Opinion ID: 2571629
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: The Taped Interview

Text: [¶ 33] In her opening statement during the hearing on the new trial motion, defense counsel detailed her efforts to locate Bartlett and asked the trial court to consider him to be an unavailable witness under the rules of evidence governing hearsay. She then presented her evidence and argument based on Bartlett's unavailability. In later ruling on the motion for new trial, the trial court assumed Bartlett was unavailable, despite proof to the contrary. [¶ 34] The State called two witnesses at the motion hearing, the second being a police detective who had interviewed Bartlett two days before the hearings. The detective testified that during the interview, which was tape-recorded, Bartlett had admitted knowing Lopez from jail, but denied ever having met the victim, and denied that he knew anything about the murder. During cross-examination, the detective noted that Bartlett also denied knowing the Lessards and denied having made any statements to them. The appellant argued at the later evidentiary hearing, and continues to argue in this appeal, that prior counsel was ineffective because she did not ask for a recess or a continuance of the motion hearing, nor did she object or even ask to hear the tape, when she learned of the detective's interview with Bartlett. [¶ 35] The trial court concluded that counsel had not been ineffective, under the objective standards of the Strickland test, in her handling of the latest Bartlett interview. The trial court noted first that the interview was not exculpatory as to the appellant, that Bartlett had provided very little beneficial information for counsel's use, and that a continuance would not have been warranted. Further, the trial court found that no prejudice had resulted from counsel's decision merely to cross-examine the detective rather than seek a continuance, because the tape of the interview was available to the trial court, and the little corroboration it contained bolstered only Unger-Lessard's credibility, not Bartlett's. [¶ 36] We cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion in the way it analyzed this issue or in concluding as it did. Prior to the trial, the defense investigator interviewed Strauser, Bartlett, and Lopez. After the trial, the defense team learned of and interviewed the Lessards before the State did. By the time of the hearing on the new trial motion, the defense was well aware that Bartlett had both made and denied making incriminating statements about Lopez. The fact that defense counsel did not request a continuance for an additional investigation because Bartlett contradicted himself yet again a few days before the hearing simply does not rise to the level of deficient performance required to prove ineffective assistance of counsel, nor has prejudice been shown. [12]