Opinion ID: 3046483
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Superior Court Decision

Text: The Superior Court found as a fact that, at the time counsel stipulated regarding the fingerprint on the showerhead, Siehl “did not deny . . . that the fingerprint was his.” App. at 24. We, of course, must and do accept that finding. In the Court’s view, this meant that counsel had a “reasonable basis” for making the stipulation. Id. at 24. The reasonableness of this view, and the Court’s further view that there was no prejudice from the stipulation and from the failure to secure an expert to assist at trial, depends on the soundness of a single proposition – Siehl’s failure to challenge Brant’s identification of the fingerprint cannot have prejudiced Siehl because he “was a frequent visitor to the apartment and . . . his fingerprints were 15 throughout the apartment.” App. at 25. This foundational proposition was not an objectively reasonable one, however, because it wholly ignored the core of the Commonwealth’s case which trial counsel were well aware of from the preliminary hearing, the pretrial proceedings, and the Commonwealth’s opening statement. The forensic evidence core of the Commonwealth’s case was such that the failure to challenge it would likely lead the jury to conclude not just that Siehl had on some occasion been in the bathroom, but also that (1) he had been in the victim’s bathroom within 24 hours of the discovery of the fingerprint; (2) he had stood outside and beside the tub and directed the showerhead toward the place where the victim’s body was found lying in the tub; (3) during his violent struggle with the victim in the bathroom, his blood and hers spattered together on the bathroom doorframe; and (4) none of the 20 items in the bathroom that tested positive for blood was consistent with the blood of the two other suspects. While trial counsel cross-examined the Commonwealth’s forensic evidence witnesses, they did so without the advice of a forensic expert, and the defense countered with no forensic evidence of its own. Indeed, counsel failed to seek additional forensic assistance even after Smith’s “preliminary analysis” had alerted them to the fact that Brant’s crucial 24 hour print aging testimony was probably unsound. In short, given the Commonwealth’s expected testimony regarding the age and position of the print, and the position and character of the blood samples found in the apartment, any 16 decision to stipulate that the print was Siehl’s without an intention to counter that expected testimony was ineffective because it effectively admitted that he was the murderer. Thus, assessing the ineffective assistance claim in light of all the circumstances, we conclude that the Superior Court’s application of Strickland in this case was not objectively reasonable and that the District Court was entitled to review the record de novo.