Opinion ID: 147061
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure to cross-examine witness Anthony Segalas concerning Katz's use of cocaine

Text: Anthony Segalas testified at trial that he and Katz used cocaine together twice. In 1985 Segalas had told Detective Dalsass that he and Katz used cocaine on numerous occasions. The police report also stated that Katz phoned Segalas in June 1985 and asked him to examine some cocaine she had bought, because she thought she had received a short amount. Bierenbaum faults defense counsel for failing to impeach Segalas with his prior statements, claiming that this damaged the defense theory that Katz's drug usage and risky behavior may have led to her disappearance. Counsel suggested in his opening statement that You will also learn ... that she had a drug issue and you will learn ... at least one of the lovers Gail Katz Bierenbaum took behind Dr. Bierenbaum's back was also someone she shared drugs with, and you will learn it from his own testimony. Trial Tr. vol. I, 1889. In summation, counsel attacked the prosecution's use of the videotapes that showed how a body could have been loaded into an airplane and dropped into the sea, asserting that the videotapes did not supply proof of what happened to Katz. Directly following this argument he alluded to the films Panic in Needle Park, and Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and suggested, in a similar vein, that these movies did not prove that Katz's drug use and risky behavior were connected to her death. Later in his summation, he returned to the drug-related disappearance theory: ... Segalasthey did a little bit, what they thought was cocaine that was left in the house. Was she killed by drug dealers? That is one of the theories that could have happened. It is possible. Segalas said she is the one who made the connection. It is not the first time an innocent drug buyer gets killed in the course of a drug deal.... It was a different city then, a dangerous place, Gail Katz Bierenbaum may very well have found by virtue of some of her own behavior danger. Trial. Tr. vol. IV, 3142. Had the defense gotten Segalas to admit that he and Katz used cocaine on several occasions, the defense suggestion that she may have been killed by drug dealers would still have been plagued by lack of evidence, as the state court noted. The defense, knowing that the alternate scenarios for Gail Katz's death had little in the way of factual support, apparently chose to cast all of the scenariosthe prosecution's includedas merely theories, which could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. For this strategy, the defense had no particular need to elicit evidence that Katz was a regular as opposed to occasional user. Even a neophyte could have found ... danger. Pressing the point on cross-examination risked alienating the jury for no particular strategic gain. The state court's determination that the cross-examination of Segalas was not constitutionally deficient was not an unreasonable application of Strickland.