Opinion ID: 2353062
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Trial Counsel's Performance

Text: The proper measure of attorney performance remains simply reasonableness under prevailing professional norms. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Accordingly, the defendant's burden is to show that counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. Id. [C]ounsel is strongly presumed to have rendered adequate assistance and made all significant decisions in the exercise of reasonable professional judgment. Id. at 690, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Recognizing that there may be countless ways to provide effective assistance in any given case, and that it is all too easy for a court, examining counsel's defense after it has proved unsuccessful, to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable, the Supreme Court has cautioned that [j]udicial scrutiny of counsel's performance must be highly deferential. Id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052. A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel's challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel's perspective at the time. Id. The court must then determine whether, in light of all the circumstances, the identified acts or omissions were outside the wide range of professionally competent assistance. Id. at 690, 104 S.Ct. 2052. In making that determination, the court should keep in mind that counsel's function . . . is to make the adversarial testing process work in the particular case. Id. The proper functioning of the adversary process demands appropriate investigation and preparation by counsel. See Monroe v. United States, 389 A.2d 811, 817 (D.C.1978). The presumptive deference that courts owe to fully informed decisions of counsel therefore is withheld from decisions that are inexcusably uninformed or under-informed. Under the Sixth Amendment guarantee, a criminal defendant is entitled to the benefits of counsel's informed judgment and choice among reasonable alternatives; it is objectively unreasonable for defense counsel to make an uninformed decision about an important matter without justification for doing so. As the Supreme Court said in Strickland, strategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable, but strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation. Id. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Thus, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. Id. at 691, 104 S.Ct. 2052. In any ineffectiveness case, therefore, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, id., taking into account not only the quantum of evidence already known to counsel, but also whether the known evidence would lead a reasonable attorney to investigate further. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 527, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003). The majority opinion in Cosio I took the position that a failure to investigate cannot be held to be deficient performance (or prejudicial, for that matter) unless any reasonably competent counsel necessarily would have presented at trial the evidence that the investigation would have discovered. In Wiggins, the Supreme Court made clear that no such stringent showing is required for either prong of Strickland. All that need be shown is a reasonable probability that a competent counsel would have utilized the undiscovered evidence; and strictly speaking, the likelihood that the evidence would have been used is part of the prejudice inquiry, not part of the performance evaluation. The issue in Wiggins, as in this case, was whether defense counsel conducted insufficient investigation. The claim in Wiggins stemmed from counsel's decision to limit the scope of their investigation into potential mitigating evidence for use at sentencing. 539 U.S. at 521, 123 S.Ct. 2527. Although counsel had conducted some investigation into mitigation  they had arranged for psychological testing and had reviewed the presentence investigation report and other social services records, see id. at 523-24, 123 S.Ct. 2527  they had failed to look further into the circumstances of the defendant's life by commissioning a forensic social worker to prepare a social history report. Had they done so, counsel would have discovered evidence of the severe physical and sexual abuse petitioner suffered at the hands of his mother and while in the care of a series of foster parents. Id. at 516, 123 S.Ct. 2527. Reversing the lower courts, the Supreme Court held that counsel's investigative performance was deficient and that the deficient performance was prejudicial  in other words, that counsel were constitutionally ineffective. On the question of deficient investigative performance, the Court reiterated that strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation, and that counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. Id. at 521, 123 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. 2052). Applying those principles, the Wiggins Court explained that its principal concern in deciding whether [counsel] exercised reasonable professional judgment is not whether counsel should have presented a mitigation case. Rather, we focus on whether the investigation supporting counsel's decision not to introduce mitigating evidence of Wiggins' background was itself reasonable.  