Opinion ID: 1258573
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Claim Concerning (f)(7) Mitigator (the age of the defendant at the time of the crime)

Text: Although the trial court properly submitted and instructed the jury on the (f)(7) mitigating circumstance, defendant claims ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel did not object to a number of questions asked by the prosecution and the trial court during jury selection concerning prospective jurors' sympathy for defendant on account of his age. Further, defendant contends that these questions were prejudicial because they prevented the jury from considering the (f)(7) mitigating circumstance, defendant's age at the time of the murder, in its sentencing deliberations. See N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(f)(7) (2007). Among other questions cited by defendant, the prosecutor asked prospective jurors whether they would be sympathetic to this defendant because of his age; whether they agreed that the law must apply the same to everyone regardless of their age, sex, and race; and whether they agreed that a decision based upon somebody's age, race, or sex would be unlawful. At one point during the State's jury voir dire questioning, the trial court interjected and asked prospective jurors whether they understood that deciding this case based on a person's age, race, religion, or sex would be morally wrong in addition to being unlawful. The prosecutor thereafter characterized basing [a] decision on sex, age, or race as both unlawful and immoral when questioning prospective jurors. This Court has long recognized the two components of a defendant's ineffective assistance of counsel claims brought under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as set forth in Strickland v. Washington. State v. Goss, 361 N.C. 610, 623, 651 S.E.2d 867, 875 (2007) (citations omitted); State v. Campbell, 359 N.C. 644, 690, 617 S.E.2d 1, 30 (2005) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1073, 126 S.Ct. 1773, 164 L.Ed.2d 523 (2006). First, defendant must demonstrate that his trial counsel's performance was deficient, such that the errors committed were so serious that counsel was not functioning as the `counsel' guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Second, defendant is required to show prejudice resulting from trial counsel's deficient performance, which requires showing that counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable. Id. Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction or death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable. Id. This Court has previously held that a prosecutor may `inquir[e] into the sympathies of prospective jurors in the exercise of [the State's] right to secure an unbiased jury.' See State v. Anderson, 350 N.C. 152, 170-71, 513 S.E.2d 296, 308, (quoting State v. McKoy, 323 N.C. 1, 15, 372 S.E.2d 12, 19 (1988), sentence vacated on other grounds, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990)), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 973, 120 S.Ct. 417, 145 L.Ed.2d 326 (1999). Defendant contends that the questions asked of prospective jurors by the State and the trial court in the present case were not permissible inquiries into the bias of prospective jurors. Instead, in effect defendant argues that these were hypothetical questions involving the existence of a mitigating circumstance and thus, impermissible because they were designed to elicit in advance what the juror's decision will be under a certain state of the evidence or upon a given state of facts. See id. at 170, 513 S.E.2d at 307 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). It is far from clear that the questions asked by the prosecutor and the trial court were directed toward the (f)(7) mitigating circumstance of defendant's age rather than toward any bias which may have affected prospective jurors during the guilt phase of the trial because of defendant's age. Regardless, we are not persuaded that the performance of defendant's trial counsel fell below an objective standard of reasonableness as is required to show that counsel's performance was deficient. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-88, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Indeed, as defendant acknowledges, his trial counsel made repeated references to defendant's youth throughout the penalty proceeding and stated the following in closing argument: The defendant's age at the time of the crime was a mitigating factor. He was twenty-four. He had not finished college. The State wants you to believe he had apartments and lived with women, but what was he doing? He was living in somebody's dorm room. He had lived with various people that kicked him out. And I would contend that that's not evidence that he had established some home and was living through life as a mature person. And I think you can consider his age. That is a statutory mitigating factor. He was young. Moreover, as the trial court submitted the (f)(7) mitigating circumstance and did not err in its instructions to the jury on this mitigator, there is nothing in the trial transcript and record to support a conclusion that defendant's trial counsel did not act reasonably to ensure the jury fully considered defendant's age as a mitigator in its sentencing deliberations. Because it would have been reasonable for trial counsel to interpret the questions asked of prospective jurors concerning defendant's age as permissible inquiries into potential bias, and because counsel sufficiently advocated during the penalty proceeding that the jury find the (f)(7) mitigating circumstance, we conclude that defendant has not demonstrated the first component of his ineffective assistance of counsel claimthat counsel's performance was deficient. Consequently, defendant's claim is without merit, and his related assignments of error are overruled.