Opinion ID: 213787
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: State and District Court Post-trial Proceedings

Text: On July 14, 2006, Mr. Sussman filed a petition for state postconviction relief pursuant to section 974.02 of the Wisconsin Statutes. See St. R.206. He alleged that his trial counsel had been constitutionally ineffective. Although the petition identified several grounds of ineffectiveness, only two are pertinent to the issues presently before us: First, Mr. Sussman's counsel had failed to file a pretrial motion under section 971.31(11) of the Wisconsin Statutes that would have allowed Mr. Sussman to introduce evidence of Scott's prior false reports of sexual abuse. Specifically, Mr. Sussman argued that, [i]f filed, that motion would have opened the door for Mr. Sussman to inform the jury that, on at least three prior occasions, [Scott] had falsely reported sexual abuse. Id. at 4. Second, counsel had failed to introduce the note made on November 24, 1999, by Mitchell that indicated that Scott had denied any inappropriate conduct by Mr. Sussman. On November 30, 2006, the Circuit Court held a hearing to consider Mr. Sussman's petition. During the hearing, Mr. Sussman's counsel testified to his understanding of the evidence that Scott had made false allegations of sexual abuse against his father. Counsel explained that it was his belief prior to trial . . . that [Scott] had made the allegation against his father in the context of the custody dispute, had subsequently recanted that allegation, and then subsequent to that, revived it when meeting with Bryce Mitchell. Tr. of Hr'g on Postconviction Motion at 29. Specifically, Mr. Sussman's trial counsel testified that he had a signed statement from Scott's father, in which Scott's father attested: In December of 1998, Scott threatened to call the police if I did not let him ride his bike in the street. He said he would tell them that I had sexually assaulted him. In October of 1998, there was a civil restraining order against me; Scott had told the therapist that I had molested him. Id. at 76 (quotation marks omitted). After child protective authorities determined that the claim was unsubstantiated, see St. R.151 at 15, Scott repeated this claim of inappropriate touching to Mitchell in October 1999, see St. R.206, Ex. 2 at 25, and again to Mitchell in March 2000, see St. R.206, Ex. 4. Mr. Sussman's trial counsel also testified that other evidence of a false allegation included an interview with Detective Frey. According to trial counsel, Scott['s] [last name deleted] mother . . . told Detective Frey that on one occasion her son had made an allegation against his father for some type of sexual abuse, but had later indicated that he had lied to get his dad's attention and nothing really happened. Tr. of Hr'g on Postconviction Motion at 77. Trial counsel explained that he would have used the false accusations both to impeach Scott's credibility and to rebut Scott's stated reason for not reporting the abuse by Mr. Sussman, namely that Scott thought the sexual contact was right. See id. at 31. Trial counsel explained that his strategy was thwarted when the trial court sustained the prosecutor's objection to the evidence on the ground that trial counsel had failed to bring a pretrial motion. He further testified that the failure to do so was not a part of his strategy, but that [i]t was an omission. I forgot. Id. at 32. In his testimony, Mr. Sussman's trial counsel also addressed the potential impact of Mitchell's note. He explained that his strategy would have been to use the therapist's note to impeach Scott's credibility. However, because he misunderstood the breadth of the trial court's ruling with respect to Scott's psychiatric records, he failed to offer this evidence. On March 8, 2007, the Circuit Court denied the petition. With respect to counsel's failure to file a pretrial motion to determine the admissibility of Scott's prior false accusations against his father, the court stated, [w]hether properly phrased as a failure to show deficient performance or failure to show prejudice, it appears quite clear that trial counsel's failure to file a motion under Wis. Stat. § 971.31(11) can only constitute ineffective assistance if the motion itself would have had merit. St. R.224 at 6 (citing State v. Swinson, 261 Wis.2d 633, 660 N.W.2d 12, 26 (Wis.Ct. App.2003)). The court further explained that to have merit, the motion would have had to satisfy three requirements: (1) the proffered evidence fits within section 972.11(2)(b)3 of the Wisconsin Statutes; [12] (2) the evidence is material to a fact at issue in the case; and (3) the evidence is of sufficient probative value to outweigh its inflammatory and prejudicial nature (the  DeSantis factors). Id. at 6-7 (citing State v. DeSantis, 155 Wis.2d 774, 456 N.W.2d 600, 605 (1990)). [13] The court concluded that the motion would not have had merit because the false-accusation evidence failed to satisfy the first and third requirements. The evidence failed the first requirement because it did not describe a sexual assault: It described merely how Scott's father had touched Scott's intimate parts, but not that his father had touched Scott for purposes of sexual gratification or sexual degradation. The evidence failed the third requirement because its probative value was significantly outweighed by its prejudicial effect; the false accusations were of a rather ambiguous nature, [were] temporally remote from the allegations against the defendant, especially considering the youth of the complaining witness, and contained vastly different surrounding circumstances. Id. at 8. On the other hand, the court continued, [t]he potential for improper use and confusion by the jury, however, would have been unacceptably high. Extensive testimony regarding this alleged report of sexual abuse would likely have focused undue attention on the complaining witness' behavior