## Facts

- Harrison P. Cronic and two associates were indicted on federal mail fraud charges tied to a large check-kiting scheme involving about $9.4 million in checks transferred between banks in Florida and Oklahoma over roughly four months in 1975.
- The Government investigated for more than four years and reviewed thousands of documents before trial.
- Shortly before trial, Cronic’s retained counsel withdrew; the district court appointed an attorney with a real-estate-focused practice who had never tried a jury case and gave him 25 days to prepare.
- Cronic’s co-defendants entered plea agreements and testified for the Government.
- A jury convicted Cronic on the mail fraud counts, and he was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment.

## Issues

1. Whether a court may find a Sixth Amendment violation by presuming ineffective assistance from surrounding circumstances (limited preparation time, inexperience, case complexity) without identifying specific attorney errors and resulting prejudice.
2. When, if ever, prejudice may be presumed in an ineffective-assistance claim without examining counsel’s actual performance at trial.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Tenth Circuit and remanded.
- The Court held that the court of appeals erred by inferring ineffective assistance solely from contextual factors without identifying specific deficiencies in representation and prejudice.
- The Court recognized only narrow categories where prejudice may be presumed, and concluded the circumstances here did not justify that presumption.

## Legal Principles

- The Sixth Amendment right to counsel is directed to preserving an adversarial criminal process in which the prosecution’s case is subject to meaningful testing.
- Ineffective-assistance claims generally require proof of (1) deficient performance and (2) prejudice affecting the outcome; circumstantial concerns such as limited preparation time or counsel inexperience are relevant but not, by themselves, sufficient to establish a constitutional violation.
- Prejudice may be presumed only in rare situations where the likelihood of effective assistance is so small that inquiry into actual performance is unnecessary, including:
  - complete denial of counsel at a critical stage;
  - counsel’s total failure to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing; or
  - similarly extreme circumstances making effective assistance essentially impossible.
- Absent an identified breakdown of the adversarial process, courts should not dispense with examination of counsel’s actual performance and its effect on the result.

## Conclusion

The Court held that ineffective assistance ordinarily cannot be established by inferring prejudice from pretrial circumstances alone; except for limited categories where the adversarial process has effectively collapsed, a defendant must identify specific deficient acts by counsel and show resulting prejudice.


United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648 (1984)