Id. at 522-23, 123 S.Ct. 2527 (emphasis in the original; internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus, in determining whether the investigation by Wiggins' counsel was deficient, the Court did not consider whether counsel necessarily would or should have presented the undiscovered evidence at trial. Instead, the Court found the investigation deficient because (1) prevailing professional standards demanded a more thorough investigation into mitigation than counsel performed, id. at 524, 123 S.Ct. 2527; (2) the existing social services records that counsel did review contained leads that should have triggered further follow-up, id. at 525, 123 S.Ct. 2527; [15] (3) counsel had no countervailing grounds to conclude that further investigation would have been counterproductive or fruitless, id. at 525, 123 S.Ct. 2527; and (4) the failure to investigate thoroughly resulted from inattention, not reasoned strategic judgment. Id. at 526, 123 S.Ct. 2527. After concluding that counsel's failure to discover the mitigating evidence of Wiggins' history of deprivation and mistreatment was unreasonable, the Court turned to consider whether the deficient investigative performance prejudiced Wiggins' defense. To establish prejudice, Wiggins' burden was to show a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. 539 U.S. at 534, 123 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052). The core of the Court's analysis makes unmistakably clear that Strickland does not demand a showing that counsel necessarily would have made use of the undiscovered evidence, but only a showing of a reasonable probability that counsel would have done so: Given both the nature and the extent of the abuse petitioner suffered, we find there to be a reasonable probability that a competent attorney, aware of this history, would have introduced it at sentencing in an admissible form. While it may well have been strategically defensible upon a reasonably thorough investigation to focus on Wiggins' direct responsibility for the murder, the two sentencing strategies are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Moreover, given the strength of the available evidence, a reasonable attorney may well have chosen to prioritize the mitigation case over the direct responsibility challenge, particularly given that Wiggins' history contained little of the double edge we have found to justify limited investigations in other cases. [Citations omitted.] The dissent nevertheless maintains that Wiggins' counsel would not have altered their chosen strategy of focusing exclusively on Wiggins' direct responsibility for the murder. [Citation] But as we have made clear, counsel were not in a position to make a reasonable strategic choice as to whether to focus on Wiggins' direct responsibility, the sordid details of his life history, or both, because the investigation supporting their choice was unreasonable. Id. at 535-36, 123 S.Ct. 2527. [16] Following Wiggins, we hold that in assessing the alleged shortcomings of the investigation performed by appellant's trial counsel in the present case, the issue is not whether counsel should have presented at trial the evidence that ought to have been discovered. Id. at 523, 123 S.Ct. 2527. Rather, we must focus on whether the investigation supporting counsel's decision not to introduce [such] evidence . . . was itself reasonable.  Id. (emphasis in the original). Similarly, the issue in evaluating counsel's performance is not the reasonableness of the strategy counsel ultimately pursued at appellant's trial, but the reasonableness of the investigation said to support that strategy. Id. at 527, 123 S.Ct. 2527. [17] Deficient investigation cannot be excused on the ground that a competent attorney, aware of the evidence that an adequate investigation would have uncovered, could have made an informed judgment to pursue an alternative strategy and not utilize that evidence at trial. [18] If we conclude that counsel's investigation was unreasonable in its own right  after eliminat[ing] the distorting effects of hindsight, Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052, by pegging adequacy to `counsel's perspective at the time' investigative decisions are made, Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 381, 125 S.Ct. 2456 (quoting Strickland, supra )  then the performance prong of an ineffectiveness claim under Strickland is satisfied. [19] When we assess the reasonableness of counsel's actions, we owe deference to counsel's informed strategic choices. In the present case, however, such deference does not come into play. Appellant complains of his trial counsel's failure to ask the readily available and apparently knowledgeable co-workers what they knew about A.A.'s relationship with appellant and whether she was afraid of him. Counsel offered no strategic explanation for failing to pursue these avenues of investigation. Poindexter v. Mitchell, 454 F.3d 564, 579 (6th Cir.2006). At the § 23-110 hearing, counsel agreed that A.A.'s relationship with appellant was a necessary subject of his investigation, and that A.A.'s alleged fear of appellant was an important issue. It simply did not occur to him to question the co-workers about those matters, counsel admitted, even after he had received his investigator's report, because he focused on the co-workers only as possible character witnesses. The failure to make this inquiry of the co-workers thus was not the sort of conscious, reasonably informed decision made by an attorney with an eye to benefitting his client that . . . courts have denominated 'strategic' and been especially reluctant to disturb. Pavel v. Hollins, 261 F.3d 210, 218 (2d Cir.2001). Rather, counsel's investigative omission resulted from inattention, not reasoned strategic judgment. Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 526, 123 S.Ct. 2527. Consequently, we owe no deference in the present case to counsel's judgment as to the scope of his investigation; counsel made such no judgment. That is only the beginning of our inquiry. Ultimately, [t]he relevant question is not whether counsel's choices were strategic, but whether they were reasonable. Roe v. Flores-Ortega, 528 U.S. 470, 481, 120 S.Ct. 1029, 145 L.Ed.2d 985 (2000) (citation omitted). In the final analysis, our task under Strickland is an objective one. Even where an attorney's ignorance of relevant law and facts precludes a court from characterizing certain actions as strategic (and therefore presumptively reasonable), . . . the pertinent question under the first prong of Strickland remains whether, after considering all the circumstances of the case, the attorney's representation was objectively unreasonable. Bullock v. Carver, 297 F.3d 1036, 1050-51 (10th Cir.2002) (citations omitted); accord Pavel, 261 F.3d at 217 n. 7. [20] Thus, we must assess whether the challenged investigative omission was objectively unreasonable under the circumstances counsel confronted. If a competent defense attorney in trial counsel's shoes reasonably could have decided to forego questioning appellant's co-workers regarding their knowledge of his relationship with A.A., then trial counsel's failure to conduct that inquiry as part of his investigation cannot be deemed constitutionally deficient performance. A reviewing court must take care, of course, not to slap the label of objective reasonableness on fanciful or unrealistic rationalizations for an attorney's conduct. We turn, therefore, to consider the objective reasonableness of the investigation carried out by appellant's trial counsel under the circumstances he confronted in this case. The duty to conduct a reasonably thorough investigation does not force defense lawyers to scour the globe on the off-chance something will turn up. Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 383, 125 S.Ct. 2456 (citation omitted). However, defense counsel has a basic obligation to conduct a prompt investigation of the circumstances of the case and explore all avenues leading to facts relevant to the merits of the case and the penalty in the event of conviction. Pettiford v. United States, 700 A.2d 207, 216-17 (D.C.1997) (quoting American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice, The Defense Function 4-4.1(a) (3d ed.1993)). We take this as a succinct statement articulating the objective standard of reasonableness applicable to the duty to investigate  the standard of reasonableness that we must apply in this case. See Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 387, 125 S.Ct. 2456 (referring to the ABA Standards for guidance in determining what is reasonable investigation under prevailing norms of practice). The following considerations persuade us that the failure of appellant's trial counsel to ask appellant's co-workers about his interactions with A.A. fell below the level of objectively reasonable performance. To begin with, in order to investigate the charges against his client, counsel unquestionably needed to investigate thoroughly the relationship between A.A. and appellant. As counsel himself testified at the § 23-110 hearing, it's just . . . basic, it is just implicit in this type of case that [defense counsel is] going to do that. At the most fundamental level, such investigation would be compulsory to ascertain whether A.A.'s actual behavior with appellant was consistent or inconsistent with the charges of long-term abuse that she leveled against him, and whether anything in their relationship supplied A.A. with a motive to fabricate those charges. See, e.g., Tucker v. Ozmint, 350 F.3d 433, 444 (4th Cir.2003) (Trial counsel have an obligation to investigate possible methods for impeaching a prosecution witness, and failure to do so may constitute ineffective assistance of counsel.) (citations omitted). [21] The pretrial Notice from the government, alleging that appellant beat A.A. when she was young and that she delayed reporting his sexual abuse because she was afraid of him, only heightened the need for such investigation and sharpened its necessary focus. It would have been obvious to any competent defense attorney in trial counsel's shoes that A.A.'s long failure to complain of abuse was a potential vulnerability that could be exploited if evidence were found to refute the government's seemingly plausible explanation for that failure. Thus, we have no doubt that any competent defense attorney would have appreciated the need to investigate whether A.A. was afraid of appellant. Cf. Rompilla, 545 U.S. at 385-87, 125 S.Ct. 2456 (holding that when defense counsel is informed prior to trial that prosecution intends to introduce damaging evidence against defendant, counsel must make reasonable efforts to investigate that evidence); Bullock, 297 F.3d at 1050 (clearly negligent treatment of a crucial deficiency in the prosecution's case or an obvious strength of the defense will render an attorney's overall performance deficient) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Appellant's