in a situation quite unlike the one actually being tried. Id. Moreover, concluded the court, even were this evidence admissible, . . . the Court is convinced that trial counsel's failure to present this evidence was not prejudicial. Significant evidence was actually presented regarding the complaining witness' propensity to lie. A temporally remote addition to this evidence would not create a reasonable probability of a different outcome. Id. Turning to counsel's failure to offer the therapist's note, the court assumed that counsel's assistance had been deficient, but the court concluded that it was not constitutionally prejudicial for two reasons. First, trial counsel questioned Scott about his denial to the therapist, and Scott responded that, if he had made such a denial, he was lying. Thus, according to the court, the note would have added little else to Mr. Sussman's defense. Second, Scott's credibility was thoroughly examined in other ways, and the therapist's note would have been a minor addition to the impeachment of Scott. Mr. Sussman appealed to the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin. He asserted that his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel had been violated by his trial counsel's two deficiencies. See R.5, Ex. D at 20 (citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984)). With respect to the first deficiencythe failure to file the pretrial motion to determine the admissibility of the prior false claims evidenceMr. Sussman disputed the circuit court's rationale that the motion would have been meritless. Id. at 23 (stating that [i]f, at trial, the court had denied the timely motion, that ruling would have been grounds for reversal in this appeal because the law permitted Mr. Sussman to introduce Scott's prior false accusation against his father). Mr. Sussman contended that the evidence met the three DeSantis requirements because (1) Scott admitted at trial that he had previously accused his father of sexual assault, which could have been confirmed by several witnesses, (2) the evidence was material because the court and prosecutor admitted that it was important and crucial and (3) the evidence had probative value. Id. at 24-28 (internal quotation marks omitted). To support his claim that the evidence had probative value, Mr. Sussman invited the court's attention to Redmond v. Kingston, 240 F.3d 590 (7th Cir.2001). In Redmond, the Wisconsin courts had concluded that evidence of a prior false accusation was inadmissible because the false charge did not have sufficient probative value to outweigh its inflammatory and prejudicial nature. R.5, Ex. D at 26. Mr. Sussman explained: The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Wisconsin courts' decision to exclude the prior false sexual abuse accusation for failing the balancing test, when the complainant's credibility was the central issue, constituted an unreasonable limitation on Redmond's right to cross-examine a prosecution witness. The court granted Redmond's habeas corpus petition because the limitation infringed on his sixth amendment right of confrontation. Id. (emphasis added). [14] Mr. Sussman argued that the Strickland prejudice prong was satisfied with respect to both of counsel's deficiencies because the missing [evidence] exposed Scott's willingness and motivation to lie about the ultimate fact on which the jury was being asked to pass judgment and because the evidence would [have] influence[d] the fact finder's assessment of the credibility of an important witness. Id. at 29-30. He argued that because Scott's credibility was crucial to the prosecution's casethe State lacked physical evidence or eyewitness testimony[t]here is a reasonable probability [that] had the missing [evidence] been presented the result would have been different. Id. at 31. [15] For its part, the State maintained that Mr. Sussman's counsel had brought out ample proof that Scott had accused his father of sexual assault and that these accusations were false. R.5, Ex. E at 19. Furthermore, the State argued that, had the motion been filed, it would have failed. Id. The State submitted that the trial court had not erred in its ruling on the postconviction motion that Sussman [had] failed to make a sufficient offer of proof that a reasonable person could infer that Scott in fact made a prior untruthful allegation of sexual assault against his father, as opposed to a truthful allegation that his father touched him on his intimate parts when he bathed him as a child in the shower. At the very least, it was reasonable for the trial court to limit the amount of evidence on this point. . . . Id. at 22 (emphasis in original) (internal citation omitted). The State also argued that defense counsel's failure to introduce the note from Bryce Mitchell was not deficient performance: Whether or not [defense counsel] should have, or even could have, gotten the cryptic note written by Bryce Mitchell in November of 1999 into evidence . . ., [defense counsel]'s overall performance on this point remained competent. Id. at 13. Turning to prejudice, the State argued that the evidence only would have been cumulative to that introduced by [defense counsel] which established almost conclusively that Scott was seeing therapists and teachers for the duration of his relationship with Sussman but complained to no one about sexual abuse. Id. at 14-15. The Court of Appeals of Wisconsin affirmed. On both alleged errors by trial defense counsel, the court bypassed the deficiency prong of the ineffective assistance of counsel claim and held that there was no prejudice. With respect to Mr. Sussman's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel based on the prior false allegation of sexual assault, the court stated that Sussman cannot show prejudice. In a well-explained and thorough decision denying the postconviction motion, the circuit court explained that it would not have