Opinion ID: 199348
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The New Hampshire Supreme Court's Decision

Text: 29 On appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, Mountjoy argued that the trial court's failure to advise him about Jeffco's possible conflict of interest required reversal of his conviction under Holloway and Hopps v. State Board of Parole, 500 A.2d 355 (N.H. 1985). In Hopps, the state Supreme Court established a prophylactic rule for criminal cases involving multiple representation. The rule requires defense counsel and the trial court to make a record of investigating the possibility of a conflict of interest and of each client's informed consent to the dual representation. Id. at 359. The Hopps court stated that judicial inquiry into possible conflicts was not constitutionally required, but was the better course because of the risk of conflict posed by multiple representation and the desirability of avoiding post-conviction challenges. Id. 30 In deciding Mountjoy's appeal, the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that Hopps should apply when the trial court is made aware of a possible conflict based on a defense attorney's concurrent representation of a defendant and a government witness because of the similar risk of conflict in such dual representation. Mountjoy, 708 A.2d at 683-84. The court said that Jeffco's disclosure to the trial judge that he was representing Pratte should have prompted the judge to discuss the possible conflict with Mountjoy. See id. 31 The court next considered whether Mountjoy was entitled to a reversal of his conviction because of the trial court's failure to conduct a Hopps inquiry and secure the defendant's waiver of conflict-free counsel. The court concluded that Mountjoy was not entitled to Holloway's automatic reversal because such reversal is mandated only when a trial court improperly requires joint representation [of codefendants] over timely objection. Id. at 684 (citing Holloway, 435 U.S. at 488). The court ruled that the failure to inquire merely requires this court to address a defendant's claim that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel because of a conflict of interest. Id. Noting that [o]ur State constitutional standards are identical to their federal counterparts on this issue, and citing Sullivan as the federal standard, the court said that Mountjoy needed to show that Jeffco's conflict adversely affected his performance at the third trial. 4 The court then stated the standard for showing adverse effect that we set forth in Brien v. United States, 695 F.2d 10. 5 See Mountjoy, 708 A.2d at 684. In Brien, we construed Sullivan as requiring a petitioner to show first that his lawyer might have pursued some plausible alternative defense strategy or tactic, and second that the alternative defense was inherently in conflict with the attorney's other loyalties or interests. Id. at 15. Rather than testing Mountjoy's claim against this standard, however, the New Hampshire court found that Mountjoy had waived the issue of whether Jeffco's conflict adversely affected his performance because he had not briefed that issue on appeal. Mountjoy, 708 A.2d at 685. 32 In closing, the court said that Wood also did not entitle Mountjoy to the relief that he sought because the outcome in that case was a remand rather than a reversal. Id. Since the trial court held a post-trial hearing on Mountjoy's claim and determined that Jeffco's representation was not affected by an actual conflict, Mountjoy had already received the further consideration provided in Wood by a remand. Id. 33 The New Hampshire Supreme Court's conclusion that Holloway and Wood did not require reversal of Mountjoy's conviction was a reasonable application of Supreme Court precedent. 6 It is true that the trial court knew about Jeffco's possible conflict and so had a duty to inquire under Sullivan and Wood. See also United States v. Hernandez-Lebron, 23 F.3d 600, 604 (1st Cir. 1994) ([I]nquiries must be made into the propriety of multiple representation whenever the trial court knows or reasonably should know that a particular conflict exists.). However, despite Wood's statement that Sullivan mandates reversal when the court does not make the required inquiry, the Supreme Court in Wood did not grant a reversal in light of the lawyer's possible conflict of interest, but rather remanded for further investigation. As the New Hampshire court recognized, in Mountjoy's case that investigation occurred when the trial judge held a post-trial hearing to determine whether an actual conflict burdened Jeffco's representation. 34 The New Hampshire Supreme Court took the same approach to the Supreme Court case law that this court took in Brien v. United States, 695 F.2d 10. In that case, the defendant argued in a federal habeas petition that he was entitled to reversal under Holloway because he had been represented at trial by a lawyer who belonged to the same law firm as his codefendant's lawyer. While Brien's counsel did not bring the conflict to the court's attention before trial, his codefendant's counsel did. In response to Brien's habeas petition, the district court held an evidentiary hearing, just as the New Hampshire court did after Mountjoy's trial. Based on the evidence presented at the hearing, the district court found that Brien had not met his burden of proving an actual conflict under Sullivan. Id. at 15. 35 On appeal in Brien, we asked whether the trial court's failure to inquire about the possible conflict before trial itself required reversal of Brien's conviction, and found that it did not. We reasoned that by remanding Wood for further inquiry by the trial court, the Supreme Court signaled that convictions should only be reversed if there is a finding of an actual conflict that adversely affected the lawyer's performance. Id. at 15 n.10. We thus concluded that the petitioner's habeas hearing could serve the same function that the remand served in Wood. Id. 36 Like the habeas hearing in Brien, the post-trial evidentiary hearing that the New Hampshire trial court conducted in response to Mountjoy's motion for a new trial also served the purpose of the remand in Wood. The court reexamined the trial transcript and the pleadings, and heard testimony about Jeffco's possible conflict. The court's factual findings go directly to the question of whether Jeffco's representation of Pratte adversely affected his performance as Mountjoy's counsel, the standard for reversal under Sullivan. Jeffco had represented Mountjoy in two previous trials and had cross-examined Pratte at both, and the trial court concluded that he conducted the cross-examination at the third trial in the same way that he had before he became Pratte's lawyer. The court thus found that the facts of the case lent unusual certainty to the conclusion that Jeffco's dual representation did not cause Mountjoy harm. 7 37 We conclude, therefore, that the New Hampshire Supreme Court reasonably applied Holloway, Sullivan, and Wood in holding that the trial court's failure to advise Mountjoy about his lawyer's possible conflict of interest did not require automatic reversal, and that the post-trial evidentiary hearing held on the matter served the same function as the remand granted in Wood. Following the standards of AEDPA, we affirm. 38 Affirmed.