Massachusetts SJC Adopts Standard for Snoozing Trial Counsel's Effectiveness
“Although any slumber by counsel during trial is distressing and detrimental, counsel’s constructive absence during either a significant portion of trial or an important aspect of trial so offends the constitutional protections surrounding the right to assistance of counsel that it renders the entire adversary process ‘presumptively unreliable’ and creates an uncurable error, ‘even if the error was ultimately harmless,'” Chief Justice Kimberly S. Budd wrote.