California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Espinosa, B296202 (Cal. App. 2020):
Defendant complains that his counsel was ineffective in "fail[ing] to object to the trial court's incorrect belief that [defendant] had expressed no remorse at his initial sentencing" when defendant had expressed remorse at his initial sentencing hearing. Defendant has mischaracterized the court's statement, which was, "I could not find any evidence of remorse in this case prior to sentencing" (italics added), which implicitly acknowledged the existence of such remorse at sentencing. Further, defendant's complaint that counsel should have supported his request for the court to consider post-sentencing rehabilitation with specific citations to authorities is meritless. "Competent counsel is not required to make all conceivable motions or to leave an exhaustive paper trail for the sake of the record." (People v. Freeman (1994) 8 Cal.4th 450, 509.)
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