Joshua G. Stegemann v. United States
SocialSecurity Securities
Was the lawyer's advice objectively unreasonable under the Sixth Amendment's guarantee to effective assistance of counsel?
QUESTION(S) PRESENTED 7 1. If a lawyer advises her client to reject a favorable plea deal and instead proceed to trial in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt resulting in conviction and far longer imprisonment than would have been imposed under the plea, was the lawyer's advice objectively unreasonable under the Sixth Amendment's guarantee to effective assistance of counsel? 2. Does a criminal defendant have a right to be represented by counsel of his own choosing where the government is wrongfully withholding his ~ untainted assets and he has not disclosed his prospective choice of counsel in order to trigger release of his seized assets? 1