Opinion ID: 1327202
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Failure to Present Evidence of Lee's Life Leading Up to the Crimes

Text: The habeas court found that trial counsel unreasonably failed to present evidence to rebut the State's evidence in aggravation that Lee had been involved in criminal activity during the time period after he left the Boys Ranch up to the time of the crimes. We do not agree with the habeas court's finding that the affidavit testimony of Rick Pope and Brenda Morgan, who testified that Lee worked for their cleaning services for a short time after he left the Boys Ranch, would have undermined the State's theory that Lee adopted a violent life of crime after he left the Boys Ranch or the habeas court's finding that such testimony would have been mitigating because it would have portrayed a sympathetic picture of Lee as homeless and unemployed at the time of the crimes. Their testimony shows that, if Lee was homeless and unemployed at the time of the crimes, it was his choice. Both Pope and Morgan testified that they offered their homes to Lee as a place to live and treated him like a member of the family, that they provided him with employment that he was capable of performing well, and that Lee chose to leave their homes and their employment after a few months. Pope testified that, after Lee left, he would return periodically in order to earn a little money and would then leave again; that he sensed a change in [Lee]; and that, when he tried to talk to Lee about the crowd he was associating with and to warn him that he would wind up in jail or in prison by the time he was 21 if he continued to go down that road, Lee told him that his new friends made him happy. Nor do we agree with the habeas court's finding that trial counsel were deficient for not eliciting from Lee's mother at the sentencing phase testimony showing that, shortly before the crimes, she refused Lee's request for financial help and referred him to his father because he had been living the high life all these years.... [8] Not only has Lee failed to show that he or his mother informed trial counsel of this information, but this testimony would not have been particularly mitigating considering there was no evidence that Lee attempted to ask or even considered asking his father for financial help before killing Chancey and taking his father's truck. Had counsel presented this evidence at trial, the State would likely have argued that Lee's father may have assisted him if Lee had asked, as the evidence showed that Lee's father had provided Lee's bail to secure his release from jail when he was incarcerated on other charges prior to the murder and had provided a home for him for months after his release. Moreover, Lee chose against counsel's advice to testify at the sentencing phase. The affidavit testimony Lee presented would not have significantly mitigated the State's argument that he had chosen a violent criminal path in light of the fact that, on cross-examination, he testified that shortly before the murder he stole six guns, including the one with which he killed Chancey, in order to defend himself from the police from whom he was on the run at the time.