Opinion ID: 3012034
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Countering Prosecutorial Theatrics

Text: During cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Marshall if he was wearing his wedding ring because he had been instructed to. Counsel objected, and the objection was sustained. Marshall volunteered the fact that he had had to surrender the ring when he was arrested, but, due to different policies in different locations, was now allowed to wear the ring. The prosecutor then asked whether the ring was a reflection of how much he loved and missed his wife, and, upon receiving an affirmative answer, asked why Maria’s ashes were still in a brown cardboard box at the funeral home in a desk -- . Cross-Examination of Robert Marshall, February 26, 1986, St. Ex. 29T at 84. Counsel objected, and after a discussion at sidebar, the objection was overruled. Id. at 84-89. Marshall claims that counsel had avenues open to him to neutralize the effect of the prosecutor’s questioning, and he suggests some options to us. But, as Strickland emphasizes, a trial does not have to be perfect to be constitutionally fair. Because reviewing courts are not seeking to enforce optimal attorney performance, they are not to question whether there was a better response possible -- only whether the attorney’s response was constitutionally adequate. The New Jersey 81 Supreme Court recognized that counsel did attempt to neutralize the testimony, by eliciting from one of Marshall’s sons the family’s plans to travel to Florida together to bury Maria, plans that had to be postponed when Marshall was arrested. Marshall II, 690 A.2d at 74. It concluded that the topic was peripheral and further testimonywould not have materially aided defendant’s chances of being acquitted of the charged offenses. Id. Such a conclusion is reasonable, and our review is only as to reasonableness. Even were we to disagree with the New Jersey Supreme Court’s conclusion, however, we would still hold that Marshall has not demonstrated performance that falls below the threshold set by Strickland. 6. Counsel’s Non-Adherence to His Stated Strategy Marshall claims -- without citation to the record-- that his trial counsel testified that his trial strategy was to present character evidence yet, for the witnesses that were called, he did not always interview them prior to their taking the stand, did not establish a proper foundation for their testimony, and did not elicit from them all of the information that should have been elicited. App. Br. at 11516. The New Jersey Supreme Court considered Marshall’s claims here in conjunction with other miscellaneous claims of ineffectiveness, and concluded that[i]rrespective of whether those and analogous pretrial omissions by counsel constituted deviations that fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, we are convinced that defendant cannot demonstrate that counsel’s alleged pretrial deficiencies either individually or collectively had the capacity to change the result of the proceeding. Marshall II, 690 A.2d at 87. The claim Marshall raises has two aspects to it: first, were the witnesses in question adequately prepared to testify; and second, were they adequately prepared if, indeed, the character testimony was critical to his trial strategy. If the witnesses were not critical to counsel’s trial strategy, but were called merely to provide limited testimony, Marshall could not realistically satisfy either prong of Strickland. Thus, the critical question to assessing the reasonableness of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s conclusion is: Were the witnesses in question vital to counsel’s trial strategy? 82 The witnesses Marshall called who did provide -- or might have been expected to provide -- character testimony included his sons, his sister, and other members of the insurance industry and the Toms River community. As noted above, the character testimony elicited consisted primarily of brief affirmations that Marshall had a reputation for being law-abiding and a man of integrity, and that he was an excellent insurance salesman. At the limited remand hearing, Marshall’s trial counsel explained why he chose from the outset to have Marshall testify, distinguishing Marshall’s situation from one in which the defendant had an extensive criminal history, or one where the State’s case was particularly weak-- both of which were situations where a defense attorney would not want to commit the defendant to taking the stand from the outset. With Marshall, in contrast, the trial was expected to be lengthy, and counsel cited to jury studies that stated that eighty percent of a panel make up their mind preliminarily after the opening statements. Direct Testimony of Glenn Zeitz, December 1, 1994, St. Ex. 6PCT at 11-13. He then stated: In this particular case, the way we defended this case, was to let the Jury know right from the beginning that there was going to be character testimony. I wanted to personalize my client. There’s other references in the opening that deal with his background, the charitable things that he did, there were -- there was a reference to character testimony that they were going to hear from. And, in essence, what we were trying to accomplish in this case was to wait and have the Jury wait in their own minds until they heard his version, to