Opinion ID: 155628
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Testimony of Eileen Bausch and Mark Davidson

Text: In the state court hearing on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim, Mr. Demarest offered testimony from his trial counsel acknowledging that he had failed to adequately investigate the case and failed to interview certain witnesses. Although trial counsel listed particular witnesses that he failed to interview, he did not mention Ms. Bausch or Mr. Davidson.5 Moreover, at no point in the state post-conviction proceedings did Mr. Demarest even mention the testimony of Ms. Bausch or Mr. Davidson or contend, as he did so vigorously in the federal proceedings, that if Mr. Cohan had interviewed them prior to trial, they would have testified in a manner that would have substantially strengthened Mr. Demarest’s defense regarding the cause of the scratches on his hand. We disagree with the district court’s conclusion that “[Ms.] Bausch and [Mr.] Davidson’s testimony [at the federal evidentiary hearing] does not significantly change the nature of [Mr.] Demarest’s allegations.” Demarest, 905 F. Supp at 1446. Ms. Bausch and Mr. Davidson’s testimony constituted significant evidence that Mr. Cohan’s failure to interview them prejudiced Mr. Demarest’s defense. As the district court itself observed, Ms. Bausch testified at the federal hearing that had Mr. Cohan interviewed her before 5 Mr. Cohan listed the following witnesses that he failed to interview: Detective Hopkins (the state’s blood-spatter expert), the state’s pathologist, the medical personnel who treated Mr. Demarest at St. Anthony’s hospital, the personnel who drove Mr. Demarest to the hospital on the day of the murder and after he collapsed during the interrogation on February 12, 1981, and the neighbor who waited with Mr. Demarest for emergency personnel to arrive. See Rec. vol. V, State v. Demarest, No. CR. 81-259, vol 3, at 17-19, 27 (Tr. of Evidentiary Hr’g of Dec. 2, 1985). 29 trial, he could have elicited from her testimony that she observed Mr. Demarest’s hands at the dental office on the morning of the murder but did not remember seeing scratches on his hands. In the words of Mr. Demarest’s legal expert in the federal proceedings, “the significance of [Ms. Bausch’s testimony] . . . can’t be over dramatized.” Rec. vol. III, at 216 (Tr. of Evidentiary Hr’g of Oct. 17, 1994). Similarly, Mr. Davidson stated that if Mr. Cohan had interviewed him before trial, he would have testified that he remembered observing Mr. Demarest pounding his hands on the gravel driveway after discovering Mr. Hyams’s body. The testimony of both these witnesses supports the contention that more thorough pretrial preparation by Mr. Cohan would have uncovered evidence that very significantly strengthened Mr. Demarest’s defense. However, because this testimony was not presented in the state post-conviction proceedings, the state courts were deprived of the opportunity to assess the prejudicial effect of Mr. Cohan’s failure to interview Ms. Bausch and Mr. Davidson. We also disagree with the district court’s conclusion that “the introduction of the additional testimony is similar to the circumstances presented in Vasquez.” Demarest, 905 F. Supp. at 1446. In Vasquez, in response to a request from a federal district court for evidence clarifying and supplementing the state court record, the petitioner submitted additional affidavits and a computer analysis to support the allegation that the state had improperly excluded African-Americans from a grand jury. See Vasquez, 474 U.S. at 258-59. The Supreme Court held that the new evidence did not circumvent the 30 exhaustion requirement. As to the new affidavits, the Court noted that they were introduced to support allegations that were already supported by evidence in the state court record. As to the computer analysis, the Court said that it added nothing that was not intrinsic to any grand jury discrimination claim. See id. at 260. Unlike the new evidence in Vasquez, the new evidence obtained from Ms. Bausch and Mr. Davidson does not merely supplement evidence in the state court record; it is more like a 180 degree turn. No evidence in the state court record indicates that a pretrial interview of these two witnesses by Mr. Demarest’s counsel would have produced credible testimony so highly favorable to his defense. Vasquez fails to support the district court’s conclusion that Ms. Bausch and Mr. Davidson’s new testimony did not significantly change the nature of Mr. Demarest’s allegations.