Opinion ID: 1476684
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Newly discovered documents

Text: Defendant claims ineffective assistance as a result of counsels' failure to obtain records that were later discovered by PCR counsel. He contends that the newly discovered records would have assisted in his mitigation presentation.
At defense counsel's request, Fairchild undertook to find all that she could in respect of defendant's formative years. She compiled 115 pages of documents, overcoming numerous obstacles in securing and identifying records from long ago. Defendant now criticizes the defense team investigation because PCR counsel has secured a complete set of records from Trenton State Hospital that were not obtained by Fairchild. PCR counsel argue that those records indicate that defendant was civilly committed as `insane' when he was twelve years old. In addition, another newly found childhood record documents scars on defendant's body, corroborating the defense contention that Harris was abused as a child. And finally, PCR counsel found documentation that Mattie was diagnosed with scabies a week before defendant's birth, indicating the filthy conditions in which defendant's family lived. Additional records found reflect that Mattie had been arrested during Harris's childhood for drunk, disorderly, and assaultive conduct. In response, the State notes that many of the documents were dated after the defense's self-imposed cut-off date for its mitigation case. Beyond that, the State argues that the documents would not have enhanced substantially the mitigation presentation. Many records are illegible or irrelevant, and regardless, the documents found by Call and Scully adequately depicted Harris's home life without the newly-found documents. They would be simply cumulative.

We turn first to the question of deficient performance: does counsels' failure to discover the complete set of documents imply that their investigation was objectively unreasonable. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 521, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 2535, 156 L.Ed. 2d 471, 485 (2003) (`[C]ounsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.') (quoting Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. at 2052, 80 L.Ed. 2d 674). As noted, trial counsel told Fairchild to find everything she could. It is not surprising that Fairchild experienced difficulty finding records about defendant from 1952 through 1965. Mattie pointed Fairchild in the direction of the Child Guidance Clinic, which Fairchild learned is now the Family Guidance Clinic in Princeton. Also, there were gaps in the record-keeping. According to Fairchild, some records at Mercer County Hospital were either gone, on microfilm, or on small cards. She testified that she asked Mercer Hospital for records of medical treatment, but was told that there were none. As for the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital records that feature in PCR counsels' argument, the PCR transcript reflects that Call had a letter from that institution stating that the records forwarded were the ones it had of Ambrose Harris. Although that letter, dated May 18, 1995, is not part of the record, Call testified that he had reason to believe he had all of defendant's records from that hospital. PCR counsel disputed the reasonableness of that belief by Call. When Call was asked, Why did you think you had the complete hospital records ... if there were no physician orders in there, nurses' notes, medication records, anything, he responded that he relied on Fairchild and assumed those were the records that were available, given the lapse in time. We find it significant that Call showed Drs. Gruen and Greenfield the file from the State Hospital. Neither mentioned that there appeared to be records missing, a point not lost on Call, who testified: I believe if either Dr. Gruen or Dr. Greenfield had indicated there might be additional records, . . . I would have probably sent Ms. Fairchild and one of the public defender's investigators to determine whether or not there were any additional records. Indeed, Gruen testified that the notes from the Guidance Center were very exhaustive. We find two other points noteworthy. First, Nardone's report does not criticize at all Fairchild's attempts to locate relevant records. Second, the certification submitted on behalf of defendant by David Glazer, offered as an expert on death penalty defense, does not criticize Fairchild or trial counsel for failing to obtain the documents. In fact, before PCR counsel found the documents, Glazer certified that he reviewed the institutional records submitted to the jury, and he did not indicate that he found the reports lacking in completeness. Later Glazer submitted another certification, after PCR counsel uncovered more documents. In that second certification, Glazer refrained from criticizing trial counsel for not finding them, stating instead that counsel overlooked that evidence and discussed the impact he believed such evidence would have had. We are not informed why defendant's PCR attorneys were able to find these documents when Fairchild could not. Other than the fact that the documents were found, there is no evidence that Call or Fairchild made any unreasonable decisions. Fairchild was not permitted to testify at the PCR hearing because PCR counsel did not provide an affidavit attesting to the content of her testimony. Our decision does not hinge on that ruling, however, because Fairchild was interviewed by Nardone and Nardone's report does not criticize Fairchild's investigation into the documents nor does it offer any insight into the need for Fairchild's testimony. On the present record, we conclude that defendant has failed to show deficient performance by Call for his failure to uncover all of the documents now submitted by PCR counsel.
