| Court: | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
| Facts: | Johnson stabs his wife to death. A psychiatrist and a psychologist evaluate him, and they mention that he may not be competent to proceed, but they don't offer official conclusions because of conflict-of-interest concerns. The defense counsel does not raise competency to proceed, for strategic reasons, aiming at a heat-of-passion theory. |
| Posture: | State appeals from circuit court's order to reverse the trial court's conviction, which was appealed by the defendant. |
| Issue: | Was the defense ineffective, and if so, should there be a new trial? |
| Holding: | Affirmed, but a new trial is only needed if we can not make a nunc pro tunc determination of competency. |
| Rule: | Competency concerns cannot be suppressed as a matter of strategy. In order to be ineffective counsel's performance must be deficient, and the deficiency must prejudice the defense. That was the case here. |
| Reasoning: | The right to counsel means the right to effective counsel, not just the form. The defense counsel clearly had reason to doubt the defendant's competency, and failure to raise that issue clearly falls below the reasonable standard of performance. |
| Dicta: | Fifth Circuit Court is wrong to allow tactical omission of competency concerns. |