Opinion ID: 2636899
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Failure to rebut sanity phase evidence of violent nature.

Text: The same objective standard for assessing the competence of counsel applied at the guilt phase is applied to a claim of ineffective assistance at the subsequent phases of a trial. ( People v. Samayoa, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 855, 64 Cal. Rptr.2d 400, 938 P.2d 2.) Dr. Mills testified on cross-examination by the prosecutor at the sanity phase that Carol Wiseman, a former girlfriend of appellant's, told him that appellant was sometimes physically intimidating when angry and had frightened her. The claim of incompetent representation is based solely on trial counsel's failure, after the court had ruled they could do so, to bring out that Wiseman had also said with regard to the charged crimes that the person she knew would not have done them and appellant must have been insane if he did them. The record offers no explanation for counsel's decision not to proceed in that manner, and thus is not a basis for concluding that counsel had no satisfactory reason. In any event, there could have been no prejudice. All of the expert witnesses testified that the incidents with Wiseman or Cluff had no relevance to their diagnoses.