Opinion ID: 1753481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Dr Barry Scherr

Text: First, the motion court found trial counsel ineffective for failing to call Dr. Barry Scherr as a mitigating witness. Dr. Scherr, an emergency room doctor, evaluated Glass one day in 1981 when he was 23 months old and determined he had bacterial meningitis. Dr. Scherr had no memory of Glass and had not seen or evaluated him since. He could have testified that a risk of bacterial meningitis was brain damage, but he had no knowledge of whether Glass had brain damage as a result of bacterial meningitis. Glass's counsel obtained Dr. Scherr's records and tried to admit them in the penalty phase, but the prosecutor objected to them as irrelevant and immaterial, and the trial court refused to admit them. Trial counsel did not interview Dr. Scherr prior to trial. The motion court found that it was prejudicial error not to investigate and call Dr. Scherr as a witness because he would have offered significant mitigating evidence of impaired intellectual functioning. The motion court relied on Hutchison v. State, 150 S.W.3d at 305-05. In Hutchinson, this Court found counsel ineffective in part because counsel failed to interview and present the Hutchinson's former psychiatrist. Id. Hutchinson's psychiatrist could have testified he diagnosed and treated Hutchinson for bipolar disorder and alcoholism when he was 16 years old. Id. In addition, Hutchinson's psychiatrist could have testified about defendant's troubled background and impaired intellectual ability. Id. The jury in that case also did not hear how Hutchinson was sexually abused as a child. Id. Here, Dr. Scherr is not comparable to the psychiatrist in Hutchinson because Dr. Scherr had no memory of Glass and had no knowledge of whether Glass had any mental impairments. While counsel knew of Dr. Scherr and he would have testified, his testimony could not have offered a viable defense because he had no knowledge beyond what the jury already heard through other witnesses, i.e., that one risk of bacterial meningitis is brain damage and that Glass had bacterial meningitis when he was 23 months old. Trial counsel was not ineffective for failing to call Dr. Scherr. The motion court clearly erred.