Opinion ID: 2643773
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Strickland to the Omission

Text: of the HFH Records On direct appeal, the SJC rejected Pena's argument that his counsel's failure to produce the HFH records and introduce them into evidence constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. It decided that even had the Holy Family Hospital records been offered and admitted in evidence, they merely would have been cumulative of other testimony offered by Dr. Brendel, a highly qualified psychiatrist. Pena, 913 N.E.2d at 831. It also held that counsel's failure to offer the records in evidence (or to make an offer of proof with them when a single answer of Dr. Brendel's was struck) was plainly a strategic decision that was not manifestly unreasonable, particularly in view of the fact that the records contained information that was potentially harmful to Pena. Id. at 832. On habeas review, the district court held that the SJC's resolution of this claim was reasonable. Pena, 2013 WL 140262, at –5. Pena argues on appeal that the SJC's determination of the Sixth Amendment claim was unreasonable, because of the importance of the HFH records to Pena's defense. In Pena's view, the way this case was presented to the jury revolved around whether Dr. Brendel had an adequate basis for the opinions she gave concerning Mr. Pena's mental state at the time of the murder. The prosecutor attacked Dr. Brendel's credibility on the grounds that all of the facts about Mr. Pena's mental illness on which she relied came from -13- the mouth of Mr. Pena himself, [and] were therefore self serving . . . . But, according to Pena, the HFH records were unique in this respect, because there was no other documentation that Pena went to a police station complaining of voices in his head. The HFH records therefore offered the only evidence that would have directly countered the attack that the prosecutor made on her credibility. The fact that he went to a police station to report voices in his head demonstrates objectively and conclusively, Pena argues, that he was mentally ill at the time of the murder, because [n]o one who is a fugitive in a murder case is going to go to a police station and ask for help from mysterious voices unless the voices are actually drumming their destructive message into the target's brain. Therefore, according to Pena, the HFH records were not cumulative, because they offered uniquely objective evidence of Pena's mental illness. For the same reason, the failure of Pena's trial counsel to introduce them into the record had to be prejudicial — [i]t was the only evidence that provided external verification for the information on which Dr. Brendel relied. Pena argues further that no competent attorney would make the strategic decision to omit such persuasive evidence from the record, and that in fact Pena's attorney never made that choice. Instead, as Pena reads the record, his attorney fully intended to elicit testimony about the records, regardless of the potentially -14- damaging information in them about Pena's memory problems and possible evasiveness. She declined to go forward with her questioning only when her inadvertent failure to produce came to light, not because of any reasoned assessment of the evidence. For two reasons, we do not believe that the HFH records were as conclusive as Pena portrays them. First, Pena turned himself in for the murder shortly after his hospitalization at HFH,2 and his medical history includes multiple references to possible deception on his part — either feigning memory loss or giving evasive answers. A jury could conclude, therefore, that Pena was falsely reporting the voices in his head to provide a defense for the murder he had committed. Pena dismisses this possibility as far-fetched, because a rational fugitive would never risk walking into a police station just to feign illness. But the fact that Pena turned himself in for the murder a short time later makes it questionable that he feared apprehension by the police at that time. Indeed, he may have been planning it. A second problem is that there is a five-month gap between the murder and the HFH hospitalization. Even if the HFH records were conclusive proof of mental illness at that time, they would not prove that he was suffering any symptoms at the time of the murder. Dr. Brendel specifically testified that Pena's 2 Pena was hospitalized at HFH August 3-10, 2004. He surrendered to the police on August 27. Pena, 913 N.E.2d at 822. -15- symptoms of mental illness wax and wane; therefore, she explained, Pena could have been experiencing serious symptoms at the time of the murder, but not when he was evaluated at Bridgewater. The same reasoning applies equally, however, in the other direction: he could have been experiencing symptoms while at HFH, but not at the time of the murder. For these reasons, we do not share Pena's view that the HFH records have unique and convincing evidentiary value. Therefore, we conclude that the SJC was reasonable in determining that their omission was not prejudicial. Furthermore, whether or not Pena's trial counsel made a strategic choice to omit the evidence,3 we do no think this is an error so serious that counsel was not functioning as the 'counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Valerio, 676 F.3d at 246. The failure to introduce a single piece of evidence of questionable value may indeed seem like a mistake in hindsight, but it is not an error of constitutional magnitude.