Hammond v. Sheets

Issue: (1) Whether the federal courts below correctly decided to exclude Petitioner’s evidence provided in support of the factual basis of his claim that ineffective assistance of counsel violated his Sixth Amendment rights during his state trial; (2) whether Ohio law operated to establish a right to assistance of counsel in post-conviction proceedings, as well as a right to effective assistance of counsel through the Sixth Amendment, or whether it operates to excuse procedural defaults bringing a substantive claim of ineffective assistance of counsel in an initial-review collateral proceeding where there was either no counsel or ineffective counsel; (3) whether the federal courts below correctly decided that sufficient evidence supports Petitioner’s conviction for rape as required by due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.