Opinion ID: 2266129
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Actual Conflict of Interest.

Text: The first prong of the Cuyler test requires Derrington to establish that Wood had an actual conflict of interest during the time that he served as Derrington's trial attorney. Derrington's task is made substantially easier by the fact that Wood himself identified the conflict at the initial status hearing in October 1992. Wood told the judge that, if Derrington was an informant against the R Street Crew, Wood would have to withdraw from the case because Derrington would need someone to bargain for him . . . [and to] use as a bargaining chip . . . his informant status. Wood stated quite clearly that it hurts my relationship with Mr. Taylor[ [14] ] if he finds out that I represented someone who's cooperating in the R Street [case]. Having thus warned the status judge, Wood in fact never discussed with Derrington the possibility of Derrington's cooperating with the prosecutors, nor did Wood approach the prosecutors to request more favorable treatment for his client based on such cooperation. The fact that Wood believed that there was a conflict of interest, and acted as though there was a conflict, constitutes strong, if not conclusive, evidence that an actual conflict existed. This court has recognized that, in determining whether a trial judge properly denied a defense request for a continuance based on a possible conflict of interest, it is significant whether counsel believe[d] the potential for conflict was so real as to oblige him to seek leave to withdraw from the case. Gibson, supra, 632 A.2d at 1159 n. 14; see also Gist v. State, 737 P.2d 336, 344 (Wyo.1987) ( bona fide belief on the part of the public defender that he was involved in an actual conflict situation produced exactly the same [impact] as if the actual conflict had been present); People v. Johnson, 5 Cal.App.3d 851, 85 Cal.Rptr. 485, 491 (1970) (conflict of interest among co-defendants may arise, inter alia, when appointed counsel believes a conflict of interest may exist). At the time of the original status hearing, Wood believed that his representation of Derrington was likely to hurt his relationship with Taylor. [15] At the Section 23-110 hearing more than two years later, Wood stated that he probably should have withdrawn from the case. Here, as in Gibson, we think counsel's own assessment of his situation is significant in the determination whether there was an actual conflict of interest. The government asserts that no conflict of interest existed, or at least that any potential conflict was hypothetical or speculative, rather than actual, because Taylor had already entered a plea of guilty by the time Wood learned that Derrington was an informant in the R Street case. Taylor's plea, however, did not negate the existence of an actual conflict of interest. In the first place, Wood continued, after the plea, to represent Taylor in his appeal in the R Street Crew case. [16] Furthermore, Wood acknowledged at the Section 23-110 hearing that it was possible that Derrington could have somehow ended up being a witness against Mr. Taylor. Wood explained that [i]f Mr. Taylor refused to accept the plea bargain, ... Mr. Derrington, if he wanted to, could have testified . . . for the government in the R Street Crew [case]. Moreover, if Taylor's appeal was successful, Derrington's information could have been useful to the prosecution in any further proceedings. In any event, Wood was aware of the timing of Taylor's guilty plea when he first informed the status judge of the potential conflict. The judge stated that it may be a false conflict in the timing, but Wood responded that Derrington's informant status nevertheless hurt [his] relationship with Mr. Taylor. If Wood himself was concerned about the effect of the dual representation, notwithstanding Taylor's guilty plea, then any potential conflict was not rendered speculative or hypothetical by that plea. The government also contends that no actual conflict of interest existed because the information which Derrington provided to the government in connection with the R Street Crew case was used solely to support a search warrant in a portion of the case in which Donald Taylor was not a defendant, and Derrington himself was never, and was never intended to be, a government witness at either [R Street Crew] trial. Even accepting the government's assertion that Derrington did not provide any information which would have directly implicated Pig Taylor in criminal activityand there was testimony to the contrary [17] the concept of actual conflict of interest is not so narrowly defined. When Wood approached the status judge and described the potential conflict, he stated that in order to bargain for Mr. Derrington, I would have to say to the prosecutor well you know Mr. Derrington cooperated against the R Street Crew, he did this, that, he was an informant, got paid, gave them reliable information.... Wood later testified at the Section 23-110 hearing that if Mr. Derrington had valuable information about Mr. Taylor or probably not [about] Mr. Taylor specifically but [about] the R Street Crew in general, maybe he should have been told to testify against them all. (Emphasis added). According to Wood, therefore, the conflict stemmed from Derrington's having provided information about the R Street Crew generally, and not solely about Pig Taylor. He was worried about how Taylor would feel if he [found] out that [Wood] represented someone who [had] cooperat[ed] in the R Street [case]. Thus, even if Derrington did not provide information against Pig Taylor specifically, and even if Derrington was not in a position to provide testimony implicating Taylor, then, nevertheless, from Wood's highly relevant perspective, an actual conflict of interest was created. Furthermore, whether the government intended to call Derrington as a prosecution witness in any of the R Street Crew trials is not dispositive of the existence of an actual conflict. Even if Derrington would not have been a witness, that would not have foreclosed an attempt by Wood to use as a bargaining chip ... [Derrington's] informant status. The government speculates that, if Wood had approached the government with an offer of Derrington's testimony against the R Street Crew in exchange for a beneficial resolution of Derrington's pending cases, the prosecutors would have rejected the offer. Wood recognized both in 1992 and in 1995, however, that Derrington's counsel was obliged to make such an approach, and that Derrington should have been apprised of the possibility that such cooperation might secure more lenient treatment for him. We cannot now know whether the strategy to which Wood referred would have borne fruit; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The dispositive factor is that the use of Derrington's information and further cooperation was a potential weapon in defense counsel's arsenal. According to our case law, a particular defense or strategy need only be plausible to create an actual conflict of interest. Fitzgerald, supra, 530 A.2d at 1138. Derrington has established the requisite plausibility.