Opinion ID: 1753481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: Dr. SmithPsychologist

Text: Dr. Robert Smith, a psychologist, evaluated Glass prior to the trial at counsel's request. Counsel did not call Dr. Smith as a witness during the penalty phase. He would have testified that Glass has several mental disorders (including fetishism) and that those disorders impacted his mental capacity at the time of the crime. Though counsel originally intended to call Dr. Smith as a witness, counsel chose not to when they learned that the State intended to introduce evidence that women's underwear and personal identification, as well as child pornography, had been found in Glass's home. Glass denied owning the child pornography. The trial court excluded the items as evidence because the State did not have evidence establishing that Glass had stolen the underwear and personal identification or that it was Glass's child pornography found on the computer located in his home. But Glass admitted to Dr. Smith that he had stolen the women's underwear and personal identification and used those items for masturbatory purposes. And Dr. Smith initially diagnosed Glass with pedophilia in his report based on the child pornography found in Glass's home. Counsel did not want to risk calling Dr. Smith as a witness because that would open the door for the State to ask on cross-examination whether Dr. Smith was aware of the women's underwear and personal identification and of the child pornography and whether that affected his diagnoses. Counsel felt that such cross-examination questions would have been legitimate, and even if counsel objected to them and the objection was sustained, the question itself would have conveyed information to the jury about the child pornography and other items. Any subsequent instruction to the jury to ignore any mention of child pornography or stolen women's underwear would have been as futile as trying to unring a bell. Counsel believed that the potential damage of such cross-examination questions outweighed the potential benefit of Dr. Smith's testimony and made a strategic decision not to call Dr. Smith as a witness. The motion court found that counsel's decision not to call Dr. Smith was unreasonable and ineffective assistance of counsel because the trial court had already excluded the child pornography evidence, so cross-examination questions on that topic would be improper. As noted by the majority, Glass concedes that trial counsel provided a reasonable strategy for not calling Dr. Smith. The motion court clearly erred in finding counsel ineffective for failing to call this expert.