Citizens Bank v. McLaughlin

How later courts describe this case

• “reaching the prejudice issue first will often obviate the need to rule definitively on the more difficult performance question”
• detaining a child in violation of “any terms of a valid court order” and “removing the child from the jurisdiction of the court” were express statutory elements of the offense
• duty-to-diversify-unless-prudent breached where fund had invested 65% or 85% of its assets in commercial real-estate first mortgages in and around Clovis
• counsel’s mental illness and subsequent replacement during trial did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel when defendant did not show how counsel’s action prejudiced him
• "Because the Secretary's motion was not filed until thirteen days after entry of the findings of fact and conclusions of law, the district court correctly denied relief on jurisdictional grounds."
• attorney's mental illness was not grounds for per se rule of prejudice
• ineffective for counsel to rely upon defendant’s representation that defendant thought the information in the rap sheet accurate where counsel did not explain to the defendant “the critical distinctions between arrest and conviction and between felony and misdemeanor”
• “Rather than attempt to identify mental illnesses that would presumptively disable an attorney from conducting a criminal defense we believe it is more prudent to evaluate the attorney’s actual conduct of a trial in light of allegations of mental incompetence.”