Opinion ID: 1912344
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: sister's testimony

Text: In claim (3)(h), Gudinas alleges that trial counsel was ineffective during his penalty phase for calling Gudinas's sister, Michelle Gudinas, to testify because by calling her to testify, defense counsel opened the door to testimony regarding an alleged incident in which Gudinas attempted to sexually assault her. At trial, Michelle Gudinas testified that: (1) their father purposely burned Gudinas's hand on a hot electric stove burner; (2) their father made Gudinas stand outside in the cold wearing a sign that said something like, I will not wet the bed; (3) their father was a cross-dresser; and (4) their father once beat Gudinas by banging his head against a wall. During the State's cross-examination of Michelle at trial, she denied that the incident was an attempted sexual assault and stated that Gudinas was trying to protect her. The State called a rebuttal witness, Orlando police officer Emmitt Browning, who testified that when Michelle was thirteen or fourteen years old, she advised him that she was at a party and that after becoming intoxicated, she went into a bedroom with her brother and the next thing she could remember was her brother on top of her and her bathing suit torn off. According to Officer Browning, Michelle related that someone came in and caught them and pulled Gudinas off of her. At the 3.850 hearing, attorney Irwin stated that he called Michelle to testify because she wanted to take the stand and he felt almost an obligation to let her speak on behalf of her brother, who was facing the death penalty. Despite Gudinas's assertion of counsel's ineffectiveness for calling Michelle to testify, it does not appear he has established the prejudice prong on this claim. As the trial court observed, this same information had already reached the jury during the State's cross-examination of Dr. Upson. [9] For these reasons, we find no error in the trial court's determination that there was not a reasonable probability, sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome, that the result of the proceeding would have been different. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052.