Maxwell Hoffman v. Arvon J. Arave, Warden, Idaho Maximum Security Institution, Department of Correction, State of Idaho

The petitioner, Maxwell Hoffman, appeals the denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition based on ineffective assistance of counsel during pre-trial plea bargaining and during the guilt phase of his trial for the murder of Denise Williams. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 2253. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I. Factual Background

The facts of the murder of Denise Williams have been recounted in numerous prior decisions in state and federal courts, and are recited only briefly here. Hoffman was employed by Richard Holmes, a drug dealer. Williams, a police informant, initiated a controlled buy with Holmes, and as a consequence, Holmes was arrested for distributing controlled substances. After Holmes was released on bail, Sam Longstreet and Jeff Slawson, two of Williams’s friends, went to meet with Holmes to assure him that they had nothing to do with his arrest. Holmes brokered a deal for these two friends to deliver Williams to Holmes at a camp in Idaho.

Longstreet and Slawson dropped Williams off and left her with Ron Wages, one of Holmes’s associates. Thereafter, Hoffman and Holmes went to the camp and met up with Wages and Williams. Holmes…