Opinion ID: 65379
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Failure to Put Richards's Medical Records into Evidence

Text: The district court also concluded that Davis was ineffective for not submitting Richard's Veterans Administration medical records into evidence. Those records would have established Richards's ailments, about which he testified at trial and which included frequent chest pains treated with nitroglycerin and an inability to walk more than one-half block without stopping. In addition, the records would have shown that Richards had triple bypass surgery in June 2000 and a cerebrovascular accident in 2000, which left him with a left-sided weakness. These records, the district court concluded, would have been important, credible evidence Richards's own credibility was suspect because he admitted to doing crack and to lying to the policethat Richards's attack on Baker was not as described by Brown and Qualls. In her affidavit, Davis stated I could not present a medical records `alibi' with clear conscious [sic] based on my duty as a lawyer. At the evidentiary hearing, Davis stated that she decided not to submit Richards's medical records into evidence because she didn't want to run the risk that the jury would say, well, on the one hand he's feeble and has bad, you know, bad medical conditions, but on the other hand, he's strong enough, you know, to do this. Davis also testified that she was concerned that if she did, Richards's jail disciplinary records would, as a consequence, be allowed into evidence. Although the State argues that Davis had a strategic reason for not introducing the medical records, after a careful review of the record, we agree with the district court's conclusion that she did not, and that her proffered explanations were developed after the fact. Her explanations make no sense, nor do they explain the basis for her claim that her ethical duty as lawyer prevented her from entering the records into evidence: there is nothing implausible about being strong enough to hit someone two to three times with a rock in self-defense but not strong enough to kill the person. Moreover, evidence of Richards's weakness might have made his claim that he used the rock in self-defense more plausible. Further, as the district court pointed out, Davis's concern that the medical records would open the door for Richards's jail records did not stop her from asking Richards about his health conditions. Davis's failure to submit Richards's medical records into evidence was not the result of a reasoned, strategic decision, and was not within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052. In light of the absence of any credible explanation for this failure, we agree with the district court that the state court's conclusion to the contrary was an unreasonable application of Strickland, and that its contrary factual findings were rebutted by clear and convincing evidence.