Opinion ID: 1797214
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Man is a Product of His Environment So it Can't be His Fault

Text: Farrow is also questioned for not presenting more information about Foster's upbringing, childhood, and dysfunctional family life. Foster claims that had Farrow inquired more into his past, and shown that his father was an alcoholic, the jury would have understood what a traumatic childhood he must have lived, and thus, been able to weigh another mitigator into better explaining the robbery-murder. Foster essentially claims that more witnesses than just his mother and father should have been called to the stand. His siblings and friends should have also testified, and his parents should have been better prepared to testify. Foster claims that his siblings would have told the jury that his father was a drunkard and his older brothers served as his drinking mentors. His friends would have attested to the fact that he started drinking at age twelve and that his resulting abrasive behavior cost him their companionship. Foster claims that this part of his family history would have supported the mitigating factors of lack of self-control, extreme disturbance, and inability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. Foster cites to the lone dissenter in Pruett v. State, 574 So.2d 1342, 1347-48 (Miss. 1990) (Anderson, J., dissenting), who alone stood for the proposition that defense counsel has a critical and crucial duty in capital cases to conduct extensive pretrial investigations in the defendant's life history, emotional and psychological make-up, upbringing, relationships, friendships, formative and traumatic experiences, personal psychology and present feelings. We are not sure what such information would have to do with the condition that Foster was in at the time he decided to rob. Prosecution witness, Vincent Harris, testified that Foster drank twelve beers by the time he made a decision to rob the store. Farrow was more than happy to seize upon such testimony and let the jury know that the fact that Foster consumed alcohol before entering into the crime was conceded for the purpose of meeting the mitigator of intoxication. Farrow made the following argument during closing: Well, ladies and gentlemen who said he did use alcohol? Who did? Who said he'd had twelve beers that night? Who said it? You know who said it. Vincent Harris said it. So was he intoxicated? Would twelve beers make a seventeen year old with his frame intoxicated? That's another mitigating factor for you to consider because you can believe Vincent Harris on that. The State wants you to believe Vincent Harris. It would have been a disservice to have friends and family brought in to explain the longstanding history of alcoholism because a jury could have inferred a high tolerance level and not credited the twelve beers as being enough to intoxicate such a hard drinker. The affidavits do not paint a picture of alcoholic stupor and abusive behavior as Foster claims. Where there is no showing that interviewing additional witnesses would produce a different outcome, petitioner has failed to show that he was denied right to effective assistance of counsel. U.S. v. Green, 882 F.2d 999 (5th Cir.1989); See also Neal v. State, 525 So.2d 1279 (Miss. 1987) (defendant was not denied effective assistance of counsel due to counsel's failure to call additional witnesses at sentencing phase to prove details of defendant's life, where counsel called defendant's mother as witness, and mother told defendant's life story). We hold that Foster's counsel made reasonable, strategic decisions to present the most persuasive evidence in mitigation and to cease investigation when the results were no longer helpful. As set forth in Strickland and adopted by this Court in Stringer, counsel at sentencing provided adequate and effective assistance. There is no merit to this issue.