Opinion ID: 1621769
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Assistance of Counsel Penalty Phase

Text: To prove ineffective assistance in the penalty phase, Roll must show that his attorney's performance was not objectively reasonable and that he was thereby prejudiced. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Wise, 879 S.W.2d at 524. To prove prejudice, Roll must show a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Parker, 886 S.W.2d at 929. The motion court found no ineffective assistance, so this Court reverses if it has a definite and firm impression that a mistake was made.
Roll contends that his counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the State's argument about when and how he discussed the murders. In closing argument during the penalty phase, Roll's counsel stated, I believe my client is the only person who has come before a court of justice and honestly stated what happened on that occasion. The other two persons that you heard today as they quote unquote pled guilty, all place the blame elsewhere. Mr. Roll is the only person who came before this Court and who said he had to ante up for his responsibility. In rebuttal, the prosecutor stated, When he [Roll] says that he is the only one of the three who has told the Court the truth, Your Honor, he would leave [sic] the court to believe that he had decided he was going to tell what had happened as soon as it came to light, but in fact he didn't tell what happened. He didn't tell at the time he was arrested,[ [2] ] he didn't tell the first time he tried to plead guilty, and he still hasn't told to date, Your Honor. The time he was telling the truth was when he was being tape-recorded and didn't know he was being tape-recorded and that's when he was talking about killing them and said, I couldn't do much else, you know, because they knew everybody, I figured they even knew me because of something that was said in there. We already had, we knew what we had to do something like that. And he was telling the truth when he said, It don't bother me, not when he was today for the first time showing remorse. A prosecutor has considerable leeway to make retaliatory arguments in closing. Parker, 886 S.W.2d at 922. A defendant may not provoke a reply and then assert error. Id. Roll raised his willingness to come forward and tell what happened in his counsel's argument. The prosecutor's answer was therefore retaliatory. The motion court did not clearly err in finding that counsel was not ineffective for failing to object.
Roll argues that his counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the victim impact evidence when four members of the victims' family requested that Roll be sentenced to death. Victim impact evidence violates the Constitution only if it is so unduly prejudicial that it renders the trial fundamentally unfair. State v. Kreutzer, 928 S.W.2d 854, 878 (Mo. banc 1996), citing Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 2608, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). In Payne , the United States Supreme Court was not confronted with family members' opinions about the appropriate sentence. Payne, 501 U.S. at 830 n. 2, 833 (O'Connor, J., concurring), and 835 n. 1, 111 S.Ct. at 2611 n. 2, 2612-13, 2614 n. 1 (Souter, J., concurring). The state here concedes that such opinionsby both sides beloware inadmissible under Payne , § 565.030.4, and § 595.209.1(4). Even if the family's requests for the death penalty were error, Roll has failed to show prejudice that constitutes fundamental unfairness. A judge determined Roll's sentence. This Court presumes that inadmissible evidence is not prejudicial because judges are presumed not to consider improper evidence when sentencing a defendant. Richardson, 923 S.W.2d at 319. No clear error has been shown.