Opinion ID: 1061016
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Trial Court Remand Hearing

Text: At the trial court remand hearing, one of the petitioner's attorneys, John Pellegrin, submitted affidavits detailing his contacts with Dr. Ray prior to trial and his effort to obtain Dr. Ray's testimony for the sentencing hearing. Pellegrin maintained that it was his understanding that Ray would be available to testify at the sentencing hearing about Goad's post-traumatic stress symptoms. Pellegrin also asserted that he had learned after trial for the first time that Goad had actually been evaluated by Dr. Sam Pieper, Jr., acting chief of the Veterans Administration Psychiatric Service, and not Dr. Ray, and that Pieper had completed an evaluation report on November 22, 1983, several months before trial. Neither Pieper nor Ray were subpoenaed by the defense to testify at the remand hearing, nor was Pieper's report introduced into evidence. Ray, however, told an investigator for the District Attorney General and one of the petitioner's attorneys that he had never been contacted about testifying in Goad's case, that he was not an expert in the area of post-traumatic stress syndrome, and that he had never examined the petitioner. Based on that proof, the trial court concluded that trial counsel were not actually prepared to offer the testimony of Dr. Ray and that Dr. Ray was not prepared to testify that the defendant suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome. This Court affirmed the trial court's refusal to grant a new sentencing hearing.