Opinion ID: 729753
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to investigate potential defense witnesses.

Text: 126 The district court held that both Bludson, and Ms. Dos Santos could have discredited Campos' testimony, and counsel had no sound strategy to justify not using their testimony. Dos Santos testified at the post conviction hearing that she and Campos were alone at the club and not with 15 to 20 other people as Campos said. In addition to minor discrepancies, 3 Dos Santos contradicted Campos' testimony that she had nothing to drink at the club. Dos Santos testified that Campos had one or two beers while they were there. 127 Dos Santos was never contacted by defense counsel, or anyone acting on his behalf in preparation for trial. Mr. DePalma explained that his investigation of Dos Santos consisted of unsuccessfully attempting to subpoena her during the course of the trial. He never spoke to her and never sent an investigator to look for her. The state post-conviction court concluded that Mr. DePalma's actions regarding Ms. Dos Santos were reasonable because he was concerned her testimony would provide a corroborative 'fresh-complaint' witness and undermine his attempt to make some mileage from the victim's delay in reporting the rape. The district court found that Mr. DePalma's failure to call Dos Santos could not be the result of a sound strategic choice because he never assembled the information necessary to make such a choice. Dist. Ct. Op. at 32. Accordingly, the district court concluded that Mr. DePalma's failure to call her could not have been the product of a reasoned strategic decision. 128 The Appellate Division also found that Berryman's counsel made reasonable efforts to locate Bludson and given Campos' unshakable identifications of the defendants, evidence of Bludson's height would not be that helpful to the defense. (slip op. at 22). Given the degree to which Ms. Campos equivocated and recanted portions of her description at Mr. Bludson's trial, this record does not support a conclusion that her testimony was unshakable. Indeed, Mr. Bludson's attorney was able to shake it sufficiently to raise a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of his client. Moreover, Mr. DePalma had ample information to suggest that Bludson was an important defense witness. The district court realized that Bludson was an important witness if for no other reason than the discrepancies in the physical descriptions given by Campos at the two Bludson trials. By producing Bludson in court in connection with the previous testimony, defense counsel would have called into question the entire identification made by the witness and would have supported the 'wrong man' theory-of-the-case. Dist. Ct. Op. at 32. However, despite Bludson's obvious importance to the case, Mr. DePalma did nothing more to locate Bludson than contacting the attorney who had represented Bludson at his criminal trial eight months earlier to see if he knew where Bludson was. The district court characterized the failure to call Bludson as a failure to adequately prepare for trial, and not as a strategic decision. Id. at 33. See Lewis v. Mazurkiewicz, 915 F.2d 106, 113 (3d. Cir. 1990). However, these two concepts are interwoven. 129 The right to counsel does not require that a criminal defense attorney leave no stone unturned and no witness unpursued. The district court quite correctly noted, however, that it does require a reasoned judgment as to the amount of investigation the particular circumstances of a given case require. An attorney need not fully investigate every potential avenue if he or she has reasonable grounds for not doing so. Id. at 114. 130 [S]trategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable; and strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations in investigation. 131 In other words, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. In any ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to counsel's judgments. 132 Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-691. Here, Bludson's significance to Berryman's defense required more than the minimal effort Mr. DePalma put forth to produce Bludson at Berryman's trial. 133 Bludson's mere presence at trial could have cast doubt upon Campos' identification. Campos testified that Bludson was the second man into the car and that he was the same height as Bunch, the first man into the car. However, Bunch, who is 6' 4, could not easily be confused with Bludson, who is 5' 5. Bludson's very presence in court at the Bunch/Berryman trials could have raised serious doubts about the victim's ability to identify her assailants. Indeed, had the jury seen Bludson, and learned of the inconsistencies in Campos' identifications and that she may have had a couple of beers before the incident, it is impossible to conclude with any degree of comfort that the verdict would have been the same. Given the dramatic effect Bludson's mere presence could have had on the outcome of Berryman's trial, counsel was obligated to do more to find him. 134 Thus, whether the failure to call Bludson is viewed as failure to adequately prepare, or as an unreasonable choice of how to conduct the defense, it is clear that it fell below the standards required for reasonable representation of one's client. 135