Opinion ID: 2159715
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Trial Preparation & Mitigation Investigation

Text: Defense counsel was not ready for the retrial. As will be detailed below, the mitigation investigation was incomplete; changes in counsel hampered the defense team's preparation; and the expertsto the extent that there were anywere inadequate to the task and unprepared.
As noted, from February through August 1992, Lapidus and Soto had focused their efforts on the motion to withdraw the guilty plea. To that end, they retained Silikovitz to evaluate DiFrisco. Krakora approved Silikovitz's retention as an expert to evaluate client for purposes of motion to retract guilty plea in capital case. How Silikovitz came to counsel's attention is unclear. Evidently, he had previously worked on cases for the Public Defender's Office and had provided that office with brochures reflecting his education and experience. When contacted by Soto in February 1992, he was led to believe that a decision had already been made to retain him, but Soto did not discuss his experience in testifying or his areas of expertise. In fact, Silikovitz had no relevant experience. He specialized in evaluating special needs children, sexual abuse ... the kind [of cases] that [the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services] would investigate which include also bonding [and] termination of parental rights. He had never worked on a capital case. On February 14, 1992, Soto sent Silikovitz a case syllabus, a detective bureau case report, a transcript of DiFrisco's guilty plea, and a transcript of the first penalty trial for his use in evaluating DiFrisco. Silikovitz then spent three hours with DiFrisco on February 21, 1992. Although Silikovitz had been retained to evaluate DiFrisco for the motion to retract his guilty plea, he was never told the legal standards for plea withdrawal, and he never discussed those standards with trial counsel. Moreover, although trial counsel claimed to have intended that DiFrisco be evaluated for the presence of learning disabilities, they never asked Silikovitz to do so, and he did not. Indeed, he was not even provided with DiFrisco's school records. Neither was Silikovitz asked to evaluate DiFrisco for any other disorders, and he did not. Because trial counsel had emphasized the urgency of receiving the report before the March 2, 1992 deadline, Silikovitz produced his first report on February 25, 1992, four days after meeting with DiFrisco. Notwithstanding trial counsel's stated purpose in retaining Silikovitz, the report did not address the voluntariness of DiFrisco's guilty plea. Instead, it recited DiFrisco's version of the circumstances of his confession and discussed his overall psychological state. Silikovitz reported that DiFrisco could not recall any phase of the confession process, because he was high on cocaine and probably also heroin at the time when the `confession' was made, that DiFrisco's mother and personnel at the Parole Department had witnessed his condition that day, and that his attorney and the physician who treated him for his drug withdrawal following his arrest witnessed and most likely documented the state that he was in while he was being questioned. Silikovitz found that DiFrisco manifested guilt and remorse related to his history of criminal and drug activity, and that he understands fully that specific crimes deserve specific consequences. Analyzing the results of the intelligence tests he had performed, Silikovitz reported that DiFrisco had his greatest difficulty on tasks requiring him to arrange pictures depicting social situations in a logical sequence, and that Mr. DiFrisco may be more of a follower and a victim of circumstances rather than an individual who tends to initiate, originate, and create difficulty. Silikovitz found that DiFrisco's figure drawings similarly suggested his tentativeness, self-doubt, and uncertainty regarding identity and, precisely, who he is. Silikovitz further noted that DiFrisco appears to be interested in rehabilitation, and that he was optimistic and goal-directed. He said that DiFrisco was fully cooperative with [him], and that he had the sense that Mr. DiFrisco was being totally candid, open and honest regarding the issues that were being discussed. This tendency further reflected his apparent credibility. Despite his observation that DiFrisco does have a good sense of what is right and what is wrong, however, Silikovitz's ultimate diagnosis was Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) [1] and multiple drug dependencies. Soto testified at the PCR hearing that, upon reviewing that report, she concluded that it was harmful to DiFrisco. In particular, she was concerned that the ASPD diagnosis may have caused the defense not to use Silikovitz as a witness. Lapidus was less concerned about the diagnosis, and thought that, when viewed in the context