granted a pre-trial motion to allow the evidence had it been brought. The court explained that the evidence did not meet the first and third elements of the three-part test outlined in State v. DeSantis . . . . Because the motion to allow the evidence could not have been successful for the reasons explained by the trial court, counsel's failure to bring the motion did not prejudice Sussman. R.5, Ex. B at 4 (emphasis in original). With respect to Mr. Sussman's claim of ineffective assistance based on his attorney's failure to introduce Mitchell's note, the court stated: Although the note was not introduced as evidence, Sussman's attorney brought the contents of the note to the jury's attention through questioning when Sussman's attorney asked the victim at trial whether he had denied sexual contact with Sussman to his therapist.. . . Moreover, the note would have been insignificant in impeaching the victim's credibility because other substantial evidence was introduced at trial in an attempt to impeach the victim's credibility.. . . We cannot conclude that the result of the proceeding would have been different had the note been introduced. Id. at 2-3. Mr. Sussman petitioned for review to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. He contended that the state court of appeals had analyzed unreasonably the importance of counsel's deficiencies. With respect to the prior false-accusation evidence, Mr. Sussman argued that the appellate court's ruling was an unreasonable application of Wisconsin law ( State v. DeSantis, 155 Wis.2d 774, 456 N.W.2d 600 (1990)), an unreasonable application of the Supreme Court's confrontation doctrine, and an unreasonable determination of the facts to arrive at a decision contrary to established state and federal ineffective assistance of counsel and confrontation clause jurisprudence. R.5, Ex. G at 11. Mr. Sussman emphasized that Scott admitted to falsely accusing his father of sexual assault and inappropriately touched him while taking a shower. Id. at 11-12 (internal quotation marks omitted). He analogized his case again to Redmond and also to White v. Coplan, 399 F.3d 18, 25 (1st Cir.2005). [16] He believed that the evidence would have been probative of Scott's motive to falsely accuse his father figures when they withdrew from him. With respect to the therapist's note, he submitted that it was necessary because Scott had testified that he could not remember ever having made the denial to the therapist and because Cyr's testimony required corroboration. Mr. Sussman's brief concluded by suggesting that the court of appeals's unfounded judgments result in a decision that is contrary to established state and federal ineffective assistance of counsel jurisprudence and also at odds with the Supreme Court's confrontation doctrine. Id. at 15. The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the petition for review.
Having exhausted his remedies in the state courts, Mr. Sussman brought this habeas petition in the district court. He asserted that his trial counsel had been ineffective for the two reasons identified in the state-court proceedings. According to Mr. Sussman, the decision of the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin was an unreasonable application of Strickland's ineffective assistance of counsel principles because the court applied an overly strict prejudice standard and reached unreasonable factual conclusions. Mr. Sussman contended that the therapist's note was essential to impeach effectively Scott and to corroborate other witnesses' testimony about Scott's denial. Turning to the prior false-accusation evidence, Mr. Sussman argued that, based on DeSantis, Redmond and White, see R.12 at 16-17, this was important impeachment evidence because it showed Scott's motive . . . to vent his anger and to get his father's attention, because the false accusation was repeated during the same time period covered by the charging instrument, and because the admitted lie and the accusations against Mr. Sussman similarly accused the only two father figures in Scott's life of inappropriately touching his genitals, R.1 at 16. Again, much of Mr. Sussman's legal argument focused on Redmond: The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Wisconsin courts' decision to exclude the prior false sexual abuse accusation for failing the balancing test, when the complainant's credibility was the central issue, constituted an unreasonable limitation on Redmond's right to cross-examine a prosecution witness. The court granted Redmond's habeas corpus petition because the limitation infringed on his sixth amendment right of confrontation. This case presents the same issue in an ineffective assistance of counsel context. R.12 at 16-17 (emphasis added). A magistrate judge recommended denying relief, and the district court agreed. Addressing the prior false accusations, the district court held that it had no authority to review the correctness of the appellate court's decision that the trial court had interpreted Wis. Stat. § 972.11(2) properly; however, it did have authority to determine whether the exclusion of the evidence of the prior allegation of sexual abuse prejudiced petitioner. R.19 at 4. The court concluded that Mr. Sussman had not been prejudiced because he was not prevented entirely from bringing the victim's prior false accusation to the jury's attention. Counsel was allowed to question Scott's mother about the matter and to put in extensive evidence from other witnesses about Scott's propensity to lie. Id. at 5. Concerning the failure to offer Mitchell's note, the district court held that, contrary to Mr. Sussman's assertions, the state appellate court's conclusion that there was no reasonable probability of a different outcome was not an unreasonable one. The district court nevertheless granted Mr. Sussman a certificate of appealability with respect to these ineffective assistance of counsel issues.