Opinion ID: 3039377
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rebutting Future Dangerousness

Text: Bucklew argues that his attorneys were ineffective in failing to investigate and present expert testimony to rebut the State's evidence of future dangerousness and to testify about prison security issues. At the PCR hearing, Bucklew presented the testimony of a private prison security expert, James Aiken, who could have testified at the penalty phase that Bucklew would not pose a serious risk of escape from prison and that he could be safely and effectively housed in a maximum security setting. Bucklew's attorneys testified that they did not consider consulting such an expert but believed that a jury would have a common sense understanding of the difference in security levels between a county jail setting from which Bucklew escaped prior to trial and a maximum security prison. They also articulated concern about information that would be admitted during the cross-examination of such an expert. The Supreme Court of Missouri concluded that Bucklew did not clearly show that the failure to call a prison security expert was not a reasonable trial strategy, and that in any event, such testimony would have been cumulative. See Bucklew, 38 S.W.2d at 398. The failure to investigate or retain a private security expert in this case is supported by reasonable professional judgment. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91 (stating that strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation). By presenting the testimony of the county jailer, Bucklew's counsel was able to limit the testimony to Bucklew's conduct while in that jailer's presence and thereby avoid an examination of his complete record of incarceration. Bucklew's counsel expressed concern that a prison security expert would have been susceptible to cross-examination concerning the frequency of assaults and killings in prison in general, as well as the prior disciplinary infractions and negative comments in Bucklew's record of past incarcerations. Additionally, the State did not present a prison security expert at the penalty phase, and thus this case is unlike Williams, where trial counsel failed to discover that the state's own experts -15- would have testified that Williams would not pose a future danger to society if kept in a structured environment. 529 U.S. at 370-71. Even if counsel's performance was deficient for not investigating such an expert, no prejudice resulted. There is no reasonable probability that the outcome would have been different had such an expert testified because any possible benefit from such expert testimony would pale in comparison to Bucklew's actual behavior both prior to and after his arrest. The mixed impact it could have had in this particular case as articulated by Bucklew's counsel supports the conclusion that counsel was not ineffective. The state court reasonably applied federal law in denying this claim.