give him an opportunity to tell them what happened here, rather than make up their minds preliminarily, notwithstanding the advice that we knew they’d be getting from the trial Court. Id. at 13. It cannot reasonably be inferred from counsel’s explanation as to why he felt it important to tell the jury from the outset that Marshall would testify what significance he accorded to any of the other witnesses’ testimony. Because their testimony accounted for only a tiny portion of the trial testimony adduced, and because 83 Marshall has not demonstrated to us that any of the testimony that would have been provided would have any bearing at all on the jury’s determination of guilt or innocence, it was not unreasonable for the New Jersey Supreme Court to conclude that ill preparation as to those witnesses, if it were found, would not be prejudicial to Marshall. 7. Counsel’s Lack of a Coherent Defense Theory. Although Marshall characterizes this claim as a failure to develop a coherent defense theory, his claim above would indicate that he thought that trial counsel had, indeed, formulated a coherent theory, one that focused on portraying Marshall as a good man, who would succeed by communicating directly with the jury. Further, the specific tactical decisions that Marshall cites in support of this contention40 amount to little more than a listing of things that, with the benefit of hindsight, counsel might have handled differently. 8. Counsel’s Failure to Present Certain Evidence All of the examples cited to us are tied to Marshall’s understanding of other parts of his defense that have been rejected by the New Jersey Supreme Court. For example, Marshall criticizes counsel for not contradicting a trooper’s statement at trial that Marshall had reported a flat tire, with the report the trooper prepared, indicating that the tire was half-flat. This is addressed by the reasoning in 2, above.41 _________________________________________________________________ 40. In this category, Marshall considers the fact that his trial counsel allowed co-defendant’s counsel to conduct crucial examination of witnesses, that he failed to object when co-defendant’s counsel elicited testimony that benefitted his client but harmed Marshall, that he placed Marshall on the stand abruptly in the middle of his case and that he fail[ed] to recognize that Kolins, his investigator, had engaged in such incriminating conduct that [counsel] needed to terminate their relationship or otherwise disassociate Kolins’ conduct from his client as evidence of trial counsel’s lack of a coherent theory of defense. App. Br. at 116-17. 41. The State also points out that most of what petitioner says should have been elicited was inadmissible hearsay under New Jersey law, Appee. Br. at 93, a point the New Jersey Supreme Court did not need to reach, since it evaluated this claim under the prejudice prong of Strickland. 84 Marshall also criticizes trial counsel for a witness’s exclusion. Counsel had put Henry Tamburin’s name on the witness list originally, then informed the court that his name was not on the list, and did not correct the error until he called Tamburin to the stand, at which point the court sustained the prosecutor’s objection and limited the scope of the witness’s testimony. Because Tamburin would have testified about the use of comps at casinos, and the gambling system he had taught to Marshall, Marshall now finds it baffling in view of the voir dire he had requested on comp abusers that he did not ensure that Tamburin was able to testify. Had he testified, however, all that would have become clear is what Marshall’s gambling strategy was. As noted above, the issue before the jury was whether Marshall’s perception of his financial circumstances was such that it could prompt a desperate act; explaining how he gambled would not address that issue, and thus the New Jersey Supreme Court reasonably concluded the omission of the testimony was not prejudicial. Marshall also faults trial counsel for not having Marshall’s secretary testify that Marshall had sent information on financial products to Robert Cumber. The jury knew that Marshall had met Cumber at a party in New Jersey,42 and that Marshall had sent him information on financial products. They also knew that Cumber introduced McKinnon and Marshall. But Marshall is asserting that the secretary’s verification that Marshall did send the financial records would have rebutted the inferences that the many calls Marshall placed to Cumber were to locate McKinnon to hasten his wife’s murder. App. Br. at 120. Even assuming that trial counsel had adduced testimony verifying that Marshall sent documents to Cumber, that testimony would not serve to verify that the numerous phone conversations over the course of the summer concerned those documents; the jury would still be compelled to determine whether it believed Marshall’s or McKinnon’s testimony as to the purpose of the telephone calls. Thus, the New Jersey Supreme Court was not _________________________________________________________________ 42. The State points out that at trial petitioner forgot ‘exactly how’ the conversation somehow led to the fact that I was looking for an investigator’ to track down missing casino money. Appee. Br. at 95. 