Opinion ID: 2313020
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Should the Court adopt a higher standard than the Strickland standard of reasonable competence for counsel in capital cases?

Text: In Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed. 2d 674 (1984), the Supreme Court set forth the constitutional threshold for vindication of the sixth amendment's guarantee to every citizen of the assistance of counsel in the defense of all criminal prosecutions. This constitutional guarantee of counsel cannot be satisfied by mere formal appointment. Avery v. Alabama, 308 U.S. 444, 446, 60 S.Ct. 321, 84 L.Ed. 377, 379 (1940). An accused is entitled to be assisted by an attorney, whether retained or appointed, who plays the role necessary to ensure that the trial is fair. Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 685, 104 S.Ct. at 2063, 80 L.Ed. 2d at 692. In other words, the right to counsel is the right to the effective assistance of counsel. Id. at 686, 104 S.Ct. at 2063, 80 L.Ed. 2d at 692 (quoting McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771 n. 14, 90 S.Ct. 1441, 1449 n. 14, 25 L.Ed. 2d 763, 773 n. 14 (1970)). Ineffective assistance of counsel arises in the situation in which counsel fails to provide adequate legal assistance. Ibid. (quoting Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 344, 100 S.Ct. 1708, 1716, 64 L.Ed. 2d 333, 344 (1980)). Adequate assistance of an attorney is measured according to whether the counsel has professional skills comparable to other practitioners in the field. This has been equated with a standard of reasonable competence. See State v. Fritz, 105 N.J. 42, 53 (1987) (citing Trapnell v. United States, 725 F. 2d 149, 151-52 (2d Cir.1983)); see also McMann v. Richardson, supra, 397 U.S. at 770, 90 S.Ct. at 1448, 25 L.Ed. 2d at 773 (reasonably competent advice). Reasonable competence does not require the best of attorneys, but certainly not one so ineffective as to make the idea of a fair trial meaningless. Hence, the Supreme Court has developed a two-prong test for determining whether counsel's assistance was so defective as to require reversal of a conviction. See Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed. 2d 674. This test recognizes that when the level of counsel's participation makes the idea of a fair trial a nullity, no prejudice need be shown. It is presumed. See United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed. 2d 657 (1984) (decided the same day as Strickland ). An example of the Cronic presumption would be a failure by counsel for the defendant to cross-examine a key prosecution witness. See Cronic, supra, 466 U.S. at 659, 104 S.Ct. at 2047, 80 L.Ed. 2d at 668. To establish this category of ineffective assistance, defendant is not required to show prejudice. That degree of deficient performance is tantamount to a complete denial of counsel. Id. at 659, 104 S.Ct. at 2047, 80 L.Ed. 2d at 668. On the other hand, under Strickland if counsel's representation merely falls below the standard of reasonable competence, a reversal is required only if the Court finds prejudice to the defendant. In the context of a capital sentence, the defendant must demonstrate a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the sentencer    would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not warrant death. Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 695, 104 S.Ct. at 2069, 80 L.Ed. 2d at 698. Thus, in Burger v. Kemp, 483 U.S. 776, 793-95, 107 S.Ct. 3114, 3125-26, 97 L.Ed. 2d 638, 657 (1987), although observing that counsel did not investigate evidentiary material to be presented in mitigation of defendant's sentencing phase, the Court did not invalidate the conviction because it was a strategic decision supported by reasonable professional judgment that such investigation would not have minimized the risk of the death penalty. The Court rejected the argument that a more aggressive defense performance would have made a difference in the face of overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt. In State v. Fritz, supra , we adopted the Strickland standard as a matter of our own jurisprudence, although we phrased the prejudice test somewhat differently. Justice Handler, speaking for the Court, said: Even if we are not constitutionally compelled to adopt the Strickland-Cronic test, the development of the law in this area impels us to conclude that we should recognize the soundness and efficacy of both the substance and formulation of this federal Constitutional standard in defining our own State Constitutional guarantee of effective assistance of counsel. We therefore hold that under Article I, paragraph 10 of the State Constitution a criminal defendant is entitled to the assistance of reasonably competent counsel, and that if counsel's performance has been so deficient as to create a reasonable probability that these deficiencies materially contributed to defendant's conviction, the constitutional right will have been violated. [105 N.J. at 58.] Obviously, the defendant's guilt is not the measure of the constitutional guarantee. Were it so,  Gideon's promise [1] would have extended only to defendants who could show that a lawyer would have made a difference. Rather, the measure of the constitutional guarantee is the fairness of the proceeding  the measure of its adversarial balance. Courts reviewing death sentences generally focus on the procedures by which the sentence was imposed, rather than the result of the process, in the hope of assuring reliability and avoiding arbitrariness. In ensuring that the death penalty is not meted out arbitrarily or capriciously, the Court's principal concern has been more with the procedure by which the State imposes the death sentence than with the substantive factors the State lays before the jury as a basis for imposing death, once it has been determined that the defendant falls within the category of persons eligible for the death penalty. [Fong, Ineffective Assistance of Counsel at Capital Sentencing, 39 Stan.L.Rev. 461, 490 n. 177 (1987) (quoting California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 999, 103 S.Ct. 3446, 3452, 77 L.Ed. 2d 1171, 1179 (1983)).]
