Opinion ID: 1476684
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Cross-examination of Tariq Ayers

Text: Defendant argues that he was prejudiced by counsel's failure to cross-examine Tariq on his statement to defense investigators that police coerced him into implicating defendant.
Defendant's fourteen-year-old nephew, Tariq, gave a statement to police on January 13, 1993. His mother, Beverly Ayers (Beverly), accompanied him. Tariq told the police that he saw Harris on December 17, 1992, hanging out, in a red, two-door sports car. Tariq approached Harris, who was alone, and the two went for a ride. Tariq also told the police that later, on December 26, 1992, he asked Harris how he had obtained the car, and defendant said he hijacked the car from West State Street ... from some white girl. More importantly, Tariq also told the police, [Harris] told me he `knocked off some white girl.' Both Tariq and his mother signed the police statement, agreeing that it was true, free, and voluntary. According to the FBI records submitted in the PCR proceeding, on February 5, 1993, Tariq reviewed and reaffirmed the statement he gave the [Trenton Police Department] on Wednesday, January 13, 1993. Additionally, Tariq told the FBI that he had given Harris a twenty-two caliber magnum pistol three months earlier, and that on the evening of Huggins's disappearance, Harris and two others went through Huggins's wallet in search of credit cards. The transcript of that February 5th interview also reveals that Tariq admitted to regular use of cocaine and to having used it during the previous evening and until 5:00 a.m. that morning. By the interview's conclusion, Tariq was crying and asking for his mother, who had been waiting in another room. Upon her entry into the interview room, Beverly observed that Tariq's nose was bleeding. She asked him if anyone had hit him, to which he replied, No, No one hit me. When outside her son's presence, Beverly said to the FBI special agent, I don't understand why this happens [referring to her son's nosebleed], but it has happened before. On March 31, 1994fourteen months after his initial police interview and twenty months before his trial testimonyTariq told Alan Goldstein, an assistant chief investigator for the Public Defender, that his January 1992 statement was the result of beatings given to him by the police, in particular by an African American officer he knows as `Rev.' That same day, Beverly told Goldstein that [w]hen she got [her son] after the interview he was bumped and bruised. Another investigator and one of defendant's attorneys (Hamilton) also were present at the interviews with Goldstein. Goldstein interviewed Beverly again two weeks later. She repeated that Tariq told her that Rev had beaten him and that she observed bruises on her son. She said she complained to the detective at the time, who implied to her that Tariq was being untruthful. She added that she was not present during the earlier part of the interview when the beating allegedly took place. At defendant's trial, Tariq's testimony was consistent with his original 1993 statements to the police. He stated that he bought a gun in exchange for cash and crack in November 1992 because he was afraid of being a target for violence in the projects where he lived. When his sister, with whom he lived, made him get rid of it, he gave the .22 Magnum and three bullets to Harris. Tariq also testified that during the evening of December 17, 1992, he encountered Harris alone in a two-seat, red car. At that time, Harris told him that he had hijacked it. Nine days later, on December 26th, Harris came to Tariq's sister's apartment and showed Tariq the .22 Magnum that Tariq had given to him. According to Tariq, Harris told him that he had knocked off some white girl. In his PCR petition Harris contends that trial counsel should have used Tariq's statement to Investigator Goldstein during cross-examination and that counsel should have called Beverly to the stand to confirm that the police had beaten Tariq. Defendant states that trial counsel (Scully) failed to provide a credible reason for his ineffective cross-examination and for not calling Goldstein, who was available to testify.
