Opinion ID: 6358387
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Trial counsel's failure to hire a forensic investigator

Text: Brown first asserts that trial counsel should have retained a forensic investigator to offer testimony that could have been used to impeach the damaging eyewitness testimony of Smith and Ellison. Both Smith and Ellison testified that they were a mere three to five feet away from Brown when they saw him shoot Crawford. Brown's PCRA counsel hired a forensic investigator, Robert Tressel (Tressel) to  visit the crime scene and review affidavits, crime scene photographs, discovery and transcripts. Tressel visited the crime scene on December 12, 2013 and provided a signed affidavit expressing his professional findings. PCRA Petition, Appendix, Tressel Affidavit, 12/12/2013, ¶ 2. Based upon the locations of the three fired cartridge casings and his knowledge of the type and brand of the murder weapon, Tressel opined that the shooter fired from between seven to nine feet from the curb on the west side of Watts Street, and based upon the trial testimony and a subsequently obtained affidavit from Ellison, he further opined that the minivan where Smith and Ellison were located was between fifty and fifty-three feet from the Watts Street west side curb. Id. , ¶¶ 3-6. As a result, Tressel indicated that if he had been retained to testify on behalf of Brown at trial, he would have informed the jury that Smith's minivan was between forty to forty-six feet from the shooter, rather than just three to five feet away as Smith and Ellison both testified. Id. , ¶¶ 7-8. This claim fails because Brown cannot establish either that trial counsel lacked a reasonable strategic basis for his actions or that Tressel's testimony would have impacted the trial's outcome. As indicated hereinabove, with respect to the reasonable strategic basis element of an ineffectiveness claim, the issue is not whether there were other courses of action that counsel could have pursued, but whether the course taken had any reasonable basis. Hanible , 30 A.3d at 439 . In this case, trial counsel did not hire a forensic investigator to establish the apparent disparity in the distance that Smith and Ellison were from the shooting and their testimony regarding the same. Instead, trial counsel chose to attempt to refute their testimony through both cross-examination and the use of the testimony of other witnesses (including the Commonwealth's own forensic investigators). In multiple cases, this Court has held that [t]rial counsel need not introduce expert testimony on his client's behalf if he is able effectively to cross-examine prosecution witnesses and elicit helpful testimony. Commonwealth v. Chmiel , 612 Pa. 333 , 30 A.3d 1111 , 1143 (2011) ; see also Commonwealth v. Treiber , 632 Pa. 449 , 121 A.3d 435 , 454 (2015) ; Commonwealth v. Copenhefer , 553 Pa. 285 , 719 A.2d 242 , 253 (1998) ; Commonwealth v. Williams , 537 Pa. 1 , 640 A.2d 1251 , 1265 (1994). In Hanible , we rejected a substantially identical claim as that presented here, involving a contention that trial counsel should have hired Tressel to testify regarding the precise location of a van. We did so because trial counsel cannot be deemed ineffective for failing to obtain the opinion of an independent crime scene expert when the forensic investigators who actually examined the scene obtained evidence favorable to Appellant, which trial counsel utilized in his cross-examination of the Commonwealth's witnesses. Hanible , 30 A.3d at 449. As the PCRA court here observed, and the certified record reflects, trial counsel ably cross-examined Smith and Ellison regarding their claims of proximity to the shooter. Also, and importantly, during his cross-examination of Rahill, the Commonwealth's forensic crime scene investigator, trial counsel successfully utilized the witnesses' various marks on the Diagram to demonstrate that Smith and Ellison were considerably further away from the shooting than they believed. Rahill testified that, assuming the witnesses accurately marked their locations on the Diagram, Smith and Ellison were 160 feet to 240 feet away from where Anderson marked his location on the Diagram. Rahill also testified that the distance from where the fired shell casings were found and where Crawford fell was approximately 110 feet from  Smith and Ellison. Trial counsel reiterated in his closing argument that neither Smith nor Ellison were as close to the shooting as they testified. N.T. 5/31/2005, at 114, 119-20. Based upon these concessions, we cannot conclude that trial counsel's chosen strategy lacked a reasonable basis. Rahill's testimony also reflects that the failure to hire Tressel to testify at trial did not prejudice Brown, as it would not have resulted in a different outcome at trial. Rahill's testimony was significantly more favorable to Brown than Tressel's would have been. Tressel would have testified that Smith and Ellison were a mere forty to forty-six feet from the shooter, while Rahill told the jury that (based on the Diagram) Smith and Ellison were between 160 and 240 away from Anderson, who in turn testified that he was six feet away from Brown when the shots were fired. The jury heard Rahill's testimony, but still chose to find Brown guilty, as it either chose to believe Smith and Ellison instead or did not find the discrepancy in distance to be material to their decision.