Opinion ID: 891652
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Manner of Admission

Text: {22} Defendant also argues that he received ineffective assistance of counsel because no objection was made to the lack of an expert witness to explain the language used in the recorded calls. Establishing a prima facie case of ineffective assistance of counsel requires a defendant to show (1) an error by trial counsel, and (2) that the defendant was prejudiced by that error. See State v. Grogan, 2007-NMSC-039, ¶ 11, 142 N.M. 107, 163 P.3d 494. As the Court of Appeals noted in its review of two of these conversations in Martinez's trial for conspiracy to intimidate a witness: While the conversations were replete with idiomatic and offensive language, the agreement that [Martinez] would appear in court to intimidate [the witness] was sufficiently clear and understandable for the jury to determine that the two agreed on a plan to accomplish that result: shake the witness up and make him afraid to testify truthfully or to have a lapse in memory. Martinez, 2008-NMCA-019, ¶ 4, 143 N.M. 428, 176 P.3d 1160. There was no error in admission of the phone calls without the use of an expert. As there was no error by trial counsel in not objecting to the lack of expert witness in the admission of the phone conversations, Defendant's ineffective assistance of counsel claim fails.