Patrick McInerney v. Steve W. Puckett

GEE, Circuit Judge:

This appeal from the district court’s grant of habeas relief requires us to determine (1) whether a six year old order for pre-trial psychiatric evaluation, standing alone, required the trial judge to conduct a hearing into the defendant’s competence to stand trial, and (2) whether trial counsel’s failure to raise timely an insanity defense and his somewhat casual preparations for trial constitute such extreme ineffective assistance of counsel as to render unnecessary the ordinarily-required inquiry into actual resulting prejudice, and to support a presumption of such…