trial counsel conceded at the § 23-110 hearing that he did not undertake to investigate whether A.A. was afraid of appellant. Arguably, we could treat that concession as an admission that his investigation was deficient. Counsel did testify, though, that he investigated A.A.'s relationship with appellant generally, through inquiries of family members and friends. The scope of that general investigation is unclear, but perhaps it was broad enough to discover whether A.A.'s behavior was consistent with her claims. On the other hand, by all indications, the interviews of family and friends developed no materially helpful evidence regarding the relationship between A.A. and appellant  none, at least, that found its way into appellant's trial or was revealed at the § 23-110 hearing. The real question before us, therefore, is whether counsel should have pursued the inquiry with appellant's co-workers as well. Ordinarily, defense counsel might not expect a defendant's co-workers to be a source of information about the defendant's intra-family relationships. At the outset of his representation of appellant, trial counsel might have had little reason to think that the co-workers could tell him anything useful about his client's relationship with A.A. and whether she was afraid of him. Moreover, there is no evidence in the record that appellant told his trial counsel to look to his co-workers for such information. [22] In assessing the reasonableness of an attorney's investigation, however, a court must consider not only the quantum of evidence already known to counsel, but also whether the known evidence would lead a reasonable attorney to investigate further. Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 527, 123 S.Ct. 2527. In our view, the report that appellant's trial counsel received from his investigator months before trial should have led him to probe further what appellant's co-workers knew about A.A.'s relationship with appellant. Counsel learned several things from his investigator of great potential interest. He learned that the co-workers knew A.A. and other members of appellant's family. The co-workers perceived A.A. as an immature girl looking for affection outside her family. They did not understand why she was accusing appellant of abusing her. They viewed appellant as the father figure who look[ed] out for his family. They reported that appellant's mother openly favored him over his siblings and told them so. They believed the siblings to be jealous of appellant. They suspected that the siblings had fabricated the accusations of abuse to get him out of the way so that he would not continue to boss them around. This information indicated that the co-workers actually had observed A.A.'s relationship with appellant. More than that  it indicated that the co-workers might well be witnesses who could support trial counsel's contemplated defense theory that A.A. was an immature, attention-seeking, troubled teenager, easily influenced by her jealous siblings, who had fabricated her accusations against appellant out of long-standing resentment over his efforts to discipline them and control their behavior. And trial counsel had no other helpful witnesses through whom he could present that central defense theme. Under those circumstances, any competent defense attorney in trial counsel's position surely would have taken advantage of the opportunity to explore with the co-workers what they could say about appellant's interactions with A.A. (and the rest of his family). Did A.A. (and her siblings) complain of any mistreatment, chafe under appellant's direction, and appear to resent him? How did A.A. act around appellant? Did she try to avoid or evade him? Did she fear appellant and act as if he had mistreated her? How did appellant behave toward A.A. (and other family members)? Did appellant seek to discipline her for misbehavior, and, if so, how did she react? Did appellant ever mistreat A.A.? How did appellant, A.A. and the other siblings react when their mother told them she loved appellant the best? The investigator's report would have triggered these and similar questions in the mind of any reasonable defense counsel and impelled counsel to discover what the co-workers would answer. There is a second, related reason why appellant's trial counsel should have investigated the co-workers' knowledge of A.A. and her relationship with appellant. Counsel viewed the co-workers as potential character witnesses, and he actually called two of them to testify at trial that appellant was a hard-working and law-abiding person. In selecting and preparing these witnesses, counsel needed to anticipate that the introduction of character testimony would open the door to wide-ranging cross-examination. On cross-examination, the prosecutor might have probed the witness's familiarity with appellant's behavior toward A.A., including any specific bad acts inconsistent with the positive character trait asserted (whether or not such acts had culminated in a criminal conviction). See Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 479, 482, 69 S.Ct. 213, 93 L.Ed. 168 (1948); Rogers v. United States, 566 A.2d 69, 73 (D.C.1989); see also Kenneth S. Broun, McCormick on Evidence § 191 (6th ed.2006) (noting that almost any accusation would seem relevant to a general trait like being law-abiding). The prosecutor also could have explored whether the witness was biased against A.A. See Clayborne v. United