Because we have concluded that defendant has not satisfied his responsibility to demonstrate deficient performance by counsel, we need not reach Strickland's prejudice prong. We comment on the documents worth only for purposes of completeness in this de novo review. We address them by category. First, many of the new documents have no relevance to defendant's mitigation case. In this category, we include countless uninformative correspondence and requests for records, basic forms, unreadable photocopies, permission slips to exit the hospital, drug and treatment records, and medical records about defendant's hammer toe that needed surgery. The evidence that Mattie had scabies before giving birth to defendant is not dispositive of defendant's assertion about growing up in squalor and filth. Indeed, other of the newly found documents are reports from health care providers recording that defendant had a clean appearance and habits. Second, the jury knew much of the information contained in other documents. A February 1965 letter from a doctor at the State Hospital indicates that Harris engaged in many fights, choked one boy and stabbed another with scissors, but like information was conveyed to the jury by Dr. Gruen and by Fairchild. An April 1964 document reports the opinion of Dr. Litkey, a Guidance Center psychiatrist, that Harris was a severely ill child mentally and needed institutionalization. But Dr. Gruen testified to recalling a document very much like this one. In May 1964, the director of the Child Guidance Center wrote that defendant's mother realized her son had problems, but would not take an active role in helping; she hoped her son would just outgrow his problems. Fairchild similarly testified that reports indicated Mattie's passivity towards defendant and her resistance to being involved with him. In general, many of the new documents note Mattie's failures as a mother. But Gruen testified that the documents at trial were very complete about Mattie's poor mothering. The defense had ample evidence portraying Mattie's failure as a mother. Finally, reports from the State Hospital, dated April and June 1965, state that defendant had no psychosis, no delusions, and no hallucinations, but did have a sociopathic personality disturbance. Drs. Gruen and Greenfield disagreed with other diagnoses in the records, but their assessments of Harris as a child agreed with those evaluations. Last, PCR counsel emphasizes two Certificates of Insanity dating from October 1964. Presented with them, Call testified that he was not sure whether he would have submitted them to the jury. Because the certificates reveal that Harris was sniffing glue and had sexual relations with a ten-year old girl, Call said he would have considered adjusting the cut-off date of the defense presentation to have the certificates fall outside the range. PCR counsel faults Call's present day evaluation by pointing out that the jury knew about the glue sniffing and about Harris's relations with the young girl, but that argument is an acknowledgment that the jury already knew of those behaviors. The Certificates of Insanity are not compelling in and of themselves as the prosecutor undoubtedly would have informed the jury that the documents did not mean that defendant literally was insane. The defense experts testified that defendant was not psychotic, and other documents found by PCR counsel stated that defendant did not suffer from psychosis, delusions, or hallucinations. The most the Certificates of Insanity convey was the signator's belief that others needed protection from defendant's aggressive behavior because the basis given for the finding of insanity was defendant's bad behavior, about which the jury was told. As for the other new documents pertaining to physical abuse suffered by defendant as a child, we note Fairchild's testimony that Harris received beatings from his mother and stepfather. Also the jury learned that one social worker described Mattie in 1962 as very punitive with defendant. However, the prosecutor was effective at calling into doubt the allegations of abuse by exposing Fairchild's lack of basis for concluding that Harris had any tremendous scars. The medical records produced at trial showed no evidence of scars except on defendant's arms, which could have come from fights. Yet, on this question multiple medical records discovered by PCR counsel document many scars in many other parts of his body. PCR counsel also highlight another document that supports the abuse allegations. In 1964, a school psychologist reported Harris's attitudes of resentment and revenge against those in the home who beat him, and his feel[ing] that he might like to get even with them when he was older. When the psychologist confronted Mattie with defendant's claim that his father was a harsh disciplinarian, Mattie said that Ambrose must have been referring to his stepfather. That last document is not newly discovered, as it is from the Trenton Public Schools and recounts the same choking and scissor-stabbing incidents previously presented to the jury during the testimony of Dr. Gruen and Fairchild. In sum, the only documents that contained any new information were those that supported the abuse allegations by providing evidence of extensive scarring, which the prosecutor said was lacking. On this record, with the extensive mitigation case presented by defendant, it is not likely that the failure to present the additional evidence constituted prejudice sufficient to overturn this verdict. However, as noted, because defendant has not proven deficient performance, we do not reach and determine prejudice. Indeed, aside from producing the documents, defendant has not offered an affidavit from Gruen, Greenfield, or any other expert about how the new documents could have changed their testimony to the jury.
Because defendant has not shown that counsel or Fairchild were unreasonable in their investigations, we conclude that defendant has not demonstrated the first prong necessary to his allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel.