Opinion ID: 776874
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Lapse in Representation

Text: 115 The finding of an actual conflict, however, is only the first step in determining whether Schwarz has established his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. He must also show that the actual conflict adversely affected Worth's performance by demonstrating that a `lapse in representation' resulted from the conflict. Iorizzo, 786 F.2d at 58 (quoting Cuyler, 446 U.S. at 349, 100 S.Ct. 1708). 116 To prove a lapse in representation, a defendant must demonstrate that some `plausible alternative defense strategy or tactic might have been pursued,' and that the `alternative defense was inherently in conflict with or not undertaken due to the attorney's other loyalties or interests.' Levy, 25 F.3d at 157 (quoting Winkler, 7 F.3d at 309); see also Triana v. United States, 205 F.3d 36, 41 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 956, 121 S.Ct. 378, 148 L.Ed.2d 292 (2000). A defendant is not required to show that the lapse in representation affected the outcome of the trial or that, but for the conflict, counsel's conduct of the trial would have been different. Malpiedi, 62 F.3d at 469. The forgone strategy or tactic is not even subject to a requirement of reasonableness. Id. As we have previously recognized, 117 [t]he test is a strict one because a defendant has a right to an attorney who can make strategic and tactical choices free from any conflict of interest. An attorney who is prevented from pursuing a strategy or tactic because of the canons of ethics is hardly an objective judge of whether that strategy or tactic is sound trial practice. 118 Id. 119
120 Schwarz argues that Worth's loyalties to the PBA caused him to forgo the plausible alternative defense strategy of implicating Wiese as the police officer who escorted Louima to the bathroom with Volpe. Worth would have known that such a theory was viable in light of proffer statements that Wiese and Bruder had made during the initial investigation into the assault and that were disclosed to the defendants by the government before trial. In these proffer statements, Wiese stated that he had escorted Louima towards the bathroom with Volpe and had later entered the bathroom during Volpe's assault on Louima, while Bruder stated that he had observed Wiese and Volpe escorting Louima to the bathroom. 5 Rather than pursue this strategy, Schwarz contends, Worth advanced the implausible and factually unsupported theory that Volpe acted alone and that Louima fabricated the presence of a second officer to demonstrate systemic police brutality and to salvage his manhood, all in an effort to obtain an acquittal for Schwarz without having to implicate another member of the PBA. 121 We agree that implicating Wiese as the second officer in the bathroom was a plausible alternative strategy that Worth did not pursue. In fact, this strategy became a compelling one after Volpe entered a guilty plea before the defense had begun to put on its case, thereby becoming available to Schwarz as a witness. On May 24, 1999, the day before Volpe's guilty plea, Volpe's attorney told Worth that my guy [Volpe] can take your guy [Schwarz] out of the bathroom. Thus, by the time Volpe pled guilty and allocuted to the fact that there was a second officer in the bathroom, Worth had the following information: (1) Volpe, the only witness indisputably in the bathroom with Louima, was willing to testify that Schwarz was not the second officer in the bathroom; (2) Louima had been unable to identify Schwarz and had acknowledged that Schwarz and Wiese look similar; (3) both Wiese and Bruder had indicated in their proffer statements that it was Wiese, not Schwarz, who escorted Louima to the bathroom and that Wiese had actually been in the bathroom with Volpe and Louima; and (4) as had already been introduced by the defense on cross-examination, the interview tape of Turetzky indicated some confusion about whether Schwarz or Wiese escorted Louima from the bathroom. With all of this ammunition, Worth was positioned to try to create a reasonable doubt in the jurors' minds by arguing that Louima and Turetzky had both mistaken Schwarz for Wiese because they look similar, that the second officer in the bathroom was Wiese, and that Schwarz was innocent. 122 Indeed, shortly after the trial and after Volpe's attorney stated publicly that had Volpe been called to testify, he would have said that Schwarz was not in the bathroom, Worth filed a post-verdict motion for a new trial in which he himself acknowledged the potential importance of Volpe's testimony. In that motion, which was based on the allegation that the government violated its Brady obligations by failing to disclose Volpe's exculpatory statements made during plea negotiations conducted during the trial, Worth argued to the district court that [t]he exculpatory value of the disclosure that Mr. Volpe would state that Mr. Schwarz was not in the bathroom and that the defendant Wiese was the other officer referred to in his plea colloquy is too plain to require extended explication. Nevertheless, at trial Worth had doggedly pursued the theory that Volpe acted alone, a theory the district court later characterized as fanciful, Volpe, 62 F.Supp.2d at 892, despite his knowledge that both Wiese and Bruder had made statements implicating Wiese as the person who escorted Louima. And he continued to pursue this theory, and eschewed the opportunity to call Volpe to the stand, despite being told by Volpe's attorney that my guy can take your guy out of the bathroom. 123 The government argues that Worth's decision not to implicate Wiese was made for sound tactical reasons and that he did not call Volpe to testify because Volpe was not a credible witness. For the reasons we have stated above, we are unpersuaded. In any event, this argument is beside the point because Schwarz does not need to prove that the forgone strategy was reasonable or that it would have affected the outcome of the trial, only that it was a plausible one and that it was forgone. 