Respondents-appellants Charles J. Scully, Superintendent of the Green Haven Correctional Facility, and Dennis C. Yaceo, Attorney General of the State of New York,1 appeal from a judgment entered July 26, 1995 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Kimba Wood, Judge, that granted the petition of petitioner-appellee Hugh Henry for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on the basis that he was denied effective assistance of counsel at his trial. Henry was convicted in 1981 of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the first degree and possession of a controlled substance in the first degree in violation of N.Y.Penal Law §§ 220.43 and 220.21, and sentenced to concurrent prison terms of fifteen years to life.
The district court found that Henry was denied effective assistance of counsel at his trial because his counsel (1) failed to object to the admission in evidence against Henry of his codefendant’s confession and to the trial court’s instruction that the jury could consider that confession as evidence against Henry; (2) failed to object to damaging hearsay testimony; and (3) failed to request a missing witness charge with respect to a confidential informant who did not testify at trial. On appeal, respondents-appellants contend that these asserted deficiencies were consistent with a trial strategy to engage in a straight credibility contest with the prosecution’s witnesses, and in any event that the case against Henry was so strong that he cannot establish prejudice even if his counsel’s performance is deemed deficient. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-96, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2064-69, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).
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Dennis C. Vacco has been substituted as a party for Robert Abrams pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 25(d) and Fed.R.App.P. 43(c).