Opinion ID: 2216607
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Cross-examination of medical examiner.

Text: During trial the State placed in evidence photographs of decedent's body which suggested she had been sexually attacked. The medical examiner, responding to a question which merely asked him what he did when he went to the room where the body was located, volunteered that the position of her clothing suggested to him she might have been raped. With this photographic evidence and the examiner's statement before the jury, trial counsel's tactical decision to attempt to show there was no definitive proof of penetration or sperm was not an indicia of ineffective counsel. Improvident trial strategy, miscalculated tactics or mistakes in judgment do not necessarily amount to ineffective counsel. State v. Killpack, 276 N.W.2d 368, 372 (Iowa 1979); Parsons v. Brewer, 202 N.W.2d at 54.