Opinion ID: 1969802
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: 66-67, a.70, b.37, b.38, b.42, b.46, b.53-56, b.78, b.89, e.22)

Text: The claims in this subcategory relate to trial issues of limited significance, including the following: whether the victim was shot while awake or asleep (germane to defendant's contention that the victim was awake when shot to prevent the robbers' identification); whether the shots were fired at close range; and whether a police officer found the glove compartment in defendant's car open or closed at the crime scene, defendant having told investigators that immediately prior to the shooting he had asked his wife to open the glove compartment in order to unlatch the car's trunk. Included are claims of discovery violations, consisting of the State's failure to produce documents reflecting the qualifications of three expert witnesses. Also included are claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, consisting of claims that trial counsel failed to demand adequate experts' reports and statements of experts' qualifications; failed to retain or produce testimony of independent experts; inadequately cross-examined experts and improperly stipulated to the qualifications of expert witness Hillman; improperly questioned McKinnon on cross-examination about whether the victim was shot at close range; and failed to elicit testimony from the victim's sons to the effect that the victim was a light sleeper. Also included is a claim of prosecutorial misconduct based on the production of testimony by Trooper Mathis that he found the glove compartment in defendant's car closed at the crime scene, whereas the same officer gave contradictory testimony at the trial of Robert Cumber. We address all claims on their merits and conclude that they should be dismissed. The discovery claims are obviously insignificant, the State's experts being amply qualified to offer the testimony elicited from them. Dr. Sinha, a board-certified pathologist and the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, offered testimony about the victim's entry and exit wounds, opining on the basis of those wounds that the victim had been shot while lying down with her left arm under her body. Id. at 34, 586 A. 2d 85. Initially, Dr. Sinha expressed the view that the victim had been asleep, but on cross-examination he conceded that he had no way of determining whether she was awake or asleep when shot. Other testimony on that question was elicited from McKinnon, who stated that both occupants of defendant's car had been sitting upright when the car passed the toll plaza preceding the picnic area, and from Detective Petracca who testified that defendant had told him that his wife had been asleep with her head on his lap when he pulled into the picnic area, but that she had been seated when he turned to her and asked her to unlatch the trunk. We find no merit to the claims that counsel's alleged ineffectiveness either in preparing for Dr. Sinha's cross-examination or in failing to retain an independent expert on that issue materially affected the outcome of the trial. The trial evidence provided scant support for the theory that the homicide had been committed to prevent the victim from identifying the perpetrators of a robbery. The claim of ineffectiveness based on counsel's failure to elicit testimony from her sons that the victim was a light sleeper is similarly meritless. The claims of ineffectiveness relating to the cross-examination of witnesses Hillman and Liber and counsel's failure to retain experts to rebut their testimony are without merit. Hillman was a ballistics expert with qualifications adequate to support his testimony about the caliber of the bullets and shells and the type of weapon from which they had been fired. Ibid. Detective Liber provided relatively insignificant testimony about the path of one of the bullets after exiting the victim's body. Defendant offers no showing that independent experts would have reached materially different conclusions. Finally, we cannot conclude that Trooper Mathis's testifying inconsistently in defendant's and Cumber's trial about whether the glove compartment was ajar constituted prosecutorial misconduct. An equally plausible explanation is that Trooper Mathis inaccurately recalled the contents of his report at one of the two trials. Moreover, the issue was of minor importance and clearly not capable of affecting the jury verdict. 5. Stopping in the Oyster Creek Picnic Area