Archuleta v. Galetka, 960533

• Decision Date: 26 June 1998
• Docket Number: No. 960533,960533
• Citation: Archuleta v. Galetka, 960 P.2d 399 (Utah 1998)
• Parties: 346 Utah Adv. Rep. 17 Michael Anthony ARCHULETA, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Hank GALETKA, Warden, Utah State Prison, Defendant and Appellee.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

Page 399

960 P.2d 399

346 Utah Adv. Rep. 17

Michael Anthony ARCHULETA, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Hank GALETKA, Warden, Utah State Prison, Defendant and Appellee.

No. 960533.

Supreme Court of Utah.

June 26, 1998.

M. David Eckersley, Salt Lake City, and Karen A. Chaney, Colorado Springs, Colorado, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Jan Graham, Attorney General, Kris C. Leonard, Assistant Attorney General, Salt Lake City, for Defendant and Appellee.

STEWART, Justice:

Plaintiff Michael Anthony Archuleta was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death. We affirmed the conviction and sentence in State v. Archuleta, 850 P.2d 1232, 1248 (Utah 1993). Thereafter, Archuleta filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the district court, challenging his conviction on the ground that he had been denied his Sixth Amendment constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel both at the trial of his case and on the appeal of the conviction. The petition alleged that the ineffective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal was legally prejudicial. In the habeas proceeding, the district court dismissed the petition on the ground that the claims asserted by Archuleta were procedurally barred because they could have been raised on direct appeal and were not.

The district court erred in ruling that the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was based on the allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal, was barred. See Dunn v. Cook, 791 P.2d 873, 878-79 (Utah 1990); see also Parsons v. Barnes, 871 P.2d 516, 521 (Utah 1994); Fernandez v. Cook, 783...