Opinion ID: 1932107
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: was the defendant denied his constitutional right to a fair trial and effective assistance of counsel?

Text: Troy Powell, Jr. claims that he was denied his constitutional right to a fair trial and effective assistance of counsel. He states as error that his attorney, by not examining the court record for several days, failed to discover that the State had in its possession a .32 caliber weapon, photos, and spent hulls as physical evidence, and that they proposed to offer them into evidence. The case of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), is cited by Powell as the controlling authority. Mississippi adopted the Strickland test in Dufour v. State, 483 So.2d 307, 309 (Miss. 1985). Mr. Powell claims that the ineffective assistance occurred in counsel's duty to investigate. The standards set by Strickland require no special amplification in order to define counsel's duty to investigate. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. at 2066, 80 L.Ed.2d at 695. In the case at bar Powell's attorney looked at the court file on Friday, November 14, 1986. At that time there was no mention in the file of the State's evidence. Troy Powell's attorney looked at the file again on the morning of the trial, Monday, November 17, 1986. It cannot be seen that this failure to examine the file over the weekend constitutes a failure to investigate. The gun might have been discovered had the attorney filed a motion for discovery, but counsel was under the assumption that a local standing order dismissed the need for a motion. The mere fact that the attorney did not file a motion for discovery is not sufficient to raise an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The filing of pre-trial motions falls squarely within the ambit of trial strategy. Murray v. Maggio, 736 F.2d 279, 283 (5th Cir.1984). The defendant presents no evidence to overcome the presumption that not filing a discovery motion was part of his attorney's trial strategy. Murray, 736 F.2d at 283. Assuming arguendo that not filing a discovery motion made counsel's performance deficient, Troy Powell fails in the second part of the Strickland test. Under Strickland, not only must the defendant show that counsel's performance was deficient but that the deficiency prejudiced the result. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-88, 104 S.Ct. at 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d at 693. Even if the gun had not been allowed in as evidence the jury still would have heard the defendant's admission as well as the State's and defense's eyewitness who saw the defendant with a gun. The only proof Mr. Powell offers to show that he was prejudiced by his counsel's performance was that it took the jury only eight minutes to deliberate. This Court must be careful not to be affected by the distorting effects of hindsight when examining an attorney's performance. Using the standard as set forth in Strickland, Powell does not show that his performance was deficient or prejudiced his defense. There is no merit to this assignment of error.