Opinion ID: 1194860
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Leggions

Text: Delbert G. Leggions was charged with first-degree sexual assault arising out of the alleged assault of his girlfriend in May 1993. Although Leggions was originally represented by the public defender's office, he retained the respondent to represent him pursuant to a written fee agreement. The victim alleged that Leggions forced her to engage in anal sex for several hours. Leggions denied this. The victim had been examined at a hospital with the use of a rape kit following her complaint, but no physical evidence supporting the victim's allegations was found. Nevertheless, the respondent did not hire any investigators, did not talk to the medical examiner, did not review the medical report or rape kit results, did not investigate the victim, and did not talk to the defendant's and victim's neighbors. Because Leggions had a 1991 felony menacing conviction (involving the same victim), the respondent and his client decided that Leggions would not testify. Leggions had been in pretrial confinement since May 1993, and he asked the respondent to get him civilian clothes for his trial. The respondent failed to do so, and Leggions sat through his trial before a jury in orange prison garb. The respondent did not subpoena the medical examiner or obtain the medical report for the trial. When he tried to cross-examine the victim about the absence of any evidence of semen obtained during the medical examination, the prosecutor's objection was sustained. The jury never knew of the exculpatory nature of the medical test results, which might have undermined the credibility of the victim's testimony about a two or three-hour anal sex assault. The respondent cross-examined the victim at the trial, but presented no other evidence or witnesses of his own. He did not object when the victim spontaneously testified about Leggion's prior conviction, and also failed to object when the prosecutor during closing argument arguably made a reference to the defendant's failure to testify. Leggions was convicted of first-degree sexual assault and sentenced to ten years in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Another lawyer, subsequently appointed to represent Leggions, filed a Crim. P. 35(c) motion for postconviction relief based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court found that the respondent's failure to present the evidence found in the rape examination fell below an objective standard of reasonableness using prevailing professional standards. See Davis v. People, 871 P.2d 769, 772 (Colo.1994). The respondent was also unaware of section 16-3-309(5), 6 C.R.S. (1997), which permits the introduction into evidence of [a]ny report or copy thereof or the findings of the criminalistics laboratory without the testimony of the person performing the test. Nevertheless, the district court determined that Leggions was not sufficiently prejudiced to create a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2068, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). At the time of the hearing in this case, that ruling was on appeal. More recently, the court of appeals reversed the district court's order, vacated Leggions's conviction, and ordered a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel. See People v. Leggions, No. 94CA0126, slip op. at 3 (Colo.App. Oct. 9, 1997) (not selected for publication). [1] The hearing board concluded that the respondent's conduct in the criminal case violated Colo. RPC 1.1 (failing to provide competent representation to a client); Colo. RPC 1.3 (neglecting a legal matter); and Colo. RPC 8.4(h) (engaging in conduct adversely reflecting on fitness to practice).