Opinion ID: 2237316
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Investigate and Present to the Sentencing Jury Evidence of Defendant's Mental History

Text: Doyle had in his possession at the time of the sentencing hearing defendant's school records, which revealed that defendant was mentally deficient and was placed in special classes for the educably mentally handicapped. Yet, Doyle failed to present this important mitigating evidence to the sentencing jury. We find no reasonable explanation for Doyle's actions, and conclude that his failure to present the evidence to the sentencing jury was not the product of a thorough investigation, but rather of ignorance of the information, and thus not a strategic decision. At the post-conviction hearing, Doyle testified that he failed to use defendant's school records at the sentencing hearing because defendant would not allow him to use any information about his family or background in the proceedings. The State argues that this testimony reveals a reasonable decision on Doyle's part not to use the school records. This testimony, however, is inconsistent with other testimony Doyle gave at the post-conviction hearing and with his actions at the sentencing hearing. Specifically, Doyle testified that defendant eventually did give him information about his family which he wanted admitted at the sentencing hearing in the form of an affidavit. Defendant also gave Doyle information about a shelter, a clinic, and a priest, and gave him phone numbers and street names for Doyle to look into. This clearly indicates that defendant had allowed Doyle to use information about his background and family at the sentencing hearing. Furthermore, Doyle argued for the admission of defendant's affidavit, which contained information about defendant's family and background, and introduced Becraft's report which also contained such information. It thus cannot be said that Doyle failed to use the information contained in the school records concerning defendant's mental history because defendant instructed him not to use any information about his family or background. Doyle later testified that he could not explain why he had not used the school records, but stated that if he had to guess, it was because the records labeled defendant a troublemaker. The State argues this testimony shows Doyle made a reasonable strategic decision not to introduce the school records. We disagree for several reasons. While the 1967 report stated that defendant was a troublemaker, it also explained why he was a troublemaker: defendant was unable to perform work at his grade level because of his mental handicap. Moreover, the 1971 report did not state that defendant was a troublemaker in class, but did contain the results of defendant's intelligence tests as well as other mitigating evidence. Doyle could not explain why he failed to introduce the 1971 report. Additionally, if Doyle had read both reports together, he would have known that while defendant may have been a troublemaker in regular school classes in 1967 due to his mental handicap, once he was placed in the EMH program, he cooperated to the best of his ability. We further discount Doyle's troublemaker rationale for not using the school records because Doyle did introduce Becraft's report at the sentencing hearing, a report which contained a much greater amount of aggravating evidence ([defendant is] aggressive, criminally oriented,    likely to become quickly institutionalized with high likelihood of recidivism    and likely to adjust inadequately to incarceration due to gang activities) than the 1967 school records, which only described defendant as a troublemaker. And, as previously noted, the 1971 report did not even contain this information about defendant's classroom behavior. We fail to see any reasonable strategic choice by Doyle in using Becraft's report for its minimal mitigating evidence, rather than using the school reports for information concerning defendant's mental history. We conclude that Doyle was unaware of the school reports' contents at the time of the sentencing hearing, and thus failed to properly investigate and use the information contained in the school records. Several other factors have led us to this conclusion. First, Doyle testified that he could not say whether he understood the meaning of the intelligence test results in the school reports at the time of the sentencing hearing, and did not have anyone interpret them for him. Doyle also claimed he knew nothing about defendant's family until defendant gave him information for the affidavit, even though the school records contained quite a bit of family information. Finally, Doyle testified that he argued for the admission of defendant's affidavit at the sentencing hearing for the mitigating information it contained, even though he knew it would not be admitted, because he had no other option at that time. Obviously, Doyle did not consider the school reports an option. We also find troubling the fact that Doyle did not seek any independent expert testing of defendant when he should have been aware of defendant's mental deficiency. This failure to seek expert assistance is especially troubling in light of the fact that Doyle was having communication problems with defendant. As Lyon testified, experts may be needed in cases of recalcitrant defendants to determine why they will not cooperate with their attorney. Doyle took no steps to understand this problem. Because Doyle failed to investigate defendant's mental history, his decision not to present such evidence to the sentencing jury cannot be deemed a strategic decision. Our decision is supported by a line of Federal cases in which counsels' failure to investigate and present defendants' mental histories were found to fall below objective standards of reasonableness and constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. In Brewer v. Aiken (7th Cir.1991), 935 F.2d 850, 857, the court held: In our opinion, defense counsel's failure to investigate the mental history of a defendant with low intelligence demonstrates conclusively that he did not `make a significant effort, based on reasonable investigation and logical argument, to ably present the defendant's fate to the jury and to focus the attention of the jury on any mitigating factors.' (Quoting Kubat v. Thieret (7th Cir.1989), 867 F.2d 351, 369.) The court in Aiken further noted that counsel's failure to investigate and present evidence of the defendant's mental history was even more serious in light of a court-appointed psychologist's testimony that the defendant had a dependent personality and was easily led by others. The same is true here, as Barnes testified that defendant had a dependent personality and responded to the few overtures presented to him, and evidence existed that defendant's codefendant, Hector Rivera, was a leader in the Latin Kings organization and most likely ordered the killing of Cook. Doyle did not introduce any of this evidence. Another decision, Cunningham v. Zant (11th Cir.1991), 928 F.2d 1006, dealt with counsel's failure to present evidence of a defendant's mild mental retardation to the jury. There, the court held: Trial counsel did not recall that the Central State Hospital personnel had diagnosed Cunningham to be mildly mentally retarded. Accordingly, their decision not to present such evidence cannot be deemed tactical. ( Cunningham, 928 F.2d at 1018.) Here, Doyle could not recall whether he understood the meaning of defendant's test scores at the time of the sentencing hearing and did not have anyone interpret them for him. Thus, his decision not to present such evidence to the jury cannot be deemed tactical. In Stephens v. Kemp (11th Cir.1988), 846 F.2d 642, the court stated: [T]rial counsel's failure to investigate, present and argue to the jury at sentencing any evidence of appellant's mental history and condition constituted error `so serious that counsel was not functioning as the counsel guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment.' [Citation.] ( Stephens, 846 F.2d at 652.) And, in Evans v. Lewis (9th Cir. 1988), 855 F.2d 631, the court found counsel's failure to investigate defendant's mental health, when he had evidence of mental illness, an important factor in finding the ineffective assistance of counsel. We conclude that Doyle's failure to investigate and present to the jury defendant's mental history fell below objective standards of reasonableness under prevailing professional norms.