Opinion ID: 146638
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Inadequate Investigation of Character Witnesses

Text: As the district court described the trial, the principal, if not only, issue to be decided by the jury was the credibility of Mr. Munoz, presumably versus that of Mr. Tagaban. . . . Thus, the district court reasoned, it [was] imperative that Mr. Munoz's defense counsel devote intense efforts to preparing for a credibility contest between Mr. Munoz and Mr. Tagaban. Such efforts may reasonably have included interviewing individuals who might have been able to serve as character witnesses and to testify as to the respective reputations for veracity of Mr. Munoz and Mr. Tagaban. See United States v. Polsinelli, 649 F.2d 793, 798 (10th Cir.1981) (when the key issue is the jury's credibility determination between the main government witness and the defendant, character witnesses . . . assume[ ] a position of greater importance than would be true in the ordinary case.). Munoz, 2009 WL 529859, at . The evidentiary hearing established that Munoz's sister had informed Bergmann that a number of family members and other individuals within [Munoz's] community in Southern California would have been willing to serve as character witnesses for Mr. Munoz at trial. Ibid. Because [t]he record [was] devoid of evidence showing that [Bergmann] interviewed these witnesses or conducted other investigation as to the possible value of their trial testimony, the district court concluded that Bergmann's performance was objectively unreasonable. Ibid. This was error. The district court failed to note that Bergmann did locate and call a character witness, and an ideal one, at thatFregoso, a law-enforcement officer who had been Munoz's neighbor for over 20 years. Indeed, the district court's opinion does not mention Fregoso's testimony. Moreover, because neither Bergmann nor Munoz testified at the evidentiary hearing, the record was equally devoid of evidence showing that Bergmann did not conduct extensive investigation into other potential character witnesses, unbeknownst to Munoz's sister. Other than the fact that Bergmann successfully located Fregoso, the only conclusive fact in the record about Bergmann's pretrial investigation is the stipulation that Bergmann did not hire a professional investigator, which is not, in itself, particularly conclusive. See Bower v. Quarterman, 497 F.3d 459, 470 (5th Cir.2007) (Although [counsel] did not hire an independent investigator, this fact alone is not indicative of ineffective assistance[, even] in a capital case.). The district court also found that Bergmann's purported failure to investigate character witnesses prejudiced Munoz's defense. It reasoned that any extrinsic evidence regarding the relative credibility of Messrs. Tagaban and Munoz would have been particularly compelling to the trier of fact, since this case c[ame] down to a one-on one situation, i.e., the word of the defendant against the word of the key prosecution witness. . . . Munoz, 2009 WL 529859, at  (quoting Velarde v. Shulsen, 757 F.2d 1093, 1095 (10th Cir.1985)). The district court therefore concluded that if Munoz had introduced character witnesses or, more properly, if Munoz had introduced additional character witnesses there was at least a reasonable probability that he would have been able to tip the balance of [the] contest of credibility in favor of [his] side. . . . Ibid. We do not agree that there is a reasonable probability that the testimony of additional character witnesses would have affected the verdict. [13] First of all, the district court was incorrect in framing the case as a one-on-one credibility showdown between Tagaban and Munoz. Besides Tagaban's testimony, the government proffered the testimony of both Delaney and Frizzell that Munoz had confessed knowing that the fateful package contained drugs, as well as George's testimony that he had repeatedly paid Tagaban large amounts of cash for drugs plain as day in Munoz's presence. The contest of credibility, therefore, was not as evenly matched as the district court's opinion suggests. [14] Further, additional character testimony would have been largely cumulative of what was elicited at trial. In addition to Fregoso's testimony, Bergmann successfully elicited favorable character testimony from the government's own star witness, Tagaban, who agreed that he had [a]lways known [Munoz] to be an honest, hard-working man. Furthermore, the government itself acknowledged during summation that Munoz was a very sympathetic individual and that it would rather have Richard Munoz testifying against Tagaban at trial than the other way around. In this context, it is simply implausible that additional generic testimony about Munoz's good reputation for truth in the community would have tipped the scales in the other direction. See United States v. Colomb, 419 F.3d 292, 301 (5th Cir.2005) (Character witnesses necessarily testify to a limited range of issues, and such testimony is often cumulative when presented by several witnesses.). [15]