Opinion ID: 1197841
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Effective Assistance of Counsel and Closing Argument

Text: Appellant contends that she was deprived at her trial of her right to receive effective assistance of counsel. Specifically, she asserts that her trial counsel's performance was deficient because (1) he failed to present a timely motion to suppress the statements which Appellant had made to the police, (2) he failed to request that the jury be instructed on the lesser-included offense of criminal entry, and (3) he failed to object to the improper comments which the prosecutor had made in his closing argument. The test which we employ to determine whether criminal defendants have been deprived of their right to have effective assistance of counsel is found in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Jones, 902 P.2d at 694. First, the defendant must show that counsel's performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the `counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable. Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction or death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable. Dickeson v. State, 843 P.2d 606, 609 (Wyo. 1992) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. at 2064).
Appellant claims that her trial counsel was deficient because he did not present a timely motion to suppress the statements which she had made to the police. Appellant asserts that a motion to suppress was warranted because the times stated on the various police documents suggested that Appellant had been interrogated for approximately one hour before she was informed of her rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Appellant relies on this Court's rulings in Dickeson, 843 P.2d 606, and LDO v. State, 858 P.2d 553 (Wyo.1993), as being support for her contention that her counsel's performance was deficient. In both of those cases, this Court held that the defendants had been deprived of their rights to have effective assistance of counsel because their attorneys did not file motions to suppress certain evidence. Dickeson, 843 P.2d at 611-12; LDO, 858 P.2d at 554; see also Starr v. State, 888 P.2d 1262, 1266 (Wyo.1995). Dickeson and LDO can be distinguished from this case. In Dickeson, this Court determined that the defendant's counsel should have filed a motion to suppress because he could have made a strong argument that an illegal search and seizure had occurred. 843 P.2d at 611. The Court went on to conclude that a reasonable probability existed that, if the evidence in question had been suppressed, the jury's verdict would have been different. 843 P.2d at 612. In LDO, the counsel failed to interview his juvenile client before they appeared at an adjudicatory hearing, and, therefore, the counsel was ignorant of a very real ground for filing a pretrial motion to suppress the juvenile's confession. 858 P.2d at 557. We held that the counsel's performance had been ineffective because he did not fully investigate the facts which would have revealed that the police official failed to give Miranda warnings. 858 P.2d at 559. In this case, the police report stated that Appellant had been interrogated at 3:30 p.m. on April 7, 1994, and the consent form indicated that she had not been informed of her Miranda rights until 4:25 p.m. on that day. Appellant's trial counsel did not move before trial to suppress her statements; instead, he presented a motion at the start of the trial to quash her statements. The trial court ruled that the motion to suppress was not timely under W.R.Cr.P. 12. At the trial, the police officer explained that the discrepancy between the times in the documents occurred when he incorrectly converted military time to standard time. The police officer stated that Appellant was arrested at 4:15 p.m. and that, before he began interviewing her, he advised her of her Miranda rights and she consented to speak with him. Other evidence which was presented at the trial corroborated the officer's testimony. With these facts in mind, we conclude that Appellant was not denied her right to be provided with effective assistance of counsel when her attorney failed to tender a timely motion to suppress. Even had her counsel presented the motion in a timely manner, the trial court would have been correct in denying the motion because the evidence revealed that Appellant had been properly advised of her Miranda rights before she was interrogated. Appellant cannot, therefore, show that she suffered any prejudice as a result of her attorney's conduct.
Appellant also argues that she did not receive effective assistance of counsel because her attorney failed to request that the trial court instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of criminal entry for the high school incident. Appellant maintains that a lesser-included instruction on the crime of criminal entry should have been given because the evidence as to her intent upon entering the high school was not clear. The jury obviously found that Appellant harbored the requisite intent to commit a burglary because it convicted Appellant of the crime. Earlier in this opinion, we concluded that sufficient evidence sustained that verdict. The instructions which were given, when they are viewed in their totality, accurately described the legal principles which the jury was required to employ in reaching its verdict. Thus, we cannot conclude that Appellant's attorney was ineffective and that the result of the jury trial is unreliable. See Vigil v. State, 859 P.2d 659, 662-64 (Wyo. 1993).
Appellant insists that her counsel's performance was deficient because he failed to object to the comments which the prosecutor improperly made in his closing argument. In addressing this issue, we will also determine the validity of Appellant's contention that the prosecutor's closing argument deprived her of her right to have a fair trial. We have recently summarized our standard for reviewing comments made by prosecutors during their closing arguments. Vargas-Rocha v. State, 891 P.2d 763, 771 (Wyo.1995). The prosecutor may comment on the evidence, and he may make any reasonable inferences that follow from that evidence. He may not, however, inflame or mislead the jury. The trial court is in the best position to consider the appropriateness of the argument. Counsel are allowed wide latitude in the scope of their argument. Taul v. State, 862 P.2d 649, 659 (Wyo.1993) (citations omitted). In the course of our review, we consider the entire closing argument and do not take individual sentences or phrases out of context. We also consider the closing argument in the context of the entire trial record. Smith v. State, 880 P.2d 573, 574 (Wyo.1994) (citations omitted). The remarks which Appellant complains about occurred during the rebuttal portion of the prosecutor's closing argument. The prosecutor stated that he believed certain statements which Appellant had made to the police and which had been related to the jury during the trial. The prosecutor's statements were made in response to a closing argument statement made by the defense counsel in which he indicated that he believed a particular statement made by Appellant. Defense counsel did not object during the closing argument to the prosecutor's remarks. Instead, he waited until the jury began to deliberate, and then he moved for a mistrial. The trial court denied his motion. Appellant contends that her attorney should have objected to the prosecutor's comments because they improperly relayed the prosecutor's personal beliefs and opinions to the jury. She insists that her counsel's failure to object put her in the unenviable position of having to show plain error on appeal. When the prosecutor's comments are taken out of context, they can arguably be seen as propounding the prosecutor's personal beliefs and opinions. We are always concerned about such comments because of the possibility that a jury may give undue weight to the prosecutor's personal beliefs. McCone v. State, 866 P.2d 740, 754 (Wyo. 1993). After reviewing the prosecutor's comments as a whole and in the context of the entire trial, however, we conclude that they were proper because the prosecutor was simply emphasizing Appellant's statements and how they had been corroborated by the other evidence which had been presented at the trial. Additionally, we note that the defense counsel opened the door to this type of argument by making a similar statement in his closing argument. Fortner v. State, 835 P.2d 1155, 1158 (Wyo.1992). We conclude, therefore, that the prosecutor's comments were proper and that the defense counsel's performance was not deficient.