Opinion ID: 1380225
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Call Parents as Witnesses.

Text: Mr. Worthington claims that his counsel was ineffective in not presenting mitigation evidence by calling his parents at trial to testify to their abuse and neglect of him and in not showing that many of the juvenile crimes attributed to him were in fact committed by his parents, who thought they could get away with blaming him for the crimes because he was a juvenile. To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to call a witness, the following must be shown: 1) Trial counsel knew or should have known of the existence of the witness; 2) the witness could be located through reasonable investigation; 3) the witness would testify, and 4) the witness's testimony would have produced a viable defense. Hutchison v. State, 150 S.W.3d 292, 304 (Mo. banc 2004). Even then, counsel's decision not to call a witness is presumptively a matter of trial strategy and will not support a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel unless the defendant clearly establishes otherwise. Id. As a matter of trial strategy, the determination to not call a witness is virtually unchallengeable. State v. Jones, 885 S.W.2d 57, 58 (Mo.App. W.D.1994). If a potential witness's testimony would not unqualifiedly support a defendant, the failure to call such a witness does not constitute ineffective assistance. Id. This case demonstrates the wisdom of these rules. For instance, Mr. Worthington asks this Court to find that his mother should have been called at trial and that counsel's failure to do so constituted ineffective assistance because she would have testified to her abuse of him and that she had committed many of the crimes for which he was blamed. Yet, although she was present at the hearing, counsel chose not to call her as a witness to support this contention. The court below could well have found that the decision was made not to call her because her testimony would not have supported Mr. Worthington's assertions that she would have aided in his defense at trial. Indeed, that is the intendment of the testimony offered at the post-conviction hearing by one of Mr. Worthington's trial counsel. He testified that he chose not to call Mr. Worthington's mother at the trial because he was afraid that her testimony would undermine the defense's mitigation theory that Mr. Worthington had a horrible childhood because his mother continually tried to portray herself as a good mother rather than as the abusive woman Mr. Worthington claimed she had been. He also believed that she was high on crack on the day she would have testified at trial. It was not unreasonable for counsel to make the strategic choice that it was better to use records of Mr. Worthington's history of abuse from Illinois than to call his mother at the trial. Similarly, failure to call Mr. Worthington's father was not ineffective. Although counsel knew of the father's potential to be a witness, he was difficult to locate. Further, the evidence at the post-conviction hearing indicated that he had not had contact with his son since 1997 and they did not have much of a relationship. In this situation, counsel decided that it made more sense to call Mr. Worthington's maternal aunt, Carol. She was able to testify to much of the same evidence that Mr. Worthington's parents would have offered. As noted, evidence of his abuse as a child also came in through records obtained from Illinois. Other evidence was also introduced concerning his childhood and social history. Based on the evidence that was offered, the trial judge in fact found that Mr. Worthington was abused and neglected and was raised in a dysfunctional household. She nonetheless imposed the death penalty. The motion court did not err in holding that offering additional evidence of such abuse by calling Mr. Worthington's parents was not necessary nor was its absence prejudicial.