of the rest of the report, it was not terribly damaging. Krakora, the only experienced capital litigator to review the report, concluded that it was awful, and considered it to herald the end of Silikovitz. In Krakora's view, which he expressed to Soto and Lapidus, the report indicated that Silikovitz did not have a grasp of the big picture, and did not seem to understand that this was a forensic evaluation in a capital murder case for someone who pled guilty to a capital murder. Despite the misgivings of Soto and Krakora, Lapidus not only maintained contact with Silikovitz but also expanded his role. Specifically, on March 7, 1992, she asked Silikovitz to evaluate and assess possible mitigating factors, sending him background materials for that purpose. Silikovitz's notes from the March 7, 1992 conversation indicate that he understood he was to try to save DiFrisco's life. Lapidus asked Silikovitz to meet with DiFrisco a second time, and to add to his report a discussion of mitigating factors in preparation for the May trial. That was the first time that anyone had discussed mitigating factors with Silikovitz. On March 11, 1992, Silikovitz met with DiFrisco for three more hours. That was his last meeting with DiFrisco, thus bringing the total time Silikovitz spent with DiFrisco to six hours. After the interview, on March 17, 1992, Pamela Cuevas, an investigator with the Office of the Public Defender, faxed to Silikovitz a witness list and a copy of the section of the New Jersey criminal code listing aggravating and mitigating factors in death penalty cases, pursuant to Lapidus's direction. Prior to receiving that information, and given his complete lack of experience in capital cases, Silikovitz did not know what legally constituted aggravating and mitigating factors. Because he was unaware of the relevant legal standards when he conducted his second interview of DiFrisco, Silikovitz simply relied on DiFrisco's own reasons for why he should not be put to death. After conducting telephone interviews with four of DiFrisco's family members and his former girlfriend, Silikovitz met with Lapidus on May 18, 1992, to discuss possible mitigating factors, and with Lapidus and Soto on June 1, 1992, to discuss the pertinent diagnostic criteria listed in the DSM-III-R. Lapidus and Soto requested that Silikovitz revisit his ASPD diagnosis. Upon reviewing the DSM-III-R with trial counsel, Silikovitz concluded that his earlier diagnosis, which had been based upon his faulty recollection of the DSM-III-R criteria, had been incorrect. On June 8, 1992, Silikovitz again met with Lapidus and Soto to discuss additional, mainly stylistic, revisions to his report. Trial counsel never asked Silikovitz to conduct further psychological or neurological tests on DiFrisco or otherwise to develop additional potential mitigating evidence. Soto testified that Silikovitz communicated to her that his evaluation of DiFrisco was comprehensive and that she therefore believed that further testing was not necessary. She stated, I certainly relied on [Silikovitz] as the expert in this case to guide me with regard to any further testing he felt the results of the test that he had done would warrant. (Emphasis added). Thus, because Silikovitz told her that the testing was adequate, Soto did not request additional testing. Indeed, Soto relied entirely on Silikovitz's assessment of what tests were appropriate because, as she acknowledged, she never familiarized herself with the different types of psychological testing that were available and generally used in similar cases. She therefore was unable to review Silikovitz's initial report with even a modicum of sophistication and was unable to form an opinion regarding the completeness of the testing to determine whether additional tests were necessary. By Silikovitz's own admission, however, his testing was not comprehensive. For example, he had not administered any objective psychological tests (as contrasted with projective or intelligence tests), which constitute an essential element of a comprehensive forensic psychological evaluation. Moreover, the psychological tests that Silikovitz did perform were administered in an incomplete manner. He testified that, due to time constraints, he did not perform the standard sub-parts of the intelligence test he administered. PCR counsel's expert, Dr. Alan Goldstein, explained that only three of the nine tests Silikovitz administered were complete. Nevertheless, Silikovitz produced a revised report. It deleted the former ASPD diagnosis and replaced it with a diagnosis of Adult Antisocial Behavior. [2] Although it was dated June 4, the report was not completed until August 22, 1992, and incorporated additional changes suggested at the June 12 meeting between Silikovitz, Lapidus, and Soto. The second report, unlike the first, included a section explicitly discussing mitigating factors and summarizing