Opinion ID: 562667
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: ineffective assistance of counsel (davis)

Text: 47 Davis' next argument is that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when his trial counsel afforded him ineffective assistance. In his main brief, Davis presents a cursory argument which sets out the standard we apply to ineffective assistance claims but fails to identify the acts or omissions of counsel that are alleged not to have been the result of reasonable professional judgment. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 690, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2066, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). The defendant asserting an ineffectiveness claim bears the burden of proving both incompetence and prejudice. United States v. Mealy, 851 F.2d 890, 908 (7th Cir.1988). One prerequisite to proving incompetence is that the defendant identify evidence supporting his claim that his trial counsel's performance dropped below the constitutional minimum. See, e.g., United States v. Andiarena, 823 F.2d 673, 678 (1st Cir.1987); United States v. Rogers, 769 F.2d 1418, 1424 (9th Cir.1985); United States v. Curtis, 742 F.2d 1070, 1073 (7th Cir.1984) (per curiam ), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1064, 106 S.Ct. 1374, 89 L.Ed.2d 600 (1986). The ineffectiveness argument Davis makes in his main brief on appeal fails to point us to this evidence, opting instead for the conclusory statement that had the defendant's counsel performed in a competent manner, the jury would certainly have acquitted him of all charges. Brief at 15. 48 Davis does better in a pro se supplemental brief, arguing that his trial counsel failed to interview certain witnesses who would have testified concerning Davis' sources of legitimate income from car sales, demolition contracts, and other legitimate activities. This evidence, Davis argues, would have helped rebut the inference that the money kept in the Illini Federal accounts was derived from drug sales. As we have previously observed, [e]ffective representation of a criminal defendant requires pretrial preparation and investigation. United States v. Weaver, 882 F.2d 1128, 1138 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 415, 107 L.Ed.2d 380 (1989); see United States v. Berkowitz, 927 F.2d 1376, 1382 (7th Cir.1991); Montgomery v. Petersen, 846 F.2d 407, 412-13 (7th Cir.1988); Crisp v. Duckworth, 743 F.2d 580, 583 (7th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1226, 105 S.Ct. 1221, 84 L.Ed.2d 361 (1985). [A]pplying a heavy measure of deference to counsel's judgment, Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. at 2064, however, we are unable to conclude that the performance of Davis' trial counsel fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, id. at 688, 104 S.Ct. at 2066, when he failed to dig as deeply as he could have into Davis' legitimate sources of income. 49 We reach this conclusion because much of the evidence Davis accuses his trial counsel of failing to uncover either reached the jury anyway or was cumulative of evidence that did. IRS Agent Wehrheim testified concerning summaries he had prepared of Davis' legitimate sources of income, summaries which included the largest single source of legitimate income the Development Corporation had, a demolition contract to tear down a building in East St. Louis. Tr. at 668. Davis himself testified concerning his various legitimate sources of income, including income from the people he now accuses his counsel of failing to interview. See, e.g., Tr. at 880-881 (demolition contract with Dennis Fults); Tr. at 862 (bird-dog fees from Triple A Auto Salvage). With or without his lawyer's investigation, the jury was able to hear the evidence favorable to Davis that the investigation would have revealed. It is not ineffective assistance for defense counsel to make a tactical decision not to pursue a course of investigation that would produce evidence that the counsel otherwise is aware of or that would add little to otherwise available information. See Eggleston v. United States, 798 F.2d 374, 376 (9th Cir.1986) (failure to interview potential defense witness not ineffective assistance where counsel had other sources of knowledge as to what witness would have said); Jones v. Smith, 772 F.2d 668, 674 (11th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1073, 106 S.Ct. 838, 88 L.Ed.2d 809 (1986) (not ineffective assistance of counsel to fail to present expert to testify as to unreliability of eyewitness testimony where likelihood of misidentification was fully explored on cross-examination); United States v. Schaflander, 743 F.2d 714, 718 (9th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1058, 105 S.Ct. 1772, 84 L.Ed.2d 832 (1985) (not ineffective assistance to fail to interview defense witnesses where testimony would have been cumulative of that presented by witnesses who did testify at trial). As Judge Leventhal wrote in United States v. DeCoster, 624 F.2d 196, 209 (D.C.Cir.1976) (en banc ) (plurality opinion), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 944, 100 S.Ct. 302, 62 L.Ed.2d 311 (1979), [a] claim of failure to interview a witness may sound impressive in the abstract, but it cannot establish ineffective assistance when the person's account is otherwise fairly known to defense counsel.