Opinion ID: 1476684
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendant's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel

Text: As mentioned, PCR counsel represented that trial counsel learned of the juror contact when the trial court directly addressed the jurors in court about the reporter's phone calls. Defendant argues that his trial counsel failed to provide reasonable assistance because they did not request a hearing once they learned of the phone calls. The PCR court did not allow PCR defense counsel to question Call and Scully on the circumstances surrounding the juror contact, and it did not permit testimony from other related witnesses, such as the trial judge, who presided over defendant's trials. Nevertheless, defendant's PCR counsel represented that he spoke with Call and Scully privately. Neither recalled that the trial court addressed in court the occurrence of the reporter's phone calls. Again, this claim of deficiency must be examined in context. We do not divorce our evaluation of counsels' performance from the overall conduct of this trial. Specifically, we are mindful of the atmosphere created by the tremendous amount of publicity focused on the trial's progress, as well as the overall efforts and strategies of defendant's trial counsel, including their vigilance in asking the court to protect the jury from the press coverage. Call and Scully were very aware of the threat to defendant's right to a fair trial posed by the media. They repeatedly asked the court to ask jurors whether they were exposed to any of it. Furthermore, Call and Scully were in the courtroom and witnessed the jurors' reactions to the court's statements about the phone calls. They would have been able to perceive whether any jurors appeared surprised or dismayed in any way by the court's statements about and characterizations of the phone calls, or its determination as to how to proceed based on the information it had disclosed. We often have interpreted a counsel's lack of objection to reflect a judgment that the complained-of error was not significant in the context, State v. Macon, 57 N.J. 325, 333, 273 A. 2d 1 (1971); here, given trial counsels' efforts to keep out extraneous influences, we find reason to assume they did not find the reporter phone calls significant in the context. In light of all that counsel and the court had done to preserve defendant's right to a fair trial and an impartial jury, we will not presume prejudicial contact in hindsight. Viewed in its context at the time, it was but a harmless blemish on the broad landscape of this tumultuous proceeding that involved numerous, overt efforts by counsel and the court to protect the jury from extraneous influences. See Koskovich, supra, 168 N.J. at 540-41, 776 A. 2d 144. We conclude that defendant has not demonstrated that defense counsel's performance, in light of all the circumstances of the case, was outside the wide range of professionally competent performance because a more extensive proceeding was not requested on the juror contact issue.