interviews with DiFrisco's family members and his former girlfriend. [3] It also provided greater detail to support Silikovitz's conclusion that DiFrisco was remorseful: Mr. DiFrisco spoke of the grief and remorse that he has suffered as a result of the crime. He notes that this crime has pressed so deepit wasn't really meI was like a machineI was a different person while under the influence of drugs. He spoke about remorse and depression. He stated, with considerable affect and credibility, if I could cut my arm off to change it,I would. I feel bad and I feel worse than this person's family. I feel remorse. I try to blot it out. It is hard to identify with the other me. He further indicated that he has had bouts of depression during the course of his incarceration. ... In this psychologist's expert opinion, these feelings of quilt, remorse, and depression are genuine. They reflect the thought that Mr. DiFrisco has given over the past five years to the implication of his act to the decedent's family and to society. The crime was, in this psychologist's view, a somewhat traumatic event for Mr. DiFrisco. Silikovitz's second report summarized information about DiFrisco's childhood, in particular his lack of supervision and need for male role models, that had not been included in his first report. It also tethered those aspects of DiFrisco's childhood to his history of substance abuse: Mr. DiFrisco's father was not an adequate role model and Anthony was never emotionally close with his father. Consequently, he desperately sought the approval of his siblings, his peers and ultimately Mr. Franciotti, who was clearly a father figure. Mr. DiFrisco began to become involved with drugs, first on a casual basis and then on a heavy, addicted basis. He is a drug addict and has been dependent on both cocaine and heroin. Predisposed to substance abuse and criminal activity, increasingly susceptible to the influence of his peers, and desperately seeking approval, Mr. DiFrisco was particularly vulnerable at the time that Mr. Franciotti made the offer that he did. Silikovitz reiterated his conclusions about DiFrisco's remorse and his susceptibility to influence by others. Finally, the second reportconsistent with the firstopined that DiFrisco was candid and sensitive, and that he had rehabilitative potential. Lapidus and Soto responded differently to Silikovitz's second report. Lapidus found the report useful, in part because it conveyed DiFrisco's remorse, which she considered to be the key to the mitigation case. She stated that when I first met Anthony, and had the opportunity to speak with him and interview him, it was apparent to me that he was clearly remorseful. Lapidus further believed that the report conveyed DiFrisco's regard for Franciotti as a father figure and his susceptibility to Franciotti's influence because of his drug dependency and need for a male role model. Finally, she approved of Silikovitz's recitation of DiFrisco's extensive drug use and linkage of the drug abuse to his crime. Soto, on the other hand, remained troubled by Silikovitz's original diagnosis of ASPD and the revised adult antisocial behavior diagnosis. She was adamant that Silikovitz not be called as a witness. Silikovitz believed he would testify as an expert witness at the trial. However, with the exception of one administrative phone call from investigator Pam Cuevas in October 1992, Silikovitz never heard from the defense team again. He learned that he had not been called to testify at trial only after the fact, when a member of his synagogue told him DiFrisco had been sentenced to death. As it turns out, Silikovitz was dropped from the defense team and was not replaced by another, more competent witness, because of a shift in DiFrisco's counsel.
The second mitigation expert hired by defense counsel was Dr. William Annitto, a psychiatrist with expertise in the field of substance abuse. Although the form approving his retention indicated that Annitto would be consulted to develop mitigation evidence about DiFrisco's drug addiction and its impact on his life, Annitto apparently believed that his testimony was to be used for plea withdrawal purposes. He submitted a brief report addressing only DiFrisco's drug use at the time of his confession. Annitto concluded that DiFrisco's use of cocaine, valium, and heroin, as he reported it, would have had a dramatic impact on his physical condition at the time of his arrest and confession. The report stated that DiFrisco would have been suffering severe withdrawal by the time of his confession, which would have led him to say just about anything so as to get some relief and peace. Annitto did not address other issues relevant to mitigation in his report, for which the Office of the Public Defender had approved his retention, and, for unknown reasons, his conclusions were not relied on in defense counsel's motions to withdraw DiFrisco's guilty plea.
