Jones v. Baldwin

Petitioner appeals from the judgment denying his petition for post-conviction relief in which he claimed, inter alia, that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel due to trial counsel’s failure to object to the trial court’s answer to an inquiry from the jury in his criminal case. We conclude that the trial court’s answer to the jury’s inquiry about the elements of the crime of conspiracy was ambiguous and, because of its ambiguity, could have misled the jury. Trial counsel’s failure to object to the ambiguous answer prejudiced petitioner in that the jury could have convicted him…