85 unreasonable in determining that Marshall could not have been prejudiced by the failure to call Marshall’s secretary. Marshall also faults the New Jersey Supreme Court for evaluating each of counsel’s alleged failures individually, characterizing it as the divide-and-conquer approach of ruling on each individual Strickland error rather than assessing the joint prejudice from all the ineffectiveassistance claims. App. Br. at 120. Marshall cites to [Terry] Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 397-98 (2000), for this proposition. We think that Marshall misapprehends the guidance of the United States Supreme Court. In Williams, the United States Supreme Court found fault forfailing to evaluate the totality of the available mitigation evidence -- both that adduced at trial, and the evidence adduced in the habeas proceeding -- in reweighing it against the evidence in aggravation, thus erroneously concluding that Williams had not been prejudiced by his counsel’s errors at the sentencing phase. Id. But here, Marshall has not placed before us anything that would singly, or in combination, have had a reasonable probability of affecting the outcome of his trial. The New Jersey Supreme Court reasonably concluded precisely that. [F]ew of the allegations of ineffective assistance at trial involved significant deficiencies in the quality of counsel’s representation, and those that did were not material to the trial result. Marshall II, 690 A.2d at 90. 9. Failure to Object or Seek Curative Action Marshall alleges that trial counsel did not object nor seek curative action when inadmissible testimony was admitted, or when the prosecutor engaged in misconduct. He also put irrelevant, prejudicial facts before the jury. App. Br. at 120. The New Jersey Supreme Court reasonably determined that Marshall could not demonstrate ineffectiveness under Strickland as to these alleged faults of counsel. While we examine more fully the circumstances under which an evidentiary hearing is required below, we do conclude here that neither the New Jersey Supreme Court nor the District Court was required to hold an evidentiary hearing to develop the above claims of ineffectiveness at the guilt phase. 86 Volume 3 of 3 87 F. Cumulative Error Marshall contends that even if we do not find the errors in his trial43 individually so egregious that we would grant the writ of habeas corpus, the errors of all kinds that have been recounted are so invidious and numerous that we ought to aggregate them and find that, in sum, the constitutional error was sufficient to grant the writ. We addressed this issue in the habeas context in United States ex rel. Sullivan v. Cuyler, 631 F.2d 14, 17 (3d Cir. 1980), recognizing that errors that individually do not warrant a new trial may do so when combined.44 Here, even were we to cumulate all the claimed errors and superimpose them over the extensive trial proceedings, given the quantity and quality of the totality of the evidence presented to the jury, we could not conclude that the New Jersey Supreme Court unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent or unreasonably determined the facts in making its ruling. G. Penalty Phase Ineffectiveness As we noted at the outset, counsel and the court discussed the procedures that would be followed in the penalty phase while Marshall was at the hospital, and the jury was at lunch. Within a few minutes of Marshall’s return, at 1:45 p.m., the court convened the penalty phase. _________________________________________________________________ 43. The errors Marshall asks us to aggregate are those he contends the New Jersey Supreme Court recognized as occurringin the course of [his] trial. App. Memorandum of Law in Support of Application for Certificate of Appealability at 194. However, Marshall includes a penalty phase statement by the prosecutor in that list, id. at 195, as well as pretrial and penalty phase additional problems. Id. We find persuasive the reasoning of the Western District of Pennsylvania that only errors occurring during trial should be considered in accumulation, a point made expressly in Pursell v. Horn, 187 F. Supp. 2d 260, 375-76 (W.D. Pa. 2002), and implicitly in the analysis of the other courts of appeals to have considered the issue. 44. Moreover unified consideration of the claims in the petition well satisfies the interests of justice because the cumulative effect of the alleged errors may violate due process, requiring the grant of the writ, whereas any one alleged error considered alone may be deemed harmless. United States ex rel. Sullivan v. Cuyler, 631 F.2d 14, 17 (3d Cir. 1980). 88 THE COURT: Gentlemen, we’re now prepared, I believe, to move on to the penalty phase of this matter. I did have a discussion with counsel in chambers regarding the procedure that we’re going to follow, and before we place that on the record, are counsel in agreement that that is the procedure that will be followed? ZEITZ: Yes, sir. KELLY: Yes, sir, your Honor. THE COURT: As I understand it, what will now occur is that I will now make the usual opening statement to the jury that is made in this proceeding. I believe that the law now is -- I know that the law now is, expressly, that any evidence which was introduced in the trial can be considered as evidence for purposes of this proceeding. Given that, I understand that neither counsel intend to introduce any further evidence in this proceeding.