Opinion ID: 1444170
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prepenalty-phase Conduct.

Text: Petitioner alleges more specifically with regard to the robbery-related counts that Shinn advised him to confess to those charges in a pretrial interview with a police investigator, falsely telling petitioner that Shinn had an agreement that petitioner would confess to those counts and testify for the prosecution or his statement would not be used against him. Shinn did not have an agreement to that effect. At a hearing on the admissibility of the taped statement petitioner made during that interview, the police investigator testified in response to questioning by Shinn that there was no such agreement and that the investigator believed petitioner was truthful in his confession to the robbery-related offenses. In a deposition taken prior to the filing of the petition for writ of habeas corpus, Shinn testified that he did not remember what reason, if any, he had for questioning the investigator in that fashion. [8] Respondent denies that Shinn induced petitioner to confess to the robberies, [9] and asserts that they would have been proven at the penalty phase in any event. Therefore, respondent asserts, Shinn's conduct in this regard did not cause any prejudice at the penalty phase. Because this court reversed the robbery-related counts on appeal, we consider only whether Shinn's conduct in these matters was incompetent and, if so, whether consideration of those robberies and attempted robberies, coupled with the impact of Shinn's other failings, was so prejudicial with regard to the penalty verdict as to render the death penalty verdict unreliable. ( Strickland v. Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674.)