Opinion ID: 782363
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: DeNeal's Testimony

Text: 57 Neither was counsel's trial decision not to present Danny DeNeal's testimony prejudicial. Although DeNeal testified at the post-conviction hearing that he saw a gun on the ground immediately after he exited the club after the shooting (thus contradicting Davis's claim at trial that Murrell did not discard the gun until after he took off on a footrace), DeNeal's credibility had significantly diminished by that point, for he had changed his account of the incident some three times. Because DeNeal's testimony at the post-conviction hearing — on almost every single point — was entirely inconsistent with the statement he (DeNeal) had given Investigator Haase on a prior occasion, we have no trouble agreeing with the dissent's assessment that DeNeal was a thoroughly unreliable witness. Dissent at 1125. 58 At the post-conviction hearing, DeNeal testified, contrary to one of his prior statements he had given police, that: (1) he did not see anyone throw the gun to the ground, and (2) furthermore that the gun was already on the ground at the time that he exited the club. This version of events was dramatically different from the other story he had told Investigator Haase — i.e., that he saw a short, bald African-American man (not Murrell) drop the gun in the parking lot. We cannot imagine that a defense attorney worth his salt would present a witness who had attested to three different versions of the night's events — what a feast for the prosecuting attorney on cross examination. Indeed, given DeNeal's penchant for switching, changing and altering stories to fit the need, who knows what sort of new thread of fabrication DeNeal would have manufactured had he been called to testify once again? 59 In any case, DeNeal's claim that he happened to see the Glock nine-millimeter already on the ground, after he exited the Club after the shooting, was incredible under the circumstances, given that the gun was not recovered by the police officer right outside the Club, but rather in a parking lot immediately West of the Club — some distance away (at least fifty feet) from the entrance to the Club (right where the weapon was observed by Davis during the footchase). (Tr. at 48.) It is most unlikely that, in the pitch black of night, DeNeal would have been able to see a black gun lying on the parking lot pavement some fifty feet from the entrance of the Club. 20 60 Moreover, even if Murrell's counsel had presented DeNeal's prior statement to Investigator Haase, by way of impeachment, that he had seen a bald, African-American male (not Murrell) drop the gun, and if counsel had also presented by impeachment Davis's prior revocation hearing testimony, there is still no reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different. After all, the dissent even admits that DeNeal was a thoroughly unreliable witness. Dissent at 1125. And furthermore, if DeNeal could not be trusted to tell the truth, when he was under oath, we fail to see how any report he gave outside the confines of the courtroom witness chair, when not under the penalty of perjury, would have been accepted by the jury or would have otherwise changed the outcome of the trial — particularly in light of the lack of evidence corroborating the statement and the number of times he changed his story (at least three). 21 Given the unbelievability of DeNeal's in-court testimony, it is quite unlikely that anything he said could, or much less would have affected the outcome of the trial. 22 DeNeal was simply incredible. Thus, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals' conclusion that DeNeal's testimony would not have altered the outcome of the trial was both reasonable and proper.