Defendant's ineffective assistance claim must overcome the strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance, Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. at 2055, 80 L.Ed. 2d at 694, and the high deference that reviewing courts give to attorney performance. Ibid. With that in mind, we note that, during the guilt phase of defendant's trial, the prosecutor tried to anticipate the defense's cross-examination of Tariq and to weaken that sting by exposing Tariq's pending charges for trespass, resisting arrest, and marijuana possession. He also was charged with receipt of stolen property for riding in Huggins's car. Ultimately he received probation for all of his pending charges. In addition, as a result of other behavior, he was placed in a juvenile facility. Thus, on direct examination the prosecution had Tariq admit that he had not been completely honest at first with police interrogators. He affirmed that during his initial two interviews, including the one on January 13, 1993, he did not reveal that he had given Harris a gun. Indeed, because he was afraid of being locked up, he also denied giving Harris the gun that the police interviewers showed to him. Consequently, cross-examination was not lengthy, but it was devastating. Harris I, supra, 156 N.J at 183, 716 A. 2d 458. Scully had Tariq confirm that during January 1993, he still was waiting to see how his pending charges would be resolved, and that after he spoke to the police in 1993, he got into additional difficulties with law enforcement that resulted in the situation he was in then (presumably, his confinement to a juvenile facility). Furthermore, Tariq admitted on cross that he smoked marijuana everyday, including on December 17, 1992, and December 26, 1992. Instead of attending school, he would sell and smoke drugs. Defense counsel Scully also attempted to throw doubt on Tariq's identification of the gun. After Tariq stated that he never had seen a gun in his life before that one, Scully questioned his ability to distinguish it from other guns, let alone from other twenty-two caliber Magnums. During the PCR hearing, Scully testified that he believed he had accomplished his cross-examination goal of damaging Tariq's credibility. Before Tariq took the stand, Scully had planned not to use the beating allegations on cross, and, at the PCR hearing, Scully testified that as direct examination of Tariq unfolded, he decided to stay with his plan. Scully further testified that he did investigate Tariq's 1994 claims of being beaten by police. He discussed them with Goldstein and considered whether to use them. In evaluating their potential usefulness, he looked at them in the overall context of Tariq's statements: the different explanations for his nose-bleeding at the end of the first interview, the more-than-one-year delay before the allegation was made, and that the allegation was made only once throughout Tariq's statements to investigators. When asked directly why he did not cross-examine Tariq about the beating allegation, Scully pointed to the lack of corroborating evidence. He expected the State to ask Tariq on redirect whether he had filed any complaints with the police department or in court. Without corroborating evidence, Scully believed that the State would be able to discredit Tariq's single recantation. In Scully's view, it would have been an error of immeasurable proportion to bring [those statements] up. As the PCR attorneys contend before us, Scully's explanation is not immune from criticism: If Scully wanted to paint Tariq as a liar, why should it matter if the State, on redirect, sought to show that he lied about being beaten by a police officer? Why not let the State expose Tariq as untruthful? Notwithstanding that criticism, Scully's decision fell within the wide range of strategy available to counsel. Scully wanted to highlight Tariq's motive to gain favor with the police (his pending charges) to explain why he implicated Harris. Had Scully raised the allegations of a police beating, that would have pitted Tariq's interests against the police, a tactic to be avoided, as Scully confirmed. Further, Scully reasonably had to worry that jurors would have seen two options: either believe that Tariq was beaten into implicating Harris, or believe that Tariq lied about getting beaten. The jurors could have perceived Scully as attempting to have Tariq admit that he was beaten, and that strategy would overshadow his other efforts to portray Tariq as a cocaine-using, crack-dealing, delinquent, seeking to protect himself. The jurors might conclude that Tariq was a liar, but the defense's fear was that jurors would think Tariq's real lie was the beating allegation. Scully reasonably concluded that the better strategy was to attack Tariq's credibility with facts about his character and his pending charges. Scully's strategic decision is apparent from the impeaching information that the State points out it could have used on redirect. Tariq waited sixteen months to complain of a police beating, his direct testimony matched his 1993 statement, and Tariq and his mother attested to the voluntariness of his 1993 statement. If defense counsel had asked his mother about her claims that Tariq was bumped and bruised, the State could have confronted her with her previous statements about Tariq's frequent nose bleeds, highlighting his cocaine use. Finally, the State's questioning would have informed jurors that no formal complaint had been made by the Ayers, and that the only evidence of the alleged police beating was contained in Goldstein's brief, two-sentence report. Applying the standard of review that we must, we conclude that Scully's decision was within the range of professional competence and was based on a satisfactory investigation. Accordingly, we conclude that defendant has not established that trial counsel performed deficiently in respect of Tariq's cross-examination.