Opinion ID: 1476684
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Failure to Present 5a and 5d

Text: Defendant contends that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance because they did not submit two statutory mitigating factors, found at N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(a) and N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(d) (5a and 5d, respectively). Mitigating factor 5a states that the jury may consider whether the defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance insufficient to constitute a defense to prosecution. Factor 5d states that the jury may consider whether the defendant's capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law was significantly impaired as the result of mental disease or defect or intoxication, but not to a degree sufficient to constitute a defense to prosecution.
Defendant's trial counsel submitted to the jury 180 mitigating circumstances under the catch all factor at N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(h), many of which concerned his emotional and mental problems as a child but defendant now argues that jurors probably would have given substantial weight to 5a and 5d, particularly because those factors are set forth explicitly by the Legislature as mitigating. In support of his claim, defendant highlights the mitigating circumstances that trial counsel did submit and that reference his childhood mental and emotional problems. He contends that the effects of those problems certainly still linger, and by submitting 5a and 5d as mitigating factors, his counsel could have insured a jury discussion about his mental and emotional state on December 17, 1992. Therefore, because counsel did not submit those statutorily-prescribed factors, defendant's resultant death sentence [is] suspect. The State counters that submitting those mitigating factors would have been inconsistent with the defense strategy of excluding all evidence related to the defendant's life between the ages of thirteen and forty-two. The State emphasizes that [d]efendant's horrific record of convictions and DOC infractions had to be kept from the jury at all costs, including the cost of not submitting 5a and 5d. If defendant introduced testimony about his emotional and mental disturbance in December 1992, the State would have been able to impeach that evidence with other examples of his dangerous conduct.
The focus of 5a and 5d clearly is the mental and emotional state of a capital defendant at the time of his crime. To provide evidence in support of those factors, defendant's trial counsel would have had to seek an examination of defendant by mental health experts who would have had to develop a psychological profile of him as he was in 1992, at forty years of age. Therefore, defendant's argument implies the claim that it was constitutionally unreasonable for his trial counsel to limit their investigation and defendant's mitigation case to evidence of his childhood before October 1965. We disagree. Once again, strategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable; and strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation. In other words, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. [ Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. at 2066, 80 L.Ed. 2d at 695.] Defendant's counsel fulfilled their duty. Their strategy, in limiting the scope of the mitigation case, was based on a proper investigation and was a professionally reasonable approach to take in persuading the jury to sentence defendant to life imprisonment. Call specifically stated that he chose the strategy because he thought it was defendant's best chance for a life sentence. Defendants have a right to a reasonable strategy based on reasonable investigation; they may not claim ineffective assistance merely because the strategy did not produce the result counsel sought. Bey, supra, 161 N.J. at 251, 736 A. 2d 469 (1999) (citing Davis, supra, 116 N.J. at 357, 561 A. 2d 1082.) (Merely because a trial strategy fails does not mean that counsel was ineffective.). If trial counsel had enlisted mental health experts to develop a psychological profile of defendant at the time of his crime in the hope that such testimony would support 5a and/or 5d, they would have created an opportunity for the State to inform the jury of defendant's atrocious adult record and prison conduct. The State would have had a right to use its own psychologist to interview defendant, and would have been entitled to provide its expert with defendant's records. See N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(2)(d) (The State and the defendant shall be permitted to rebut any evidence presented by the other party at the sentencing proceeding and to present argument as to the adequacy of the evidence to establish the existence of any aggravating or mitigating factor.). The prosecutor also would have been able to cross-examine a defense expert with questions about defendant's records and their relevance to any diagnosis. Call's decision to limit the mitigation case was based on a reasonable investigation. He testified that before limiting psychological expert testimony to defendant's early years, he reviewed approximately thirty-five files, two or three crates of materials which represented [defendant's] history in the correctional system and on parole. Defendant's prison records indicate 100-plus infractions, including assaulting inmates, threatening to kill guards, sexually assaulting an inmate, and stabbing another prisoner in the neck with a fork. In describing the content of those records, Call stated, To say that his behavior was abyssal [sic] would be like saying the Titanic was stopping for ice. Call continued: [W]e felt that by limiting our presentation to his formative years, as was done successfully by Judge Scully in [ State v. ] Biegenwald [, 106 N.J. 13, 524 A. 2d 130 (1987)] and myself in State v. Williams, we would be able to preclude the prosecutor's office from coming forth with all of this information which would have been, in my opinion, and Judge Scully's opinion, and again, we consulted with Dale Jones who was then head of the capital litigation section, still is, Steven Kirsch