124 We also reject the government's claim that Worth actually took steps to implicate Wiese, but was foreclosed from doing so by evidentiary decisions of the district court. While it is true that Worth sought to sever the trial and to disqualify Wiese's attorney in order to introduce statements made by Wiese to his attorney, a close examination of those efforts shows that Worth did so in a manner that sought to avoid implicating Wiese, which was consistent with the conflict faced by Worth. See Volpe, 42 F.Supp.2d at 211, 213-16. Worth's basis for seeking to sever Schwarz's trial from Wiese and Bruder's was not that it would allow him to present the defense that Wiese was the second officer in the bathroom or that Schwarz's defense was otherwise antagonistic to Wiese's. Rather, he requested a severance to allow Wiese and Bruder to testify only that they did not see Schwarz escort Louima to the bathroom — and only on the condition that Wiese and Bruder be tried first. Compare id. at 210-11 (Volpe's motion based on antagonistic claims) with id. at 211 (Schwarz's motion). 125 In addition, Schwarz's motion to disqualify Wiese's counsel did not seek to introduce Wiese's statement, made pursuant to his proffer agreement, that it was Wiese who had escorted Louima to the bathroom. See id. at 213-14. Rather, Schwarz sought to introduce different statements, ones to which Wiese's attorney stipulated Wiese had told Louima's attorneys in connection with Louima's civil action. See id. In an affidavit filed in support of Schwarz's motion, Worth told the district court that 126 [Wiese's counsel] agreed that he had told counsel for Abner Louima that Mr. Wiese had told him that Wiese did not see Schwarz strike Louima, that Schwarz did not go with Volpe and Louima to the men's room, and that when he looked into the men's room he saw that only Volpe and Louima were in there. 127 Aff. of Stephen C. Worth in Support of Omnibus Mot. dated Dec. 1998, ¶ 5, at 5. 128 The clear import of the stipulated statements was that Volpe acted alone. Presumably, they were made in response to Louima's allegations in the civil action that his beatings and sexual victimization were the result of a conspiracy. Significantly, Wiese's admission that he, not Schwarz, escorted Louima to the bathroom was not included among those statements. Volpe, 42 F.Supp.2d at 211, 213-16. In fact, the very reason the district court denied the disqualification motion was because none of the statements sought to be introduced were against Wiese's interest, and therefore the statements were inadmissible hearsay. Id. at 211, 215-16. 129 Similarly, the district court's reason for denying the severance motion was that there was no indication that Wiese and Bruder would actually testify for Schwarz and because their good faith in seeking to do so was questionable. Id. at 211. It is unclear, moreover, whether the district court was even made aware of Wiese's admission either for purposes of the Curcio hearing or for the severance and disqualification motions. See id.; see also id. at 212 (discussing Wiese's motion to sever on the ground, inter alia, that Bruder had previously stated that he — Bruder — saw Wiese escorting Louima with Volpe). 130
131 We also agree that pursuit of this plausible alternative strategy implicating Wiese would have been inherently in conflict with Worth's loyalty to the PBA (and, thus, with his self-interest) and that Worth's failure to pursue this strategy was almost certainly the result of this conflict. See Levy, 25 F.3d at 157. Critically, implicating a second officer in the assault would have supported Louima's claim in his civil case that he was assaulted both in the car and in the bathroom by multiple officers acting in furtherance of a conspiracy. Casting Volpe as an aberrant officer who acted alone, on the other hand, would likely have been consistent with any defense advanced in the civil case. Thus, the actual conflict created by the Louima civil suit sharply intensified at trial when Volpe — the only person who was indisputably in the bathroom with Louima — pleaded guilty and Volpe's counsel informed Worth that Volpe could provide testimony from which Worth could argue that Schwarz was not the second officer in the bathroom, a course clearly in Schwarz's interest. Indeed, to put Volpe on the stand to testify that there was in fact a second officer in the bathroom (who was not Schwarz) would plainly have been inherently in conflict with ... the attorney's other loyalties or interests, Winkler, 7 F.3d at 309 (internal quotation marks omitted), because it would have provided support for Louima's conspiracy claim in the civil suit against the PBA. 132 This conflict would seem to be the only possible explanation for why Worth did not pursue the strategy of implicating Wiese. No evidence in the record up to then supported the theory that Volpe acted alone, while both Louima's testimony and Volpe's potential testimony (following his plea) supported a finding that a second officer participated in the assault. Worth could have relied on Volpe's potential testimony, Louima's inability to identify Schwarz coupled with the fact that Wiese and Schwarz look similar, and Wiese's own statement that he had been the officer who escorted Louima to the restroom to argue with considerable force that the second officer was Wiese. In contrast, he could rely only upon an attack on Louima's credibility to support his argument that Volpe acted alone — a theory the district court deemed fanciful. Under these circumstances, we are convinced that no effective conflict-free defense attorney would have acted as Worth did, and, thus, only Worth's conflict could explain his actions. Cf. Ciak v. United States, 59 F.3d 296, 305 (2d Cir.1995) (finding that only an attorney's personal interest could explain a lengthy cross examination on an issue only marginally related to his client's guilt or innocence). 133 In short, we conclude that Worth's actual conflict adversely affected his performance in representing Schwarz. See Cuyler, 446 U.S. at 348, 100 S.Ct. 1708. Accordingly, we find that Schwarz has established a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel due to Worth's conflict unless, as the government maintains, Schwarz effectively waived the conflict at the Curcio hearing. We now turn to that question.