Opinion ID: 1133749
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to Question Michelle Helm

Text: Hannon contends that his trial counsel was deficient in failing to question Michelle Helm, the former girlfriend of Ron Richardson, regarding her July 9, 1991, deposition testimony. Hannon asserts that Helm testified in her deposition that Richardson was a very jealous person who was violent and had threatened to kill her, often accusing her of sleeping with other men, especially Robbie Carter and Jim Acker. At the evidentiary hearing, trial counsel testified that he was present at Helm's deposition but was not concerned with this information to attack Richardson's testimony at trial because Richardson's specific bad acts were not only irrelevant to Hannon's alibi defense, such specific bad act evidence would not have been admissible at trial. Trial counsel testified that it was his strategy to lessen the focus on anything negative with regard to Richardson because it would be beneficial to Hannon's case with Richardson being Hannon's alibi witness until he altered his position at the end of the trial. Moreover, trial counsel's main focus when cross-examining Richardson after the change in testimony at the last moment was to show the jury that Richardson did not remember the details of the victims' apartment, and this negative information was not necessary to bolster the argument that Richardson's story was fabricated. Based on the foregoing, Hannon has not demonstrated that trial counsel acted deficiently when he made the strategic decisions with regard to the interrogation of Helm concerning her deposition testimony and chose not to use her to attack Richardson. Hannon was not prejudiced by these decisions and accordingly, this claim has no merit.