Opinion ID: 1651956
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The HBO Contract

Text: Echols first argues that Price labored under an actual conflict of interests as a result of a contract to film the trial that was entered into between Echols and Home Box Office (HBO). [5] To better understand this claim, some background information is helpful. Approximately one month after the crimes were committed and after Echols and his codefendants had been arrested, filmmakers Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger approached the defendants about making a documentary about the crimes and their trials. Sinofsky and Berlinger had a contract with HBO to produce the documentary, which would be shown on the cable television network. All three defendants agreed to allow Sinofsky and Berlinger to interview them for the film. In exchange, the defendants were each to be paid $7,500 for their interviews. Additionally, the parties agreed to allow the filmmakers to place cameras in the courtroom and film the trial of Echols and Baldwin. The film, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, was not shown until after the trial. The trial court found that no actual conflict existed, because the contract was between the filmmakers and Echols, who was eighteen years old at the time, and because Echols and his family supported the filmmaking project. The trial court found further that both the contract and the film itself were beneficial to the defense. The court found that the contract benefitted the defense in two ways: (1) it provided a source of funds for the defense without the exposure of defense strategy to the prosecution; and (2) it provided trial counsel with tapes of the proceedings that could be viewed daily to assess the progress of the trial. The trial court found that the film benefitted Echols, in that funds have been and continue to be raised for his defense and that he now has the services of pro-bono attorneys of national recognition and mass publicity[.] Echols argues that the trial court's ruling is erroneous. He claims that even though the contract was between himself and HBO, Price was still conflicted because he advised Echols to enter into the contract and because the demands of the contract were at odds with Echols's interests. To support this claim, Echols argues that Price had a personal long-range pecuniary interest in the film's success. He alleges that Price was burdened by a desire to improve his legal business, which would apparently result from the personal notoriety that Price would gain from appearing in the film. He claims further that the conflict adversely affected his defense in three ways. First, he asserts that Price sacrificed time he could have spent preparing for the trial on the film, by staging a strategy meeting between himself, co-counsel, and the defense investigator. Second, he contends that Price relied on funds to be paid from the HBO contract, for such things as pretrial investigation, discovery, and expert witnesses, and thus did not seek available, and perhaps more abundant, funds from the trial court. Finally, he asserts that his defense was directly and adversely affected by Price's decision not to seek a continuance to allow publicity to die down from Misskelley's trial, which had taken place two weeks earlier in nearby Clay County. On this last point, Echols claims that Price did not want a continuance because he wanted to get the trial finished before the scheduled date for the film's release. The conclusion that Echols draws from this is that counsel was obviously placing the interests of the film and its makers over that of his client. The record does not support his contentions. During the Rule 37 hearings, Price testified he advised Echols to enter into the contract, and that Echols was very receptive to the idea. He stated that the contract benefitted Echols because it provided funds for his defense without exposing defense strategy to the prosecution. He explained that he and co-counsel, Scott Davidson, thought long and hard about the issue of do we need experts, what should we do about the money, is it possible to file anything under seal, or is there another source to get money from. They ultimately decided that they could use the money from the film contract to explore the idea of consulting experts without having to request funds from the trial court, and thereby potentially revealing their strategy to the prosecution. Moreover, Price testified that in addition to the funds, the relationship with HBO provided the defense with video tapes of the proceedings as they were unfolding, allowing the defense to view the tapes daily and assess the progress of the trial. When asked whether he had received any money from the contract, Price testified that he had been paid approximately $1,900 from the contract funds, but that the money was to reimburse him for expenses that he had paid out during the course of the trial and on appeal. As for the decision not to seek a continuance, Price testified that although there was a great deal of publicity stemming from Misskelley's trial, he felt that a continuance would not be in his client's best interest because he believed that the media interest would not have waned at all by continuing the case for a month or two. He stated further that there was a good chance that the opposite would occur, that the publicity would have increased. He also stated that although he could not recall whether he had consulted with Echols on this particular decision, he believed that he had consulted with his client about every major decision in the case. Price also voiced concern about delaying the trial beyond the scheduled release date for the film, not for benefit of the filmmakers or HBO, as Echols asserts, but because the release of the film may have influenced potential jurors against Echols. As for the staged strategy meeting, Price explained that he had agreed to recreate for the cameras a meeting between himself, co-counsel, and the defense investigator regarding the decision whether to call a certain witness. Price stated that he was not paid for his participation in this part of the film and that was the only part of the film that was recreated. Echols's attorney questioned Price about the entertainment value that such a staged meeting would add to the film, in an attempt to show that Price was interested in the movie's success so that he and his legal practice would benefit from the film's exposure. Apparently, it was Echols's theory that the more entertaining the film was, the more likely that it would find a large audience, and that Price would benefit financially from the exposure. During oral argument before this court, Echols's counsel claimed that the time Price spent in this staged meeting could have been spent more productively on preparing for trial. The problem with these allegations is that they are just that allegations, with no factual support. Echols failed to offer any evidence to the effect that the minimal time that Price spent recreating the strategy meeting, which apparently lasted only minutes, adversely affected the defense, i.e., because he forfeited an opportunity to interview a key witness or failed to attend a hearing before the trial court. The bottom line is that Echols cannot show any adverse effect that resulted from his agreement to allow HBO to film the trial and conduct interviews with himself and his trial counsel. Based on the foregoing, we conclude, as did the trial court, that Echols failed to show an actual conflict of interests, i.e., that counsel actively represented conflicting interests, involving the contract with HBO to make the documentary film. We further conclude that Echols has failed to show that he was in any way prejudiced by counsel's performance, as required under Strickland, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674. We agree with the trial court that the record shows that counsel acted in Echols's interest, and that his defense was aided, not impeded, by the film contract. We thus reject this claim for relief.