Defense counsel also retained Alfonso Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in, among other things, the collection and presentation of psychosocial mitigation evidence. Cessie Alfonso, the director of the firm, was highly regarded inside and outside the Office of the Public Defender. After retaining Alfonso Associates, Lapidus and Soto deferred entirely to Alfonso Associates in respect of the mitigation investigation. They provided no guidance to Ms. Alfonso regarding the focus of the mitigation investigation and did not inform Ms. Alfonso of any overarching theory or strategy for the mitigation case. Lapidus explained that she did not supervise Alfonso Associates, mainly because [she] was comfortable with the fact that [Ms. Alfonso] knew what she was doing. Although Soto acknowledged that the defense team had a responsibility to supervise Ms. Alfonso's work, she also viewed Alfonso Associates as the experts and relied on them to guide the mitigation investigation. In fact, for several months, Pam Cuevas, who had no prior experience or training for capital cases, was the only member of the Office of the Public Defender to communicate with Alfonso Associates. Lapidus and Soto did not provide Silikovitz's reports to Alfonso Associates, and Ms. Alfonso and her staff never saw the reports. Likewise, the work of Alfonso Associates never was shared with Silikovitz. Although Lapidus explained that the reports never were exchanged because Silikovitz and Alfonso Associates were preparing them contemporaneously, that is not accurate. Silikovitz's first report was submitted in February 1992; Alfonso Associates' initial report was submitted in June 1992; and Silikovitz's second report was completed in August 1992. Ms. Alfonso and her associate, Jeffrey Hitchcock, testified that if had they seen Silikovitz's report while they were conducting their investigation, they would have done significantly more research into a number of issues raised in his report, including DiFrisco's relationship with Franciotti, the connection between that relationship and DiFrisco's need for a father figure, the traumas and losses that took place during DiFrisco's youth, and his depression and remorse. Likewise, Silikovitz testified that had he seen DiFrisco's school records, which had been obtained by Cuevas, and which indicated a learning disability, he would have conducted further psychological testing to probe DiFrisco's cognitive functioning. On June 5, 1992, Alfonso Associates sent defense counsel a preliminary report prepared by Ms. Alfonso, Hitchcock, and another associate, Carmeta Albarus. The cover letter to the report indicated that it was submitted for defense counsel's review. Ms. Alfonso did not consider the report final, as interviews of teachers, family members, and others remained to be done, and records needed to be examined. Nonetheless, according to Ms. Alfonso and Albarus, despite repeated calls, Alfonso Associates received no word from defense counsel for five months. Accordingly, Ms. Alfonso discontinued the investigation, believing the case was dormant or resolved.
In October 1992, Lapidus went to Krakora and complained of difficulty working with Soto. In response, Krakora removed Soto from the case and assigned Peter Liguori as assistant counsel. Liguori was scheduled to be married and go on a honeymoon the month before the penalty retrial. Nevertheless, Krakora picked him to replace Soto, because he thought he was a good worker who would do a good job. Liguori had been working at the Office of the Public Defender just over two years at the time of his assignment and, like Lapidus and Soto, had no experience working on capital cases. In his first weeks assigned to the case, Liguori familiarized himself with the file. He did not initiate new mitigation investigations or consider retaining new experts, because he was under the impression that all of the preparation had been done and he would simply be preparing for trial. Soon after Liguori was assigned to the case, however, the trial preparation changed dramatically. In November 1992, Ms. Alfonso notified defense counsel that, due to health problems, she would be unable to testify at trial. She recommended Billy Feinberg, a social worker with experience testifying in capital cases, to replace her. She did not recommend to defense counsel that they rely on any of her own employees to testify as mitigation experts. At counsel's request, and in anticipation of an adjournment motion, Ms. Alfonso provided a letter explaining the circumstances that prevented her from testifying. However, defense counsel did not file an application for an adjournment because they assumed it would be denied and feared it would anger the court.
The decision regarding Ms. Alfonso's replacement was not made by Lapidus and Liguori because, at the same time that Ms. Alfonso withdrew from the case, there was yet another change in the defense team. On November 23, 1992, just six weeks before trial, and during the time that Liguori was out of the country on his honeymoon, Lapidus resigned from the Office of the Public Defender. Krakora re-assigned Soto as lead counsel. At the PCR hearing, Krakora testified that he never would have assigned two such relatively inexperienced attorneys as Soto and Liguori to a capital case at the outset. Nonetheless, one month before trial, Soto, who had only two years' experience trying criminal cases, and had no training in the investigation and presentation of a case in mitigation of the death penalty, became lead counsel for DiFrisco's sentencing trial. Liguori, who had the same amount of experience and training as Soto, was assistant counsel. Furthermore, Soto retained her full caseload for several weeks leading up to the trial.
