Opinion ID: 77431
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Incest Evidence

Text: 31 Hallford contends his trial counsel was ineffective by opening the door for presentation of the incest evidence and by failing to request a limiting instruction. 9 In his testimony during the guilt phase, Hallford suggested that his efforts to discipline his children strictly — the same children who provided the most incriminating testimony against Hallford — provided them with motive to testify against him. The State answered Hallford's good father testimony during the penalty phase with evidence that Hallford sexually abused Melinda and had an incestuous relationship with her in the months leading up to Shannon's murder. 10 32 Hallford's trial counsel testified at the state post-conviction evidentiary hearing that he intended to show through his client's testimony that perhaps the children had some sort of reason for their testimony and turning on him and that this testimony might generate sympathy for Hallford. The issue of guilt was hotly contested in this case. The children's testimony hurt Hallford's chances for acquittal. In combating the children's testimony — particularly the detailed eyewitness accounts from Melinda and Sammy — an objectively reasonable counsel could reasonably seek to discredit them as Hallford's counsel did at the guilt phase. That this testimony at the guilt phase prompted later presentation at the penalty phase of the incest evidence — after Hallford was adjudged guilty — was a byproduct of an otherwise reasonable act by a defense counsel trying to avoid a conviction. And if Hallford had been found not guilty, no penalty phase would have occurred. 33 We agree with the district court that [f]acts seldom occur in isolation of other facts. We have written that for a petitioner to show that [his counsel's] conduct was unreasonable, a petitioner must establish that no competent counsel would have taken the action that his counsel did take. Marquard v. Sec'y for Dept. of Corr., 429 F.3d 1278, 1304 (11th Cir.2005) (quoting Chandler, 218 F.3d at 1315). Presenting evidence at the guilt phase that key witnesses may have had ulterior motives to testify against Hallford was not unreasonable in a case in which guilt was contested. 34 Hallford also contends his counsel was ineffective for failing to request a limiting instruction that the jury should not consider the incest evidence in determining the existence of the aggravating factors. Hallford asserts that, without a limiting instruction, the jury may have concluded that the incest evidence could be considered as evidence for finding the especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance. We disagree. 35 In describing the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance, the trial court told the jury that the acts it might consider were those attendant to the capital offense itself and those which were unnecessarily torturous to the victim.  11 (Emphasis added.) And the trial court instructed the jury that they could consider only the two aggravating circumstances charged. Jurors are presumed to follow the law as they are instructed. Raulerson v. Wainwright, 753 F.2d 869, 876 (11th Cir.1985). We think the instructions plainly and correctly conveyed to the jury that in meting their recommended sentence they could consider only those heinous, atrocious, or cruel acts that befell the murder victim, Shannon. Failure to request a limiting instruction, under the circumstances, was not ineffective. 36 By the way, even if counsel acted unreasonably in handling the incest evidence, we cannot say — in the light of the overwhelming evidence of Hallford's guilt and the nature of the killing — that the result of the trial would have been different.