Opinion ID: 6109557
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to call Ms. Jones as a witness

Text: If called, Ms. Jones, Eva's friend and the owner of the house on Blakemore where Mr. McFadden confronted Eva, would have testified she did not hear Eva and Mr. McFadden fighting and Eva did not tell her they had been in an argument the night of Leslie's murder. The defense argues this would have impeached Eva's claim that she fought with Mr. McFadden outside the house the night Leslie was murdered. Defense counsel testified they made the strategic decision not to call Ms. Jones at this trial because the fight issue was not a central one. Further, Ms. Jones' testimony was only minimally helpful because she admitted she was in her bedroom the entire evening watching television. The only bedroom window was on the side of the house, not the front where the fight occurred, and the window was closed and the storm window was in place. Further, Ms. Jones could have been used by the prosecutor to bolster other aspects of Eva's testimony. She testified that the night Leslie was murdered she spoke with a very emotional Eva, who told her she had seen Mr. McFadden shoot Leslie multiple times. Ms. Jones testified she walked with Eva to the murder scene, and Eva told Ms. Jones she saw the murder while hiding in the bushes. This testimony would have corroborated Eva's testimony about the shooting and would have undercut Mr. McFadden's defense. As defense counsel stated at the postconviction hearing, this was one more instance in which if we thought that it didn't work or didn't go well in the first trial, we didn't do it again in the second trial. Ordinarily, the failure to call a witness will not support an ineffective assistance of counsel claim because the choice of witnesses is presumptively a matter  of trial strategy. Tisius, 519 S.W.3d at 427 .