Opinion ID: 2635258
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hales's Trial Attorneys Failed To Conduct an Adequate Investigation

Text: ¶ 69 Because the State's interpretation of the CT scans was critical to the State's case against Hales, Hales's trial attorneys' failure to hire a qualified expert to review the CT scans constituted a failure to conduct an adequate investigation. In determining whether counsel's performance was objectively reasonable in light of all of the circumstances, we look to prevailing professional norms. [71] In accordance with these norms, our cases recognize that counsel has an important duty to adequately investigate the underlying facts of the case [72] because investigation sets the foundation for counsel's strategic decisions about how to build the best defense. As explained by the United States Supreme Court in Strickland, [S]trategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable; and strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation. In other words, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. [73] ¶ 70 Accordingly, we review Hales's trial attorneys' decision not to investigate the CT scans to determine whether it constituted a reasonable professional judgment. In doing so, we attempt to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight by adopting Hales's trial attorneys' perspective at the time of their decision to limit their investigation. [74] And we indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance; that is, [Hales] must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy. [75] ¶ 71 Hales has established in the record that his trial attorneys did not acquire the CT scans depicting Luther's brain injuries until the morning of trial and that they never subjected the CT scans to review by an expert qualified to interpret them. The reasons for this decision are not clear. Posttrial, Hales's appellate attorneys acquired access to the CT scans and obtained an expert opinion from a new expert, pediatric neuroradiologist Dr. Barnes, that contradicts the interpretation given by the State's expert, pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Walker, and which suggests that Luther's injuries happened prior to the time when Hales was babysitting Luther. Accordingly, Hales moved for a new trial on two alternative grounds, both of which he has also raised before us: (1) that the State prevented Hales's trial attorneys from subjecting the CT scans to pretrial review by a qualified expert and that the new expert's testimony thus provides new evidence upon which we should grant a new trial or (2) that his counsel provided ineffective assistance. Because we find ineffective assistance of counsel, we do not reach Hales's new evidence claim. We note his new evidence argument, however, because some explanation is warranted regarding Hales's claim that his trial attorneys were improperly denied pretrial access to the CT scans by prosecutors. ¶ 72 Hales has placed facts in the record showing that after the preliminary hearing, where the State relied heavily on evidence from the CT scans, one of Hales's trial attorneys asked one of the prosecutors for copies of the CT scans. The prosecutor replied that copies could not be made for review. Although Hales has argued that because of this he was improperly denied access to the CT scans, the district court found that the decision [by the defense] not to seek review of the scans appears to be tactical. [W]hile Defendant may not have reviewed the scans, and Plaintiff may have stated that copies of such were not available, there is no evidence Defendant was denied access to the original CT scans. ¶ 73 Because the district court found that Hales's trial attorneys' decision not to seek review of the CT scans was tactical and then rejected Hales's ineffective assistance of counsel claim without further analysis, it likely concluded that Hales's trial attorneys' tactical decision not to review the original CT scans fell within the broad range of reasonable professional assistance. We accept the trial court's factual finding that the decision was tactical, but we disagree to the extent that the district court concluded that this tactical decision was reasonable. ¶ 74 The State's presentation of its case at the preliminary hearing put Hales's trial attorneys on notice that the State's interpretation of the CT scans depicting Luther's brain injuries was critical to the State's case against Hales. Because the State had no witness to the cause of Luther's injuries, the medical evidence in the case, and in particular the CT scans, was the primary source of information regarding what happened to Luther. In fact, the State itself stated in its closing argument that Dr. Walker's testimony regarding the CT scans was critical to determining what happened to Luther while he was in Hales's care on the night of December 5, 1985. ¶ 75 At the preliminary hearing, Dr. Walker testified to the following findings: the first CT scan, which was taken on December 5, 1985, showed initial signs of edema and bleeding over the surface and between the hemispheres of the brain (or subarachnoid hemorrhaging); the CT scans taken on December 8, 1985, and December 11, 1985, showed black brain, evidencing global injury caused by something like lack of blood flow and oxygen (or hypoxia-ischemia), which injured the brain throughout; the CT scan from December 8, 1985, showed that the degree of injury to the front and the back of the brain differed, indicating that arteries had been occluded by swelling; and finally, a CT scan taken three years later, on December 13, 1988, showed a shrunken brain evidencing severe loss of functions. ¶ 76 Combining these findings and his general observations about the appearance of the brain in the CT scans, Dr. Walker made crucial assertions regarding the cause, timing, and violence of the injury. He testified that the injury he observed from the CT scans would have rendered Luther immediately unconscious and that, therefore, there could have been no lucid interval between the injury and the onset of the severe symptoms. Specifically, he opined that the degree of injury we see on these scans tells us that this child's brain was severely injured and at the point of injury this child was unconscious, was deeply brain injured, and that the shrunken brain shown in the last CT scan is simply a reflection of the amount of injury that occurred on the 5th of December. Furthermore, Dr. Walker opined that the global nature of the brain injury indicated that the injury was not caused by an impact, and that the force required to cause the injuries to a baby's brain