Opinion ID: 2789470
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Investigate and Present Mitigating

Text: Evidence Medina argues that his trial counsel in the Orange County case rendered ineffective assistance by failing to properly investigate Medina’s childhood. According to Medina, such a failure meant that his counsel lacked information that could have been used in mitigation during the penalty phase. Because counsel lacked sufficient knowledge, argues Medina, he could not have made a reasoned tactical decision about what to present at the penalty phase. We disagree, and conclude that counsel’s performance was not deficient. Counsel has a duty to investigate, but this duty is not without limits. Strickland clarified that “counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. In any ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments.” 466 U.S. at 691. We “conduct an objective review of [counsel’s] performance, measured for reasonableness under prevailing professional norms, which includes a context-dependent consideration of the challenged conduct as seen from counsel’s perspective at the time.” Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 523 (2003) (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). As the district court correctly concluded, Medina’s defense team conducted a thorough investigation of his childhood and family background—actions that stand in 12 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL sharp contrast to the conduct of defense counsel in cases relied upon by Medina in support of his ineffective assistance argument. In Ainsworth v. Woodford, 268 F.3d 868 (9th Cir. 2001), for example, trial counsel’s “preparation” for the penalty phase proceedings consisted of interviewing one defense witness for ten minutes on the morning she was to testify, and failing to examine Ainsworth’s employment, medical, prison, probation, or military records, all of which were readily available. Id. at 874. In Silva v. Woodford, 279 F.3d 825 (9th Cir. 2002), we concluded that counsel’s complete abandonment of all investigation into Silva’s background was not objectively reasonable when Silva instructed counsel simply that he did not want his parents used as witnesses and that he preferred they be left alone. Id. at 838. In Libberton v. Ryan, 583 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 2009), we found ineffective assistance at the penalty phase where defense counsel failed to interview any witnesses for trial and only a very few for sentencing. Id. at 1169. In the Orange County case, the district court credited counsel’s declaration that his investigator interviewed family members and briefed him regarding the interviews, and that counsel had questioned the family members himself. In crediting counsel’s declarations, the district court relied upon billing records and trial documents showing the amount of time investigators spent speaking with witnesses and conferring with counsel. Given the supporting evidence, the district court did not clearly err by crediting counsel’s declaration. Nor does counsel’s failure to uncover Medina’s childhood abuse render his performance deficient. The district court credited counsel’s sworn statement that neither Medina nor his family members divulged to counsel the abuse to which MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 13 he was subjected, and Medina does not directly challenge this finding. As Medina argues, “counsel has a duty to investigate, even if his or her client does not divulge relevant information.” Vega v. Ryan, 757 F.3d 960, 969 (9th Cir. 2014). Our decision in Vega does not, however, impose upon counsel a duty to conduct a perfect investigation that reaches every recess of a client’s mind. “A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effect of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. Unlike the situation in Vega, Medina’s counsel conducted an adequate investigation of his client’s history. The evidence counsel sought and reviewed suggested that Medina experienced an average childhood. Prison records, Medina’s own testimony under oath, and discussions with Medina’s family members,2 all indicated that Medina’s childhood was relatively unremarkable. Medina nonetheless asserts that counsel’s investigation was unreasonable because he failed to ask the “right questions.” Medina’s sisters claim that no one ever explained to them what sort of evidence could be considered in mitigation. Medina’s trial counsel, however, reported that he supervised the investigators who questioned Medina’s family and ensured that the family was informed of the defense team’s needs. Counsel’s assessment is corroborated by billing records, credited by the district court, that showed the 2 Trial counsel’s billing records further reflect a six-hour period in which he spoke with Medina’s sister early in the case on February 9, 1985. During that six-hour time-frame, counsel discussed several matters including the “bizarre behavior of Medina during the time period [in] which these incidents took place.” 14 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL amount of time the defense team spent with Medina’s family and the quantity of evidence the team gathered. “[A]pplying a heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments,” id. at 691, we cannot conclude that counsel’s performance was deficient. Medina also relies on a letter to counsel, dated September 4, 1985, from Dr. Klatte, a psychiatrist who evaluated Medina’s mental health prior to trial, to argue that counsel possessed information that “would lead a reasonable attorney to investigate further” into Medina’s childhood. Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 527. But, this letter’s “tantalizing indication” that not all was as it seemed consists of two inapposite passages. The first mentions that Medina loved his father, but also feared him when he would get drunk and chase the kids out of the house.3 The second recounts a bizarre memory Medina has of his mother, but it is a memory completely devoid of any indication of abuse.4 3 “[Medina] recalls as a child feeling his father was a superman. He loved him but feared him when he would get drunk and chase the kids out of the house.” 4 “[Medina] describes a very complex and pathological relationship with his mother. On the one hand he indicates he was very close to her and she was a very loving maternal woman. On the other hand his most vivid memory from childhood still haunts and upsets him, bringing tears to his eyes as he recounts it. He was about 7 to 9 years of age, he went to his mother’s bedroom and saw her lying on her bed. They looked at each other and ‘she looked like a smiling conniving harlot as described in the old testament.’ She then said ‘I prayed to the Virgin Mary for a homosexual.’ Suddenly he started crying and got angry, screaming at his mother ‘I’m going to go straight to hell for that.’ He then ran out of the room. He now does not know what he meant by what he said.” MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 15 By contrast, in Wiggins, ample evidence in records available to counsel indicated that further investigation would very likely have unearthed mitigating evidence. The Department of Social Services’ records and the pre-sentence report demonstrated that Wiggins’s mother was an alcoholic who left him and his siblings alone for days without food on at least one occasion, and that Wiggins went from foster home to foster home where he displayed emotional difficulties and had frequent long absences from school. 539 U.S. at 525. The Court concluded that counsel unreasonably ceased its investigation and failed to pursue mitigating evidence. Here, counsel interviewed Medina’s family members but found no evidence of physical abuse. The investigation was adequate and thorough. Counsel’s decision not to interview additional family members was also reasonable. In Bobby v. Van Hook, 558 U.S. 4 (2009) (per curiam), the Supreme Court reversed a grant of habeas relief based on an ineffective assistance claim at the penalty phase in a pre-AEDPA case, holding that counsel had reached that point at which “evidence from more distant relatives can reasonably be expected to be only cumulative, and the search for it distractive from more important duties.” Id. at 11. So too here. The vague allusions to dysfunctional familial relationships related in Dr. Klatte’s letter did not alert counsel that he should conduct more interviews and further investigation, particularly when Medina himself reported an unremarkable childhood. In addition, while not foundational to our analysis, it is nevertheless significant that counsel originally intended to call more family members at the penalty phase, but Medina refused to allow counsel to call any family members other 16 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL than his father. While a defendant’s refusal to allow a witness to testify does not excuse counsel from interviewing that witness as part of a reasonable investigation into possible mitigating evidence, Stankewitz v. Wong, 698 F.3d 1163, 1170 (9th Cir. 2012) (noting that “supposed opposition to mitigating evidence” does not end the inquiry into the adequacy of counsel’s performance), here counsel did thoroughly interview other family members despite Medina’s refusal to allow them to testify. Nor has Medina established prejudice, i.e., “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. To evaluate whether Medina was prejudiced by counsel’s failure to investigate, if any, we “reweigh the evidence in aggravation against the totality of available mitigating evidence.” Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 534. In mitigation, Medina’s father testified that Medina was hit by a car while riding a bicycle as a child and was exposed to glue fumes when he built model airplanes, and about an incident in which Medina pulled out all of his eyelashes. He also testified that Medina had been close to his now-deceased mother, that Medina’s brother had used drugs heavily after his divorce and was in and out of mental hospitals before finally committing suicide, and that Medina behaved strangely upon his release from prison in Arizona. Medina offered testimony from Richard Negrete, his parole officer, and from James Hicks, an employee of the Orange County District Attorney’s office, who had prosecuted a defendant for stabbing Medina approximately twenty-eight times. Medina also presented the testimony of several mental health experts. Dr. Pierce testified that Medina did poorly on MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 17 cognitive tests, that he was not malingering, and that although sane, he suffered from a mental impairment. Dr. Sharma testified that Medina was suffering from symptoms indicating mental problems, and he noted four possibilities: schizophrenia, “organic brain disorder due to the use and abuse of mind-altering drugs he had used in the past, including, for example, cocaine and PCP,” epilepsy caused by a short circuiting of the brain tissue, or antisocial personality disorder. He further testified that he saw mitigation in Medina’s mental problems. Dr. Sakurai testified that Medina had been placed in the rubber rooms in the Orange County jail several times, that Dr. Sakurai had met with Medina on thirty to forty occasions, and that he had prescribed Medina medication. Finally, Dr. Klatte testified that Medina was a disturbed person with a diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, and noted that Medina “had a brother who suicided and had a well- established diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.” Declarations from Medina’s family members obtained by habeas counsel describe additional mitigating evidence that could have been, but was not, presented to the jury during the penalty phase of the Orange County trial. As detailed in Part I, these declarations from family members describe physical abuse that Medina suffered growing up. This potentially mitigating evidence, while substantial, was not overwhelming. The abuse Medina suffered as a child falls short of the horrific violence and deprivation that courts have recognized as convincing mitigation evidence. Compare Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 535–36 (holding that counsel’s failure to investigate and present evidence of petitioner’s “physical torment, sexual molestation, and repeated rape” established prejudice), with Samayoa v. Ayers, 649 F.3d 919, 929 (9th Cir. 2011) (observing that petitioner’s evidence of “harsh 18 MEDINA V. CHAPPELL discipline, poverty, drug abuse, and violence and sexual abuse among extended family members” was “not so dramatic or unusual” that it would have affected the death penalty verdict). Moreover, unlike in Stankewitz v. Woodford, where we found prejudice based on counsel’s failure to present evidence that the defendant “suffered from organic brain damage, to the point of being borderline mentally retarded,” 365 F.3d 706, 723 (9th Cir. 2004), there was no strong evidence that Medina suffered permanent brain damage as a result of his childhood head injuries. For its part, the prosecution presented a litany of aggravating factors at the penalty phase. The prosecution relied on Medina’s prior convictions for rape, assault, kidnapping, burglary, and discharging a firearm into an occupied building, as well as Medina’s repeated attacks on other inmates and prison staff while incarcerated. The prosecution also elicited testimony from the victims’ relatives about the victims’ non-violent nature. The mitigating evidence that was presented failed to persuade the jury in light of this strong aggravating evidence. And the potential mitigating evidence was weaker than the array of mitigating evidence actually presented. Reweighing the aggravating evidence against all mitigating evidence, Wiggins, 539 U.S. at 534, we conclude that comparatively weak additional mitigating evidence would not likely have altered the jury’s verdict. Accordingly, Medina was not prejudiced within the meaning of Strickland. 466 U.S. at 694–96. MEDINA V. CHAPPELL 19