States, 751 A.2d 956, 962 (D.C.2000). In order to make an informed decision about whether to call a particular co-worker as a character witness, it therefore was incumbent on counsel to inquire what, if anything, that co-worker knew about A.A. and appellant that might come out on cross-examination. If that inquiry had been performed, counsel would have discovered that A.A. and appellant appeared to enjoy a friendly relationship. [23] The government argues that trial counsel's failure to ask the co-workers about A.A.'s relationship with appellant cannot be deemed deficient because counsel conducted a thorough investigation which included relationships among the family members, devised a compelling defense theory [ i.e., the resentment theory of A.A.'s motive to fabricate her accusations], and made a strategic decision to focus his limited remaining time and resources on developing that theory rather than pursue additional investigation of family dynamics. Brief of Appellee at 27. As we already have indicated, however, the record belies the government's description of trial counsel's performance in almost every particular. While counsel supposedly investigated relationships among the family members through interviews of family and friends, he apparently did not learn anything about how A.A. actually behaved with appellant; he admittedly did not focus on whether she was fearful of him. And while counsel settled, at some point, on the resentment theory to explain why A.A. would falsely accuse appellant, that theory hardly deserves to be called compelling in view of the absence of evidence to support it at trial. In addition, trial counsel's failure to ask appellant's co-workers about A.A.'s interactions with him and whether she was afraid of him cannot be explained as a strategic decision to focus his limited remaining time and resources on developing the resentment theory instead of continuing to investigate family dynamics. Counsel testified to no such thing  he made no strategic decision to forego inquiry of the co-workers; he had the time and resources to interview them and he did so; and nothing prevented him from asking them in those interviews whether A.A.'s actual behavior was consistent or inconsistent with her claims of fear and abuse. Moreover, the resentment theory depended on the family's dynamics, so it makes no sense to suggest that he chose to focus on that theory by looking elsewhere. [24] Indeed, as we have discussed, the co-workers appeared to be a possible source of much-needed support for the resentment defense, so it is doubly surprising that counsel did not pursue the question of A.A.'s putative resentment of appellant with them after he received his investigator's report. [25] Trial counsel's investigative omissions cannot be justified with the argument that impeaching A.A. with evidence that she liked appellant would have been inconsistent with the defense theory that A.A. resented appellant. Such a  post-hoc rationalization, Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 526, 123 S.Ct. 2527, puts the cart before the horse. Counsel committed to the unpersuasive resentment theory prematurely, without having thoroughly investigated the relationship between A.A. and Cosio. His adoption of the resentment theory therefore was not the kind of reasonable professional judgment[ ] that could support the curtailment of further defense investigation. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Abandoning an investigation at an unreasonable juncture makes a reasonable professional judgment impossible. Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 527-28, 123 S.Ct. 2527. The mere fact that counsel had some information with respect to appellant's family relationships does not mean that he was yet in a position to make a reasonable strategic choice not to present an alternative defense based on impeaching A.A.;  Strickland does not establish that a cursory investigation automatically justifies a tactical decision with respect to . . . strategy. Id. at 527, 123 S.Ct. 2527. What appellant's counsel knew would [have led] a reasonable attorney to investigate further before deciding what strategy to pursue. Id. In sum, this is not a case where counsel made a reasonable decision to cease further investigation as a result of having discovered . . . evidence . . . to suggest that challenging the prosecution's [fear] evidence would have been counterproductive, or that further investigation would have been fruitless. Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 525, 123 S.Ct. 2527. Nor is this a case of diligent counsel . . . draw[ing] a line when [he has] good reason to think further investigation would be a waste [of time or resources]. Rompilla, [545 U.S. at 383, 125 S.Ct. 2456]. Gersten v. Senkowski, 426 F.3d 588, 610 (2d Cir.2005). Instead, this is a case in which, objectively speaking, trial counsel had strong reasons to ask appellant's co-workers about his relationship with A.A., and no good reason not to do so. Counsel likewise had strong reasons to investigate the prosecution's claim that A.A. was afraid of appellant, and no good reason not to do so. We are compelled to conclude that counsel's investigative omissions were objectively unreasonable, and hence that counsel's performance was constitutionally deficient. We next consider the second prong of a Strickland analysis, which is whether the deficient performance prejudiced appellant's defense.