shown on the CT scans from shaking would be violent force. ¶ 77 Based on the CT scans and the other medical evidence regarding retinal hemorrhaging, Dr. Walker concluded that the injury to Luther must have been nonaccidental and caused by shaken baby syndrome. Dr. Walker explained that the constellation of injuries clinically associated with shaken baby syndrome is indicated by a brain scan that actually looks quite similar to what we've seen here today. It's a dark brain, suggesting that there is early injury that's massive and on both sides. There frequently is evidence of bleeding over the surface of the brain called subarachnoid hemorrhage. Oftentimes, there is another layer of bleeding called subdural hemorrhage. There is the finding of hemorrhage into the eyebrows we call retinal hemorrhaging. And then occasionally we find other evidence of abuse in these children, they have a higher incidence of having other forms of abuse. For example, a skeletal survey might show evidence of other fractures that are old. Dr. Walker testified that all of these markers were present except for the subdural hemorrhaging and evidence of past abuse. ¶ 78 Despite the centrality of the CT scans of Luther's brain to the State's case, Hales's trial attorneys did not have a radiologist or other qualified expert review Luther's CT scans as part of their pretrial investigation. Instead, they decided to rely solely on cross-examination of Dr. Walker and the testimony of an expert forensic pathologist, Dr. Plunkett, whose primary theory was that shaking can damage an infant's neck, but cannot produce brain injury, and that, therefore, the most reasonable explanation for the injury was the near-miss car accident described by Hales that occurred two days before Luther was hospitalized. Hales's trial attorneys had apparently hoped that Dr. Plunkett would be able to testify regarding injuries depicted in the CT scans, but they waited to show those scans to Dr. Plunkett until the morning of trial, and they failed to verify that Dr. Plunkett would be qualified to testify regarding the CT scans. In fact, the district court prohibited Dr. Plunkett from offering testimony interpreting the CT scans because he admitted on voir dire that he did not read CT scans in his work. ¶ 79 We are convinced that the testimony at the preliminary hearing would have indicated to an attorney providing reasonable professional assistance that the evidence contained in the CT scans was critical to the case and that Hales would suffer a significant disadvantage at trial if he were unable to use the CT scans to illustrate how the injuries would fit into his theory of the case. Further, because the findings from the CT scans were crucial to establish the cause, timing, and violence of Luther's injuries, we are convinced that an attorney providing reasonable professional assistance would have sought another opinion from a qualified expert regarding what could and could not be seen in the CT scans. This is particularly so where, as here, the defense's theory that the injuries were caused by the near-miss car accident depended upon convincing the jury that the brain injury shown in the CT scans could have been caused by an impact injury and would not have caused immediate unconsciousness as Dr. Walker had testified. ¶ 80 We have previously held that an attorney may often provide adequate assistance without hiring an expert to do a separate examination of the evidence. For instance, in Taylor v. Warden, [76] we found that a reasonable investigation did not necessarily require the defense to hire an expert to testify regarding a fingerprint match because the defendant's counsel acknowledged the strength of the State's expert's testimony that thirty-two points of positive comparison and matching prints from adjacent fingers eliminat[ed] any possibility of a misidentification. [77] However, this case differs significantly from Taylor. Here, the defense's theory required the jury to disbelieve Dr. Walker's interpretation of the CT scans, including the cause, timing, and violence of the injury. Further, although we have indicated that in many circumstances defense attorneys may reasonably decide to rebut an expert's testimony without hiring a competing expert, the centrality of this medical evidence to the jury's determination of Hales's guilt or innocence made an expert necessary in this case. ¶ 81 Nevertheless, the State urges us to conclude that Hales's trial attorneys provided adequate assistance because he had three experienced attorneys from the legal defenders office who did hire an expert who supported their theory of the case. The State asserts that once the defense finds one expert to support their position, it is not necessary to search for another. ¶ 82 We note, however, that this is not a case where the defense already subjected the CT scans to review by one qualified expert. Dr. Plunkett was a forensic pathologist who did not interpret CT scans in his practice, not a radiologist. Regardless of the strength of the theory supported by Dr. Plunkett, the existence of that theory cannot excuse the failure to hire an expert to interpret the CT scans. The defense prematurely rejected the possibility that the CT scans might contain evidence that would contradict Dr. Walker's interpretation of the scans and cast doubt upon the cause, timing, or violence of the injury. Moreover, because of the central role that interpretation of the CT scans played in the case, it should have been evident to an attorney rendering reasonable professional assistance that the defense would be under a distinct disadvantage if it were not allowed to use the CT scans to support his theory of defense at trial. It is unlikely that acquisition of another expert opinion would have harmed the defense's theory. And the opportunity to acquire another expert opinion presented a significant opportunity to discover crucial new information about what happened to Luther. Accordingly, viewed from the perspective of the pretrial investigation, the defense's decision to limit the investigation this way was not a reasonable professional judgment. ¶ 83 This is not to say that the defense could not have made a reasonable professional judgment to rely on Dr. Plunkett and his theory of the case, but only that the defense could not reasonably have made this decision without first conducting a full investigation of the merits of the case. In other words, Hales's trial attorneys were not in a position to make a reasonable strategic choice as to whether to rely solely on the theory posited by Dr. Plunkett because the investigation supporting their choice was unreasonable. [78]