amendment. See United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648 (1984). The same understanding applies when the lawyer does not show up for appeal.
If United States v. Cronic is not about a moose public defender, someone should poke Easterbrook and make sure he's still alive.
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