In this drug trafficking case, the trial court erred by denying the defendant’s motion for appropriate relief (MAR) which asserted ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. Drug were discovered after a vehicle stop. The defendant lost his motion to suppress and after being convicted appealed. On appeal appellate counsel did not challenge the trial court’s findings of fact in connection with the suppression motion, and thus they were binding on appeal. After the Court of Appeals affirmed, the defendant filed a MAR alleging ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. Specifically he asserted that there was no evidence to support the finding of fact that the officer was aware of an inspection violation at the time of the stop. The defendant asserted that if appellate counsel had properly challenged this finding of fact, the court would have reversed the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress and vacated the convictions. The trial court denied the defendant’s MAR, concluding that to rule favorably would require the court to reverse the order denying the motion to suppress and thus violate the rule that one Superior Court Judge cannot overrule another. The defendant filed a petition for writ of certiorari, which the Court of Appeals granted.

                  The court began by finding that the rule that one Superior Court Judge cannot overrule another “is generally inapplicable where a judge is tasked with deciding the merits of a defendant’s motion for appropriate relief.” The court noted that such action is authorized by the MAR statute. Thus, the trial court acted under a misapprehension of the law when it denied the defendant’s MAR on grounds that it would impermissibly require the MAR court to overrule another Superior Court Judge.

                  The court went on to find that the defendant was denied effective assistance of appellate counsel. Appellate counsel’s failure to challenge the trial court’s findings of fact regarding the inspection violation was not a reasonable strategic decision but rather an oversight. In fact, appellate counsel’s affidavit stated that counsel had “missed” the issue. Thus, the defendant satisfied the first prong of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim: deficient performance. The court went on to conclude that the defendant was prejudiced by counsel’s deficient performance. Here, had appellate counsel challenged the trial court’s findings of fact, there is a reasonable probability that the Court of Appeals would have concluded that the trial court’s finding that the stop was initiated because of an inspection violation was not supported by competent evidence and thus could not support the trial court’s conclusion as to the stop’s validity. Specifically, the DMV printout at issue contained no information concerning the vehicle’s inspection status and the officers did not claim any other knowledge of the vehicle’s inspection violation. In light of the actual DMV information presented, the officers could not have known that the vehicle’s inspection was expired at the time of the stop. Given the reasonable probability that the inspection status would not have been found to support the validity of the stop, this court would have proceeded to examine the defendant’s arguments pertaining to the two other grounds upon which the trial court based its denial of his motion to suppress, and it likely would have found for the defendant on both.