Opinion ID: 1353976
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure to present evidence during the sentencing phase of trial

Text: The circuit court found that Mr. Haynes was ineffective because he failed to present mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase of Mr. Franklin's trial. The circuit court specifically states that had Mr. Haynes presented evidence it would have been as follows: Franklin was raised by his mother, pretty much without a father. Franklin had four brothers and one sister. Franklin was the next to the youngest. Franklin, a young man, was only twenty-one years of age at the time of his trial. Franklin graduated from Central in the class of 1996. Franklin was working at or around the time of the occurrence. Franklin was the father of six minor children. Also, Franklin had received counseling in the eighth grade from Walter Darnell, a counselor a the local mental health facility. An attorney can be ineffective for either failing to present mitigating evidence or failing to thoroughly investigate potentially mitigating evidence before making a strategic decision not to present it. Williams v. State, 347 Ark. 371, 64 S.W.3d 709 (2002); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000); Coulter v. State, 343 Ark. 22, 31 S.W.3d 826 (2000); Sanford v. State, 342 Ark. 22, 25 S.W.3d 414 (2000). In each of these cases, the sentence was death and the attorney was prohibited from forgoing his duty to investigate and submit mitigating evidence due to the severity of the potential punishment. Sanford, supra . In the instant case, Mr. Franklin did not receive the death penalty, and the offense with which he was charged was not subject to the possibility of the death penalty, therefore these cases are inapposite. The maximum Mr. Franklin could receive was life in prison Ark.Code Ann. § 5-4-401(a)(1) (Repl.1997), and he was sentenced to forty years' imprisonment. A defendant who has received a sentence less than the maximum sentence for the offense cannot show prejudice from the sentence itself. Buckley v. State, 349 Ark. 53, 76 S.W.3d 825 (2002). While showing that Mr. Franklin had a disrupted and difficult childhood, that he had children to support and that he had received needed counseling at one time are all mitigating factors, they are not unusual instances that would satisfy the Strickland criteria that the failure to introduce them constituted an error so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial. There was no showing of mental or emotional impairment or any specific instance of severe trauma that would have caused violent behavior. While these factors are mitigating, the circuit court's order does not state that their absence in the sentencing phase was prejudicial, and we conclude that the absence of this evidence was not so serious as to render the result unreliable.