The Maine Supreme Judicial Court reversed a judgment of the post-conviction review court and instructed it to weigh all relevant factors, including defense counsel strategy, after it denied a defendant’s claim that he had ineffective assistance of counsel when his court-appointed lawyers failed to assert his right to a speedy trial.
Dennis F. Winchester was charged in six separate cases of burglary and theft-related offenses between June 2014 and March 2015 while already incarcerated for another offense. The time between when he was initially charged in the cases at issue to the time that they were resolved ranged from 33 to 42 months, according to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s opinion filed March 30.
