Opinion ID: 1222518
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to Effectively Cross-Examine Witnesses

Text: The petitioner also contends his trial counsel was ineffective in his cross-examination of witnesses. We will focus on the cross-examination of one of the State's key witnesses  Jimmy Torrence. The petitioner claims that instead of attempting to impeach the credibility of Mr. Torrence through his criminal record, trial counsel should have focused upon the aspects of Mr. Torrence's statement which supported the defense. In Mr. Torrence's eleven-page statement given to the police, he stated there was no argument between Mr. Morgan and the petitioner; the petitioner pulled the gun and asked him to drive to the police station before the shots were fired; and the people in the back of the van did move forward before the shooting began. During the habeas corpus hearing, defense counsel agreed this testimony was exculpatory evidence. Defense counsel was not provided a copy of Mr. Torrence's statement prior to trial. However, he was afforded the opportunity to review the statement during a fifteen-minute break following Mr. Torrence's direct testimony. [20] The State responds that trial counsel effectively cross-examined Mr. Torrence as to his prior convictions. Furthermore, trial counsel stated at the habeas corpus hearing that he elicited testimony from Mr. Torrence showing he was so intoxicated that he was not sure what happened the evening of the shooting. However, the State does not articulate nor does this Court find a reason that necessitates the impeachment of Mr. Torrence. His testimony was not damaging to the defense. The petitioner admitted nearly to everything testified to by Mr. Torrence. We agree that a better trial tactic would have been to elicit the available exculpatory evidence from Mr. Torrence to support the petitioner's claim in lieu of trying to impeach him outright; nevertheless, as we stated earlier, this Court has the benefit of sifting through all the testimony elicited at trial on our review of the petitioner's claims  a luxury not shared by trial counsel in the heat of battle. The method and scope of cross-examination is a paradigm of the type of tactical decision that [ordinarily] cannot be challenged as evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel. Hutchins v. Garrison, 724 F.2d 1425, 1436 (4th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1065, 104 S.Ct. 750, 79 L.Ed.2d 207 (1984). In Burger v. Kemp, 483 U.S. 776, 107 S.Ct. 3114, 97 L.Ed.2d 638 (1987), counsel failed to introduce any evidence of mitigation at the sentencing phase of a capital case. The Supreme Court, while acknowledging that the evidence would have been admissible, found no ineffective assistance of counsel. Instead, the Supreme Court accorded substantial deference to trial counsel saying that he had the experience in criminal cases to make the judgment as to how the jury might view introduction of this evidence. The Supreme Court concluded that the petitioner failed to overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy. We do not find the trial counsel's cross-examination of Mr. Torrence was unreasonable or inadequate based on all the information available to him at the time. Indeed, it could be argued that trial counsel pursued a clearly defined, strategic approach which was far more effective than quibbling with Mr. Torrence regarding his pretrial statement. This strategic choice very well may have avoided a challenge to the accuracy of some of the information given by Mr. Torrence that substantiated the facts given by the defense. This conceivably was a decent strategy; the jury just did not find it helpful enough to acquit. A decision regarding trial tactics cannot be the basis for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel unless counsel's tactics are shown to be `so ill chosen that it permeates the entire trial with obvious unfairness.' Teague v. Scott, 60 F.3d 1167, 1172 (5th Cir.1995), quoting Garland v. Maggio, 717 F.2d 199, 206 (5th Cir. 1983).