Opinion ID: 2244778
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deficient Performance Analysis

Text: Defense counsel made a tactical decision to explain rather than to attempt to exclude defendant's confession, and this decision, as well as his overall performance at trial, falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. See cases cited at note 8 supra. While counsel did not move to suppress the confession or object to its admission at trial, as Judge Friedlander observed in his dissent, 673 N.E.2d at 775, counsel did attempt to convince the jury that at the time he gave the statement, defendant had a legitimate reason to fear the police, that he did in fact fear the police, and that the officers conducting the interview badgered and intimidated him into confessing. He did so through his cross-examination of Brinson and through the testimony of defendant, who testified among other things, that he was particularly frightened by the police given that his father had been shot and killed by a police officer. To bolster this evidence, defense counsel also called an expert to testify as to defendant's limited mental capacity and susceptibility to pressure. Had defense counsel filed a successful motion to suppress the confession or successfully objected to its admission instead of electing to explain the confession, it may have been more difficult for him to introduce and highlight before the jury the fact that defendant feared the police because a police officer had shot and killed his father. Similarly, it may have been more difficult to highlight defendant's low intelligence. Defense counsel, through the testimony of defendant and Amanda Smith, the examination of their physicians, and the cross-examination of Dr. Stalker and Melanie Hayes, also attempted to establish that other persons had contact with S.S. during relevant time periods, and that neither Amanda nor defendant had visible genital warts at the times they were examined. It was not unreasonable for counsel to believe that his overall strategy might have rendered defendant a sympathetic figure in the eyes of the jury, and raised a reasonable doubt as to whether defendant, in fact, had molested his daughter. Moreover, although ultimately defense counsel's trial strategy did not prove successful, counsel did succeed in persuading the court to regard defendant's mild mental handicap, which counsel highlighted at trial, as a mitigating factor at sentencing. In reaching a contrary conclusion on the question of counsel's performance and the criticality of filing a motion to suppress or objecting to the confession at trial in this case, the Court of Appeals has both understated the significance of the other evidence of defendant's guilt, 673 N.E.2d at 772, and overstated the importance of potentially exculpatory evidence, 673 N.E.2d at 772 & n. 6. While we do not know and cannot speculate as to how the State would have presented its case in the absence of the confession, certainly at the trial below, the State, in addition to presenting the confession, presented strong evidence that two-year-old S.S., whose hymen was scarred and thickened and who had genital warts, had been sexually molested. Moreover, each discovery of the physical symptoms of molestation occurred shortly after S.S. returned from visits with defendant. Also, upon her return from these visits, S.S. fondled herself, was temperamental, and said she was angry with Ralph and did not want to visit him again. Such evidence of defendant's guilt, though circumstantial, was not insubstantial. The fact that when defendant was examined he had no genital warts was not necessarily exculpatory. A jury could reasonably infer that, while the presence of warts on S.S.'s genitals is the result of sexual molestation, it does not necessarily follow that the absence of warts on defendant's genitals is exculpatory, particularly in light of the fact that his doctor did not perform a genetic test to determine if defendant was carrying the virus which causes genital warts. See note 4 supra. [10] Finally, as the majority below concedes, 673 N.E.2d at 774 & n. 9, and as discussed more fully below, it is far from clear on the record before us that, based on the uncontested facts and without considering defendant's testimony at his sentencing hearing, there was a reasonable likelihood that the trial court would have granted a motion to suppress on voluntariness grounds or sustained an objection to the admissibility of the confession if counsel had mounted such a challenge. Given all of these factors, we cannot say that counsel's overall performance was constitutionally deficient.