Thus, it was Soto and Liguori who made the decision regarding Ms. Alfonso's replacement. Instead of requesting an adjournment, they decided that one of Ms. Alfonso's assistants, Carmeta Albarus, would replace Ms. Alfonso as the mitigation expert. Alfonso opposed the decision, telling counsel that Albarus was not an appropriate choice because of her lack of educational credentials and her lack of experience in testifying. Liguori explained that although Ms. Alfonso recommended social worker Billy Feinberg, she was not chosen because she did not know the case. Although Albarus lacked a degree in social work, she was familiar with the file. Prior to her assignment to testify as an expert witness, Albarus was a case manager at Alfonso Associates, which meant that her involvement with the case had been limited to filing and making sure the client was being seen and certain things were being done. Soto characterized the decision to use Albarus as tactical. According to her, Albarus was preferable to Feinberg because Albarus was familiar with DiFrisco's file, had worked on many capital cases, and was relied on heavily by Ms. Alfonso. Soto stated that she consulted with her supervisors, Krakora and Kapin, and other attorneys at the Public Defender's Office, and that they agreed with her that Albarus would be the more appropriate witness to put forth that psycho-social evidence. However, Krakora did not recall those conversations, and Kapin denied that he ever discussed that decision with Soto. Indeed, Kapin testified that he never even knew that there was a replacement witness problem. At any rate, in December 1992, the attention of defense counsel turned to transforming Albarus into an expert witness. Those preparations included having Albarus re-interview several of the witnesses previously interviewed by other Alfonso employees so that she would have personal knowledge of the individuals and the information; developing Albarus' resume, because she had not previously testified and did not have a prepared resume; and submitting a second report, dated January 22, 1993, that reiterated the preliminary conclusions and incorporated information adduced from the additional interviews. The new information covered in the second report was described in the unsigned cover letter that accompanied the report: Follow-up interviews conducted with Mr. Anthony DiFrisco, his father, Alfred DiFrisco; his mother, Anna DiFrisco, and his step-mother, Janet DiFrisco; and his siblings, Fred and Fran DiFrisco[.] [W]e have also conducted interviews with his aunt and uncle, Mary and Joseph Grillo. A copy of the decree of divorce granted to Alfred DiFrisco, dated 11/29/72 was also reviewed. The letter stated that the substance of the report bore no significant changes and the themes and issues remain consistent with the June 9, 1992 report. The bulk of the additional investigation that Ms. Alfonso originally had identified as necessary to complete the mitigation investigation interviews of teachers, family members, and former girlfriends, review of parole records, and investigation of DiFrisco's drug addiction prior to the offensenever was done.
Just three weeks before the penalty retrial, Soto retained Dr. Peter Schiffman to testify as an expert witness on drug abuse and its effects on judgment. That decision marked a departure from defense counsel's earlier strategy, which had been to keep from the jury evidence of DiFrisco's drug use. As Liguori explained, counsel wanted to avoid the impression that DiFrisco was a drug-crazed fiend. Soto explained that the decision to use Schiffman was tactical, because drug addiction was a very viable explanation for committing this offense, although she agreed it was not a replacement for other mitigating evidence, such as remorse, which she said she planned to present through a witness other than Schiffman. Soto stated that she made the decision to call Schiffman after consulting with her supervisors, Krakora and Kapin. Once again, Krakora had no recollection of speaking to Soto about the matter or advising her to use Schiffman. Kapin testified that he did not discuss Schiffman with Soto and that, if he had discussed the issue, he would have strongly advised Soto not to retain Schiffman because of a prior bad experience he had with him. Liguori testified that he actually recalled Kapin advising Soto against using Schiffman. According to Soto, the plan was to limit Schiffman's testimony to the effects of drug abuse in general. He would not address whether DiFrisco had used drugs at or near the time of the offense. Soto limited the scope of his testimony because discovery deadlines had long since passed, and she was concerned the trial court would not otherwise permit Schiffman to testify. Furthermore, the investigation, such as it was, had failed to uncover sufficient documentary corroboration supporting DiFrisco's claim that he had been using drugs at the time of the offense. On December 16, 1992, defense counsel made a proffer to the trial court regarding Schiffman's testimony. Soto told the court that Schiffman would testify about the pharmacology, the variations in usage which would include free-basing, IV use, [and] snorting and the general effects of cocaine and heroin on the individual. Soto further represented to the court that, although Schiffman had conducted interviews with DiFrisco and his siblings and had come to the conclusion that DiFrisco had a long history of drug abuse that had continued up to the time of his incarceration for the killing of Potcher, Schiffman would not offer an opinion with respect to the defendant's specific state of mind at the moment when the crime was done or when he was hired to do the crime, nor would he testify that the defendant did not know the nature of his acts or what [he was] doing. Based upon those limitations, which essentially rendered Schiffman's testimony useless, the court allowed the witness to testify.