Opinion ID: 1133414
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Adequacy of Defense Counsel's Representation

Text: Defendant contends that his appointed trial attorneys failed to provide him with the effective assistance to which he is entitled under the Sixth Amendment of the federal Constitution and article I, section 15 of the California Constitution. To establish a violation of the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel, a defendant must not only identify the acts or omissions of counsel that are alleged not to have been the result of reasonable professional judgment, but he or she must also show that counsel's deficient performance so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result. ( Strickland v. Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 689, 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674; People v. Kipp (1998) 18 Cal.4th 349, 366, 75 Cal. Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169.) As the United States Supreme Court has stressed: `[T]he right to the effective assistance of counsel is not recognized for its own sake, but because of the effect it has on the ability of the accused to receive a fair trial. Absent some effect of challenged conduct on the reliability of the trial process, the Sixth Amendment guarantee is generally not implicated.' ( Lockhart v. Fretwell (1993) 506 U.S. 364, 369, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180, quoting United States v. Cronic (1984) 466 U.S. 648, 653, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657.) A reviewing court may reject a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel without deciding whether counsel's performance was deficient if the defendant fails to show that the challenged actions by counsel affected the reliability of the trial process. ( Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 697, 104 S.Ct. 2052; People v. Kipp, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 366, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169.) Moreover, when the record contains no explanation for the challenged behavior, an appellate court will reject the claim of ineffective assistance `unless counsel was asked for an explanation and failed to provide one, or unless there simply could be no satisfactory explanation.' ( People v. Kipp, supra, at p. 367, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169, quoting People v. Pope (1979) 23 Cal.3d 412, 426, 152 Cal.Rptr. 732, 590 P.2d 859.) Applying these standards, we reject each of defendant's contentions of ineffective assistance of counsel.
Dr. Frederick Thysell, an emergency room physician at Palmdale Hospital, testified in the prosecution's case-in-chief regarding various tests and procedures performed on baby Amanda. On cross-examination, defense counsel Adrienne Dell asked Dr. Thysell whether a particular report indicated there was no semen found. Thysell answered by explaining that the report in question, a urinalysis, mentioned that there was no sperm, semen in the urine, but it was a routine report that does not address the issue of our taking samples of the vagina and the rectum. Defense counsel then asked whether Thysell had ever obtained any contrary results, and he answered, I did not. This exchange followed: Ms. Dell: Were you ever told that there was no semen found? Dr. Thysell: I never was. Ms. Dell: Never checked into it? Dr. Thysell: We did check the following day to find out what had happened. That was not what I was told. Ms. Dell: What were you told? Dr. Thysell: I was told there was semen found. It was recovered out of the child's mouth. Defendant argues that a reasonably competent attorney would not have elicited this testimony, which defendant characterizes as prejudicial because it put before the jury the only evidence that Amanda had actually been subjected to some form of penile intrusion by her attacker. We disagree. Immediately after Dr. Thysell's statement that he was told that semen had been found in baby Amanda's mouth, defense counsel quickly established, through Dr. Thysell's testimony, that Thysell had no recollection of when or where he might have received that information and that he had made no notation in Amanda's file to indicate the recovery of semen. In addition, other evidence adduced at trial called into question the accuracy of Dr. Thysell's testimony that he had been told about semen found in the child's mouth. Dr. Joel Ament, a resident at Kaiser Sunset Hospital to which Amanda was transferred, could not recall finding any semen during his treatment of Amanda. And he had no recollection of hearing of such recovery at an earlier time. When defense counsel asked whether Dr. Ament might have told doctors at Palmdale Hospital that Kaiser doctors found semen in Amanda's mouth, he replied, anything is possible. He added that Amanda's hospital records did not indicate the presence of semen, that the practice was to include critical facts in the record, and if semen was found in her oral cavity, that would have been an important fact for the record. Similarly, pediatrician Dr. Richard Fefferman of Kaiser Sunset Hospital testified that Amanda's records did not indicate the presence of semen and that he was unaware of anyone at Kaiser telling Palmdale Hospital doctors of having found semen. And Douglas Ridolfi, a criminalist with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department who had examined, two sets of vaginal, rectal, and oral samples taken from Amanda, did not detect any semen, sperm, or seminal fluid in any of those samples. Thus, the evidence taken as a whole would not have left the jury with the impression, that, as Dr. Thysell vaguely remembered, semen was found in baby Amanda's mouth. Moreover, defendant is wrong that Dr. Thysell's testimony in question was the only evidence of penile intrusion by her attacker. The autopsy by Dr. Eva Hauser of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office revealed injuries inside Amanda's body between the vaginal and rectal areas that were consistent with blunt force trauma by a human penis either inside the rectum or inside the vagina. Furthermore, the primary theory of the defense was not that Amanda had not been sexually assaulted, but rather that Dennis Morgan was the one responsible for the sexual assault and death of Amanda. Accordingly, we conclude that Dr. Thysell's response to a question by defense counsel that someone had told him that semen had been recovered out of the child's mouth did not affect the reliability of the jury's guilt or penalty verdicts in this case. ( Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. 668, 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674; People v. Kipp, supra, 18 Cal.4th 349, 366, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169.)
