Opinion ID: 6358387
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Anderson's juvenile adjudications

Text: Next, Brown claims that trial counsel failed to impeach Anderson with evidence of his juvenile criminal history, which consisted of a 2000 adjudication for burglary and a 2001 adjudication for receiving stolen property, both in Montgomery County. Although the Commonwealth provided trial counsel with Anderson's FBI excerpt, the excerpt identified only Anderson's 2001 juvenile adjudication, and it mistakenly indicated that the adjudication was in Philadelphia rather than Montgomery County. According to Brown, if trial counsel had conducted a more thorough investigation, the discrepancies would have been discovered and accurate information regarding both adjudications could have been used to impeach Anderson, as they were crimen falsi crimes committed within the past ten years before trial and thus admissible under Pa.R.E. 609. Brown stresses that because of trial counsel's ineffectiveness, the jury did not have the benefit of the prior adjudications in assessing Anderson's overall credibility. This claim lacks any arguable merit. This Court has summarized the relevant law in this area as follows: Counsel has a duty to undertake reasonable investigations or to make reasonable decisions that render particular investigations unnecessary. Commonwealth v. Basemore , 560 Pa. 258 , 744 A.2d 717 , 735 (2000) (citing Strickland , 466 U.S. at 691 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 ) (emphasis added); accord Wiggins [ v. Smith ], 539 U.S. [510,] 521-23, 123 S.Ct. 2527 [ 156 L.Ed.2d 471 ] [2003] [ ] (analysis of ineffectiveness claim for failure to investigate must focus on whether the investigation supporting counsel's decision not to introduce mitigating evidence of Wiggins' background was itself reasonable ). Thus, counsel cannot be deemed ineffective for failing to investigate and introduce information he could not possibly have known about, so long as counsel's decision not to investigate was reasonable. See Commonwealth v. Sneed , 587 Pa. 318 , 899 A.2d 1067 , 1083 (2006) ([C]ounsel cannot be deemed ineffective for not introducing information uniquely within the knowledge of the defendant and his family which is not supplied to counsel.); Commonwealth v. Malloy , 579 Pa. 425 , 856 A.2d 767 , 788 (2004) (counsel cannot be ineffective for failing to pursue particular mitigating evidence where counsel had no notice of  such evidence). However, strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation. Wiggins , 539 U.S. at 528, 123 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting Strickland , 466 U.S. at 690-91 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 ). Commonwealth v. Tedford , 598 Pa. 639 , 960 A.2d 1 , 39-40 (2008) (emphasis in original); see also Commonwealth v. Eichinger , 631 Pa. 138 , 108 A.3d 821 , 847 (2014) (Counsel's strategic choices made after less than a complete investigation are considered reasonable, on a claim of ineffective assistance, precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support limitations on the investigation. Failure to conduct a more intensive investigation, in the absence of any indication that such investigation would develop more than was already known, is simply not ineffectiveness.) (citation omitted). No evidence of record suggests that trial counsel had any knowledge of the errors and omissions in Anderson's FBI excerpt, and they thus had no reasonable basis or obligation to obtain Anderson's juvenile records to verify the information that had been provided to them. As such, trial counsels' failure to conduct a more thorough investigation in this regard did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel. Moreover, even if we were to conclude that trial counsel should have conducted further investigation and uncovered the details with respect to the two crimen falsi crimes, we cannot say that Brown established any prejudice as a result of their failure to do so. On several occasions, this Court has held that the failure to impeach a witness with crimen falsi crimes is not per se prejudicial, so long as the record, taken as a whole, reflects that the witness was otherwise thoroughly cross-examined. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Small , 602 Pa. 425 , 980 A.2d 549 , 565-66 (2009) (Tucker's credibility was already assaulted to the nth degree - he was depicted as a crook, a recidivist, a drug abuser, a drunkard, and an admitted liar.... Consequently, we agree with the PCRA court that '[c]rimen falsi impeachment would have been merely cumulative and was unnecessary.' Essentially, Small was not prejudiced by counsel not cross-examining Tucker about crimen falsi as that information would have just reiterated a significant credibility attack that already occurred.) (citation omitted); Commonwealth v. Solano , 634 Pa. 218 , 129 A.3d 1156 , 1175 (2015) (finding appellant was not denied a fair trial and counsel did not act unreasonably in declining to question witness about a prior crimen falsi conviction where counsel impeached one of several eyewitnesses through other means).