Opinion ID: 408249
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Damaging Statement

Text: 35 The next allegation causes us great concern. Adams claims that his trial counsel's ineffectiveness is underscored by his elicitation of damaging testimony from Arie Mae. In an effort to impeach her on recross-examination, counsel asked Arie Mae if she remembered testifying at the preliminary hearing that Adams had yelled just prior to shooting her mother,  'Yes hell, I will, I will kill her, I will blow your brains out,' and he shot her in the head and she fell. 11 At the habeas corpus hearing in district court, defense counsel explained his reasons for asking the question as an attempt to show an inconsistency in Arie Mae's testimony on direct examination at trial. Arie Mae testified at the preliminary hearing that Adams had made statements before the shooting, but at trial, Arie Mae testified that Adams said nothing at the time of the shooting. 36 The record indicates, however, that Arie Mae did not in fact testify on direct-examination that Adams said nothing at the time of the shooting. She stated only that she did not recall anything specific that either Adams or the victim had said except that the couple had been cussing. Similarly, on cross-examination, she did not state that Adams said nothing but only that they was cussing and all. Nevertheless, Arie Mae did not deny having made the alleged inconsistent statement. Instead, she told defense counsel that she refrained from making the damaging statement at trial because she does not swear. 37 Adams argues that the benefit, if any, of showing this purported slight inconsistency in Arie Mae's testimony was far outweighed by the damaging impact of her statement. Indeed, even the defense counsel characterized this testimony as the most damaging evidence against Adams. Nevertheless, he believed that impeachment on this point was important to show that Arie Mae recognized the discrepancy in her testimony and that she was making excuses to cover up her motives for so doing. 12 Thus, the district court found that defense counsel made a reasoned, tactical choice to bring out the statement. 38 The state argues on appeal that tactical decisions do not constitute ineffective assistance merely because in hindsight it is apparent that counsel chose the wrong course. Baldwin v. Blackburn, 653 F.2d at 946; Beckham v. Wainwright, 639 F.2d at 265. This court has held that counsel's decision whether to question witnesses is a defense strategy and does not reach constitutional proportions. United States v. Hughes, 635 F.2d 449, 452 (5th Cir. 1981); United States v. Johnson, 615 F.2d 1125, 1127 (5th Cir. 1980); Easter v. Estelle, 609 F.2d 756, 759 (5th Cir. 1980). 39 We believe that counsel's trial strategy in eliciting the damaging statement was utterly devoid of common sense, especially in view of the fact that the prosecutor neglected to bring this inflammatory statement on direct-examination. Since counsel's question was totally inconsistent with his defense theory that the shooting was an accident or self-defense, this strategy undermined the merits of Adams's defense. Moreover, as noted above, an examination of the record indicates that counsel's assumption that Arie Mae's testimony concerning whether Adams said anything immediately prior to shooting her mother was probably erroneous. Cf. Cooks v. United States, 461 F.2d 530, 532 (5th Cir. 1972) (although counsel's good faith errors are usually insufficient to justify vacating sentence, counsel's significant misleading statements can rise to due process denial commensurate with ineffective assistance). 40 Sometimes a single error is so substantial that it alone caused the attorney's assistance to fall below the Sixth Amendment standard. Nero v. Blackburn, 597 F.2d 991, 994 (5th Cir. 1979). Nevertheless, this court has held counsel to be ineffective on the basis of a single error where the error in and of itself reached constitutional proportions and could have served as an alternative ground for the court's holding. Nelson v. Estelle, 642 F.2d at 906-07; see, e.g. Nero v. Blackburn, 597 F.2d 991 (5th Cir. 1979) (admission of three extraneous offenses by prosecution in closing would have been prejudicial enough to violate fundamental fairness); Herring v. Estelle, 491 F.2d 125 (5th Cir. 1974) (counsel allowed client knowingly and involuntarily to plead guilty to armed robbery charge where requisite element of intent permanently to deprive would have been impossible to prove by the state); Cooks v. United States, 461 F.2d 530 (5th Cir. 1972) (counsel's misinforming his client concerning maximum possible sentence was ineffective assistance as well as violation of due process right to enter a plea knowingly and voluntarily). This appeal does not present such a case. 41 Even assuming that counsel's decision to elicit the damaging statement was a tactical choice, the circumstances of this case cause us to conclude that such strategy was not so ill chosen as to render appellant's trial as a whole fundamentally unfair. Nelson v. Estelle, 642 F.2d at 942. As an example of the magnitude of prejudice required to establish fundamental unfairness, the former Fifth Circuit has held that the erroneous admission of prejudicial evidence can justify habeas corpus relief only if the error was material in the sense of a crucial, critical, highly significant factor. Nelson v. Estelle, 642 F.2d at 907-08 (quoting Hills v. Henderson, 529 F.2d at 401), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 850, 97 S.Ct. 139, 50 L.Ed.2d 124 (1976); accord Mendiola v. Estelle, 635 F.2d 487, 491 (5th Cir. 1981). The elicitation of the statement was prejudicial only in the sense that it did not help Adams's case. 42 Significantly, Adams failed to show that the damaging statement was inadmissible, inaccurate, or otherwise unreliable. Apart from this inflammatory testimony, Arie Mae testified that Adams put the pistol to her mother's head and fired. Adams himself corroborated her testimony that she was in fact an eyewitness. Even assuming that this evidence was inadmissible and regardless of whether the jurors were in fact influenced by the damaging statement, the record reflects that the state's case was so strong that we cannot conclude that counsel's conduct was so deficient as to render the trial fundamentally unfair. See Nelson v. Estelle, 642 F.2d at 908 (counsel's failure to preserve reversible error by objecting to hearsay nature of lab reports admitted into evidence not prejudicial enough to render trial fundamentally unfair in view of overwhelming evidence of guilt); Hills v. Henderson, 529 F.2d at 401 (improper admission of prior act evidence did not deny due process in view of strength of state's case). We therefore conclude that Adams failed to sustain his burden of proving prejudice.