Lance K. Poulsen v. United States

I. Whether the lower courts abdicated their responsibility to provide a vigilant and independent review of Mr. Poulsen’s claims by straining to deny a hearing on ineffective assistance of counsel and affirming money laundering convictions resting on a legally flawed foundation which trial counsel overlooked and neglected, and which resulted in the reversal of parallel convictions of Mr. Poulsen’s codefendants. II. Whether the Sixth Circuit erred in its application of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) and departed from the law of other circuits when still presuming reasonable the performance of trial counsel who overlooked and neglected arguments that resulted in the reversal of parallel convictions of Mr. Poulsen’s codefendants. III. Whether the lower courts departed from decisions in other circuits and improperly applied circular reasoning to deny Mr. Poulsen a statutorily required hearing to establish his lawyers’ ineffectiveness and other constitutional claims based on evidence that went unchallenged because of his lawyers’ ineffectiveness.