After the defense had subpoenaed Dennis Morgan, the prosecution's investigator, Detective Milkey, interviewed him, tape-recorded the interview, and made the recording available to the defense. Thus, before Morgan testified at trial, the defense knew that Morgan had told the prosecution that (1) defendant had previously been arrested for child molestation, and (2) defense counsel Bernstein had tried to bribe Morgan to commit perjury. Defense counsel called Morgan as a defense witness; Morgan repeated these accusations before the jury. According to defendant, no reasonably competent attorney acting as a diligent advocate would have subpoenaed Dennis Morgan, or having done so, would have made him a defense witness after learning that Morgan could be expected to make inflammatory accusations about the defense. We disagree. The prosecution's evidence put defendant alone with 18-month-old Amanda on the day that she was sexually molested and suffered fatal injuries inflicted by severe shaking and blunt force trauma to the head. Defendant countered this evidence by testimony that Dennis Morgan, an ex-convict and drug addict with an unconventional sexual history, came to MacNair's house on the day of the incident in search of heroin. According to defendant, Morgan had the opportunity to commit the crimes when he was in the house alone with baby Amanda for about half an hour while defendant was outside washing paintbrushes. Morgan, called to testify by the defense, admitted being a heroin addict, described himself as a bisexual who in prison had dressed as a woman, and admitted that in the course of his criminal history he had used some 19 different aliases. Thus, as the Attorney General observes here, by putting Morgan on the witness stand the defense was able to present the jury with a live, alternative suspect who had a complex and problematic sexual identity and who plausibly could have been present at MacNair's house to have raped, sodomized, and shaken to death baby Amanda while defendant was outside washing his paintbrushes. We therefore cannot say that `there simply could be no satisfactory explanation' ( People v. Kipp, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 367, 76 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169) for defense counsel's decision to call Morgan as a witness, even though they could expect him to accuse defendant, as he had in the interview taped by Detective Milkey, of having previously been arrested for, child molestation and to claim that defense attorney Bernstein had tried to bribe him to give false testimony. Moreover, Morgan's testimony, taken as a whole, was far more beneficial than harmful to the defense. The trial court blunted any potential negative impact of Morgan's statement that defendant had previously been arrested for child molestation, by instructing the jury that there has been no other arrests for any other molestation and to disregard anything you have heard to the contrary; it hasn't happened. And Morgan's claim of bribery by defense attorney Bernstein was inherently unbelievable. According to Morgan, Bernstein came to see him in the Los Angeles County jail, and when Morgan entered the attorney visitor room, Bernstein was already there and a $20 bill was on the table. Thus, the implication was that Bernstein put the money on the table as a bribe for Morgan. Yet Morgan also testified that other inmates and attorneys and a deputy sheriff were present in the room. Thus, to accept as true that Bernstein had offered Morgan a $20 bribe, the jury would have to conclude that he had done so in the full view of others, including jail personnel. This scenario would have seemed all the more unlikely in light of testimony by Deputy Sheriff Joseph Koch that under Los Angeles County jail regulations, attorneys are permitted to give jail inmates no more than $5 in cash and then only after obtaining approval from jail personnel. For the reasons given above, we cannot conclude that defense counsel's decision to call Morgan as a witness so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result. ( Strickland v. Washington, supra, 466 U.S. 668, 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674.) We also reject defendant's related contention that he was prejudiced by defense counsel's failure to make a timely request to play a redacted version of the tape recording of Detective Milkey's interview of Dennis Morgan. Defendant argues that the tape, if heard by the jury, would have impeached Morgan's trial testimony that he had entered the attorney visitor room to meet with defense attorney Bernstein and found a $20 bill on the table. In the taped interview Morgan said that Bernstein had offered the money under the table. Even assuming, as defendant contends, that these two versions of the $20 bill incident are contradictory, defendant suffered no prejudice from defense counsel's failure to make a timely request to play the tape for the jury. As we have explained, Morgan's trial testimony about defense attorney Bernstein's offering him a $20 bribe in the full view of jail personnel was inherently unbelievable.
Defendant faults defense attorney Bernstein for not mentioning Dennis Morgan in his opening statement, which described how defendant found baby Amanda unconscious at the foot of the stairs. That failure, defendant asserts, enabled the prosecutor in closing argument to argue that the Dennis Morgan did it defense was concocted only after defendant had a chance encounter with Morgan in jail after the start of the trial. We reject this contention. Defense counsel's opening statement did not tie the defense to any particular theory; it simply told the jury in general terms that the evidence would show defendant to be innocent of each and every allegation in this case. Defendant has not met his burden of demonstrating that there `could be no satisfactory explanation' for counsel's conduct. ( People v. Kipp, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 367, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169.)
As discussed earlier, on August 31, 1988, personnel of the District Attorney's office and the Sheriffs Department, including Detective Milkey, acting under a court order and in the presence of defendant's original appointed counsel, Charles Khun, examined defendant's penis but found no tearing or, bruising. Defendant now contends that consistent with obligations of effective representation, trial counsel should have called Detective Milkey, Deputy Public Defender Klum, or others who could have testified that defendant's penis showed none of the marks that would have been there if he had attempted to commit rape or sodomy on Amanda. Defendant's contention rests on an assumption, unsupported by the record, that the person responsible for the sexual assault of 18-month-old Amanda would necessarily have manifested bruising and tearing on his penis six days later. As with the preceding contention, defendant has failed to show that there `could be no satisfactory explanation' for the omission in question by defense counsel. ( People v. Kipp, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 367, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169.)
Referring to his allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, which we discussed in part III B., ante, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d at page 877, 978 P.2d at page 35, for which there was no defense objection at trial, defendant asserts that trial counsel was incompetent for not objecting in those instances. We disagree. Earlier we rejected on the merits these claims of prosecutorial misconduct and concluded that, considered together, the prosecutor's questions and comments at issue did not adversely affect the fundamental fairness of his trial.