The legal landscape of post-conviction relief shifted in Arizona with the Supreme Court's latest ruling, offering defendants like Michael Eugene Traverso a renewed chance at justice when they claim ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC). To some, this may be viewed as a meticulous untangling of procedural threads, woven into the broader tapestry of the judicial system, opening doors previously considered shut.
In the case of State v. Michael Eugene Traverso, a unanimous opinion delivered by Justice William G. Montgomery enlightened defendants on the capacity to reassert an IAC claim, under revised regulations effective from January 1, 2020, that such an assertion is viable if it hinges on a constitutional right and, crucially, was not waived by the defendant in prior attempts at post-conviction relief, as detailed in a document obtained by the Arizona Supreme Court.
Traverso's IAC claim centered on his counsel's failure to properly communicate a state-offered plea that might have limited his sentence to 13–27 years for multiple counts of sexual conduct with a minor, as opposed to the potential 163.5 years, However, this information was regretfully withheld until the eve of the trial, resulting not in the advised 27 years but a hefty 81 years behind bars, after a jury verdict a harsh reality check for a man unprepared for the burdens of his circumstance and an illustration of the critical nature of attorney competency.