who was the appellate counsel assigned to the matter, it was, it was not a tough question to decide that if those DOC records were available to the state and used during the penalty phase, the result would have been a foregone conclusion. Call reasonably opined that information in defendant's DOC records would have been insurmountable to overcome. For example, defendant told a prison guard, who stepped on his foot, something to the effect of, you are the one with the family, not me, and when I get back to GP ... I'll kill you like that white bitch Kristin Huggins. According to his testimony, Call did consider the possible counterweighing benefits of having defendant interviewed by a mental health expert. In response to questioning by PCR counsel, Call stated that he did confer with Dr. Greenfield about any possible mitigating explanation for Harris's records in prison. Call testified that Dr. Greenfield did not suspect that a psychological examination of defendant would yield beneficial diagnoses. After learning of defendant's correctional and other records, Dr. Greenfield was fairly certain as to what his findings would be with regard to Mr. Harris in terms of antisocial personality disorder. . . . Call's testimony conveys that Dr. Greenfield, in his professional judgment, did not anticipate finding that defendant, on December 17, 1992, was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance insufficient to constitute a defense to prosecution, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(a), or had an impaired capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(5)(d). Call also considered the potential harm of calling Dr. Greenfield and Dr. Gruen to testify only about defendant's childhood. He knew it was a problem from a cross-examination perspective to allow the State to elicit from the experts that the defense instructed them not to form opinions about defendant's mental condition after the age of thirteen. But Call and Scully reasoned that limiting the scope of the mitigation case nevertheless represented their best strategy. In Call's words, to allow the State to cross-examine a mental health expert about defendant's records, which were simply fraught with violence and racism and every ... other God awful thing, the verdict would have been a fiat [sic] accompli. Trial counsel reasonably feared that if the State cross-examined psychologists with defendant's records, they would be unable to convince the jury that defendant could live a productive or even a non-destructive life in prison: Unfortunately, Mr. Harris' record reflected that whether he was on the street or in a maximum security facility, he represented an ever present danger to everyone around him, be they inmates or correctional staff.... Trial counsels' decision to limit psychological evidence to defendant's childhood and, consequently, their non-submission of the 5a and 5d mitigating factors, was based on reasoned strategic judgment. Wiggins, supra, 539 U.S. at 526, 123 S.Ct. at 2537, 156 L.Ed. 2d at 487 (2003). Call's PCR testimony demonstrated that he did balance the pros and cons of his penalty phase strategy, and in his words, it wasn't even a close issue as to whether the defense should risk informing the jury of defendant's past conduct. And even if defendant's correctional records had presented counsel with a close question, their tactical decision was unquestionably reasonable. See DiFrisco III, 174 N.J. at 232, 804 A. 2d 507 (Counsel also made decisions, understandable at the time, to avoid the presentation of evidence that may have led to the revelation of damaging information about defendant.). [T]he mere existence of alternativeeven preferable or more effectivestrategies does not satisfy the requirements of demonstrating ineffectiveness under Strickland. Marshall VI, supra, 307 F. 3d at 86.
In our view, trial counsels' strategy appears more than reasonable when the following is considered: jurors very well may have supposed that Harris's severe mental and emotional disturbances stayed with him throughout life, past adolescence. Although counsel restricted the evidence to defendant's life before October 1965, given the extent of his childhood problems and his courtroom behavior, counsels' strategy allowed jurors to conjecture that Harris's problems continued. Defendant's PCR brief, in fact, acknowledges that, [b]ased on his inappropriate conduct during the trial, it is a fair inference that he ha[d] not spontaneously recovered from those maladies and, if he murdered Ms. Huggins, was so afflicted at the time of the crime. [9] We agree; but that acknowledgement undercuts defendant's argument that he was prejudiced by trial counsels' failure to submit the 5a and 5d mitigating factors. Counsels' strategy allowed jurors to have some insight into defendant's adult character and disturbances, and helped to humanize him, see Marshall VI, supra, 307 F. 3d at 86 (The purpose of [mitigation] investigation is to find witnesses to help humanize the defendant.); it simultaneously kept from the jury evidence demonstrating the danger Harris presented to inmates and correctional guards. Cf. Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 186, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 2474, 91 L.Ed. 2d 144, 160 (1986) (stating that there were several reasons why counsel reasonably could have chosen to rely on a simple plea for mercy from petitioner where [a]ny attempt to portray [him] as a nonviolent man would have opened the door for the State to rebut with evidence of petitioner's prior convictions). Indeed, defendant's criminal and prison records, including many statements made to officers, depict a man who disdains the legal system and a society that he perceives as racist and without legitimate authority to place restrictions on his behavior, and who expresses his contempt by intentionally flouting our most fundamental moral rules. Defendant has not overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, [not submitting 5a and 5d can] be considered sound trial strategy. Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. at 2065, 80 L.Ed. 2d at 694-95 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Therefore, we reject his claim.