Opinion ID: 150664
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Failure to Impeach Larry Woods

Text: Allen claims that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to adequately cross-examine Larry Woods, a witness who testified that he saw Allen at Cribbs' house about two hours before her body was discovered there. Woods, a siding contractor, said that he had an unobstructed view of Cribbs' home while he was working in the driveway of the house across the street. About 20 to 25 minutes before Woods went to lunch, a man left Cribbs' house, walked down the stairs, and looked at Woods twice before going back inside. When Woods returned from lunch he saw that Cribbs' car, which had been parked under her house in the morning, was no longer there. Soon thereafter Cribbs' body was discovered. The car would later be found at a motel from which Allen hailed a taxi on the day of the murder. Woods testified that he was interviewed by the police on the afternoon of the murder and that he assisted in making a composite drawing of the person he saw. [3] That evening, Woods recounted, the police showed him a photograph of Allen that compare[d] favorably to the composite drawing. (The photograph was developed from film in a camera that was recovered at the crime scene.) Woods identified Allen as the person he saw at Cribbs' house and had depicted in the composite drawing. Allen argues that counsel was ineffective for failing to ask Woods whether he saw anyone else near Cribbs' house on the morning of the murder. The premise of this argument is false. The state collateral trial court determined that counsel did establish during cross-examination that Woods had not seen anyone else go near the house while he was there, and that he had no knowledge of what transpired during his lunch period. Florida v. Allen, No. 92-30056-CF, slip op. at 38. It also found that [t]o the extent that [Allen] claims that some unknown third person committed the crime, Counsel established the window of opportunity to support [Allen's] theory. Id. Those factual determinations are more than reasonable; the record confirms they are entirely correct. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). The performance of Allen's counsel with regard to this sub-claim was not deficient. Allen also argues that counsel was ineffective for failing to use Woods' initial statement to the police to impeach his identification of Allen at trial. In his statement, Woods said that the person he saw outside Cribbs' house was either an anore[x]ic looking man or a very thin woman. [4] He described the person as approximately 5'5 to 5'8 tall, as weighing from 135-145 lbs., and as having sandy blonde hair. According to Allen, he is actually 6'1 tall, weighed 175 lbs. when he was brought into the Florida Department of Corrections, and has brown hair. Allen argues that counsel's performance was deficient because he failed to question Woods about the inconsistencies between his initial description of the person at Cribbs' house and his later identification of Allen as that person. The Florida courts denied this sub-claim on prejudice grounds. Allen II, 854 So.2d at 1258; see also Florida v. Allen, No. 92-30056-CF, slip op. at 36-38. [5] The Florida courts' decision was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. Allen's argument overstates the inconsistency between Woods' initial description and Allen's actual appearance at the time of the murder. Allen alleges, and we will assume as true, that he weighed 175 lbs. when he was brought into the Florida DOC, but that did not happen until March 1993, which was more than a year after Woods saw the person at Cribbs' house on the day of the murder. [6] By then, other evidence established, Allen had gained a considerable amount of weight. Allen I, 662 So.2d at 326. Allen does not dispute that finding, which was based on the trial testimony of four witnesses, including Woods. Because Allen weighed 175 lbs. after a considerable weight gain, the initial weight estimate that Woods provided (135-145 lbs.) was not inconsistent with his later identification of Allen. [7] Allen's counsel could not have made any significant headway by focusing on any of the other alleged discrepancies between Woods' initial description of the person he saw and his later identification of Allen. The description of a man with sandy blonde hair is not inconsistent with the fact that Allen's hair is light brown, a similar color. Woods initially described a shorter person than Allen, but when Woods saw him, Allen was walking down a flight of stairs connecting the house (which was on stilts) and the porch. The prosecution could have argued that it is not easy to estimate someone's height when they are not standing at eye level. And, even though Woods misjudged Allen's height under those circumstances, we have no reason to doubt that the jury still would have credited his identification of Allen's face and body type. Allen's claim of prejudice is especially weak given that it is undisputed that the photograph of Allen recovered from the camera at the scene (and thus a contemporaneous one) compared favorably to the composite drawing that Woods had helped create. [8] Not only did Woods testify to that effect, but so did Detective Phil Harrold. Allen has not alleged any facts that would call those comparisons into doubt. [9] For all of those reasons, Allen has failed to establish that the Florida courts' determination that there is no reasonable probability of a different result if his counsel had cross-examined Woods based on his earlier statements about the person he saw at Cribbs' house was unreasonable within the meaning of § 2254(d)(1). See Vining v. Sec'y, Dep't of Corr., 610 F.3d 568, 574-75, 2010 WL 2557686, at  (11th Cir. June 28, 2010); Boyd, 592 F.3d at 1309.