Opinion ID: 6110141
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Preservation of the Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase Argument

Text: First, contrary to the intimations contained in the majority opinion, the State does not allege that the Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase argument is not preserved for our review. While the State does argue on appeal that some of Reams's arguments are not preserved for our review, the Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase Argument is not one of them. 1 This omission appears to have been entirely deliberate on the State's part, as set forth in the following paragraphs. Second, the pleadings and the circuit court's final order reveal that this argument was raised, litigated, and ruled on below, making this issue ripe for our review. While it is true that the Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase Argument was not fully set out in the initially filed Rule 37 Petition, Reams did amend his petition after  the parties exchanged discovery materials to include Curry's affidavit as an exhibit to support the arguments already raised in the petition. The original Rule 37 Petition, even before the attachment of the Curry affidavit, did plead that Counsel failed to conduct a reasonably adequate guilt phase investigation, so he could subject the state's case-in-chief to meaningful adversarial testing[,] though the original Petition went on to list investigative failures not directly related to Goodwin or Curry. Then on January 9, 2007, Reams attached to his Petition the Curry affidavit, which spelled out the details of Curry's knowledge about the case (particularly that Goodwin, and not Reams, was the shooter) and his availability to testify at Reams's capital murder trial. It is also apparent from Reams's motion filed on August 10, 2007 and the circuit court's order issued the same day that Reams had obtained Goodwin's presence from the Arkansas Department of Corrections to testify in the Rule 37 hearing, which began on August 20, 2007. All of this had transpired nearly ten (10) years before the Rule 37 trial judge issued its final order on April 13, 2017, which provided that [a]ll of petitioner's guilt-phase claims are rejected for want of a showing of prejudice generally in light of his admission at trial to his complicity in the crime. Third, not only does Reams's Petition with the attached Curry affidavit independently preserve the issue for our review, but the parties also stipulated at the conclusion of the Rule 37 hearing that any issues raised in post-hearing briefs would be ruled upon by the circuit court and preserved for appellate preview, in light of the protracted nature of the Rule 37 proceedings. What follows is an excerpt of the discussion between the parties and the circuit court at the conclusion of the Rule 37 hearing: THE COURT : Frankly, I would prefer it be done by written brief. [ PROSECUTION ]: Right. The State's fine with that. I agree with [Ream's postconviction counsel] completely about, you know, sort of a timing of it. And, perhaps, we can get together and give the Court a, sort of -- you know, as part of the brief, sort of a snap-shot as to what happened before. Make sure we have a record that has both of our court reporters. And then you might want to consider -- I mean, you might want to reraise the whatever -- remember the -- Judge Brown, that order that he gave. It was pretty -- I mean, it wasn't real limiting, but there were things in there that, you know could flesh out. It is an important case, and whatever issue that procedurally is a cognizable issue in Rule 37 that they raise, we want the Court to consider, you know. We don't want a record for federal habeas purposes, we don't want a record here in state court that leaves something undecided. THE COURT : Yes, sir. [ PROSECUTION ]: I mean, we have as much of an interest as they do in having every issue that they raise decided. THE COURT : Yeah, a real conclusion of the case. End of excerpt. The Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase Argument is one of the issues Reams raised and argued in his post-hearing briefs. The State's post-hearing briefs responded to the Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase Argument on its merits, asserting specifically that the argument fails for want of prejudice in light of Reams's testimony during the guilt-phase acknowledging his complicity in the robbery, mirroring the circuit court's order. The circuit court's basis for rejecting all of Reams's guilt-phase ineffective-assistance-of-counsel  arguments appears to have been literally cut and pasted from this section of the State's post-hearing brief. At no point before this court or the circuit court below has the State argued that the Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase Argument should not be addressed. For these reasons, I would hold that the Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase Argument is properly preserved for our review. The inadequacy of Reams's trial counsel's pre-trial investigation has been a primary subject of the parties' postconviction litigation ever since it began back in 1997, with the focus specifically on the failure to call Goodwin and Curry since at least early 2007, before the Rule 37 hearing ever began, then continuing through the hearing itself and the parties' post-hearing briefing. 2 The majority entombs its lone allusion to and erroneous dismissal of this argument in a single footnote. This is beyond troubling, especially considering the impact this argument could have upon the disposition of this case. Per the majority opinion, Reams has established that he is entitled to a new penalty-phase trial; the circuit court reached that decision based upon Reams's argument that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate, interview, or obtain the testimony of Alford Goodwin, and we affirm that decision here. However, whether Reams will receive a new guilt-phase trial is a remaining question. The majority remands this case to the circuit court for further proceedings on Reams's Duren claim, and Reams may or may not receive a new guilt-phase trial based upon the outcome of those proceedings. However, in my view, Reams has already established that he is entitled to a new guilt-phase trial because the Goodwin-Curry Guilt-Phase Argument, which the majority does not address, is meritorious. The circuit court's rejection of this argument as to the guilt-phase was clear error. There is simply no basis for treating this argument as preserved and meritorious for purposes of the penalty-phase of Reams's capital murder trial, but somehow not preserved or non-meritorious as to the guilt-phase of the same trial.