UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. NICHOLAS RAGIN
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Gregory, Filed March 11, 2016,
Ineffective Assistance – A defendant is deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when counsel sleeps during a substantial portion of the defendant’s trial.

The 4th Circuit gave the district court’s credibility assessment virtually no weight, but given the Court’s description of the events that occurred there’s not much to be said there.

The question of what “a substantial portion” is might require some future analysis, but in this case there was testimony by both state and defense witnesses that counsel was dozing.

Trial note: Be Awake
Trial note #2: Make sure defense counsel’s awake
Trial note #3: Judges, please keep counsel awake