United States of America Ex Rel. Marlon Thomas v. Michael O'Leary

BAUER, Chief Judge.

Respondent-appellant Michael O’Leary, warden at Illinois’s Stateville Correctional Center, appeals the district court’s grant of petitioner-appellee Marlon Thomas’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. O’Leary contends that the district court erred in holding that Thomas was denied effective assistance of counsel on the State of Illinois’s appeal from the state trial court’s decision to suppress statements made by Thomas and a companion or, in the alternative, that any such denial was harmless error. For the following reasons, we affirm.

I

Late in the evening of March 6,…