Is this standard sufficient for capital cases? In capital cases, reasonable competence is no small measure. Today capital punishment has emerged as a major branch of constitutional jurisprudence, encompassing questions regarding the right to jury trial, cruel and unusual punishment, and procedural and substantive due process. Schnapper, Book Review, 84 Mich.L. Rev. 715, 715 (1986) (reviewing W. White, Life in the Balance: Procedural Safeguards in Capital Cases (1984)). Capital cases present an extraordinary challenge to courts and counsel. The Supreme Court has developed a highly complex body of law to effectuate the eighth-amendment guarantee that in order to avoid the arbitrariness that would violate the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, capital-punishment sentencing schemes must not result in death sentences that are wantonly and    freakishly imposed and are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 309-10, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2762, 33 L.Ed. 2d 346, 390 (1972) (Stewart, J., concurring). Justice Thurgood Marshall has observed that [d]eath penalty litigation has become a specialized field of practice, and even the most well intentioned attorneys often are unable to recognize, preserve, and defend their client's rights. Often trial counsel simply are unfamiliar with the special rules that apply in capital cases. Marshall, Remarks on the Death Penalty Made at the Judicial Conference of the Second Circuit, 86 Colum.L.Rev. 1, 1 (1986). Our decisions interpreting federal constitutional doctrine and our own constitutional doctrine as each applies to our death-penalty statute have occasioned in New Jersey a substantial body of capital precedent. In addition, our capital cases have generated an intensive examination by counsel of all aspects of criminal practice. See State v. Williams, 113 N.J. 393 (1988) (empanelment of the jury and its voir dire ); State v. Moore, 113 N.J. 239 (1988) (responsibility of courts to charge the jury with appropriate lesser-included offenses); State v. Gerald, supra, 113 N.J. 40 (1988) (responsibility of juries to determine that the defendant had the knowledge or purpose that death would result from the criminal act); State v. Rose, 112 N.J. 454 (1988) (necessity that juries understand the limited purposes that some evidence may have in capital cases); State v. Zola, 112 N.J. 384 (1988) (use of expert scientific evidence in capital cases); State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 123 (1988) [hereinafter Bey II ] (non-unanimous jury verdict on the existence of mitigating factors); State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. 123 (1987) (resolution of basic constitutional issues and other pretrial issues including death-qualification and selection of grand and petit jury panels); State v. Williams, 93 N.J. 39 (1983) (problems of pretrial and mid-trial publicity). The defendant, through the Public Defender, urges us to reevaluate our holding in Fritz and to adopt a test for measuring ineffective assistance of counsel under the State Constitution that will provide greater protections to capital defendants and improve the quality of representation. In particular, he objects to two features of the Strickland test: the presumption of competence under the first prong, and the requirement that the defendant must establish prejudice under the second prong. He argues: Death is too final and too drastic a penalty to be meted out when it is uncertain whether a defendant is receiving the sentence only because of the unprovable consequences of his admittedly incompetent representation.         An appellate court's determination that a defendant is clearly guilty simply cannot be a substitute for a trial that has failed to establish guilt through fair procedures where life is at stake. We recognize, as Justice Handler did in his dissent in State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 364 n. 12, that although we adopted the general principles of Strickland in State v. Fritz,  we had no occasion to decide, however, the applicability of those standards in the special context of capital punishment. The Court is cognizant of the suggestion that it should develop higher standards for appellate review of constitutional-rights claims in capital cases. We recognize that because of their finality, capital cases are a categorical imperative for trial fairness. State v. Williams, supra, 93 N.J. at 61. One of the pillars on which the Supreme Court has rested the constitutionality of state capital-sentencing procedures is that of meaningful appellate review. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 195, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2935, 49 L.Ed. 2d 859, 887 (1976). Nonetheless, we do not feel impelled to adopt stricter standards for judging constitutional rights in capital cases than in noncapital cases. To judge capital defendants differently would effectively diminish the rights of noncapital defendants, a disquieting result that we reject. There either is a constitutional violation or there is not. There can be no double standards. At the same time, we have committed ourselves to a searching and stringent review of capital records, which, we believe, coupled with an enhanced application of the harmless error standard, would be sufficiently flexible to accommodate our heightened concerns and responsibilities in reviewing death-penalty prosecutions. State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 45, 95 (1988) [hereinafter Bey I ]. We see no need, then, to alter the Strickland/Fritz standard for capital cases. Capital defendants are guaranteed competent capital counsel. Obviously the measure of an advocate's competency depends on the task to be accomplished. The best intentions and the most devoted of efforts do not necessarily equate with capital competence. We expect capital defense counsel to have an expertise regarding the special considerations present in capital cases. The Strickland/Fritz standard demands no less. A sample of post- Strickland capital cases sets forth factors that evidence a lack of competence in capital cases: Tyler v. Kemp, 755 F. 2d 741 (11th Cir.) (inexperienced counsel failed to investigate and offer mitigating evidence), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1026, 106 S.Ct. 582, 88 L.Ed. 2d 564 (1985), overruled on other grounds, Peek v. Kemp, 784 F. 2d 1479 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 939, 107 S.Ct. 421, 93 L.Ed. 2d 371 (1986); Blake v. Kemp, 758 F. 2d 523 (11th Cir.) (failure to make any preparation for penalty phase), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 998, 106 S.Ct. 374, 88 L.Ed. 2d 367 (1985); Jones v. Thigpen, 788 F. 2d 1101 (5th Cir.1986) (presented no defense at sentencing phase), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1087, 107 S.Ct. 1292, 94 L.Ed. 2d 148 (1987); see also Fong, supra, 39 Stan.L. Rev. at 470-75. These particularly egregious examples are not intended to be the bench marks of capital-case incompetence, but rather are examples of incompetence. We are satisfied that the Strickland measure of the effectiveness of counsel, considered with the test of whether these deficiencies materially contributed to defendant's conviction, Fritz, supra, 105 N.J. at 58, will adequately fulfill the constitutional guarantee.