Everett Urquhart, Defendant Below, Appellant v. State of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Summary

The court reversed the denial of postconviction relief, holding that counsel's near-total failure to communicate with Urquhart, review the evidence, prepare for trial, and advise him during plea negotiations deprived him of effective assistance during the critical pretrial period. The court treated the circumstances as sufficient for a presumption of prejudice and alternatively found a reasonable probability that adequate advice would have led Urquhart to accept the substantially more favorable plea offer. Justice Vaughn, dissenting, would have applied the ordinary prejudice requirement and affirmed because Urquhart did not establish actual prejudice.