Opinion ID: 2790291
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Penalty-Phase Witnesses

Text: In addition, Doe claims, J.B. did nothing to prepare his penalty-phase witnesses. J.B. does not dispute this: “I did not prepare any of the penalty phase witnesses for their testimony. I did not tell them what specific questions I was going to ask them nor did we discuss the responses I expected from them.”21 Although this failure, on its own, might have been insufficient to establish deficient performance, it serves here to reinforce other evidence of J.B.’s woefully incompetent mitigation investigation and presentation.22 The witnesses who did end up testifying were family and friends attending the trial. Some of them were not told that they would be testifying until they arrived.23 21 When asked how he chose which witnesses to call, he could not recall. 22 Notably, these witnesses could have spoken to much of the mitigating evidence later presented during Doe’s habeas hearing, except for the details of his prison experience (but including the psychological ramifications of it). 23 J.B. never informed two witnesses that he would be calling them as witnesses. He spoke to Doe’s aunt before she testified, but did not tell her what he planned to ask her, and merely instructed her to “plead for [Doe]’s life.” J.B. spoke with Doe’s ex-girlfriend, D.P., prior to her testimony, but just briefly, “to get to know her,” and not about what he would ask or what she would say. 36 DOE V. AYERS J.B. did little better with the two penalty-phase witnesses he “spent a lot of time with[,]”24 Doe’s mother and aunt. He acknowledged in his declaration that his failure to prepare them to testify was related to his failure to discover the powerful mitigating evidence about which they could have spoken. He said: “[M]y relationship with them was quite superficial, and I got very little useful or accurate information from them about [Doe]’s life before his arrest for this offense.” J.B. also acknowledged that he “spoke with them only generally about the penalty phase [and] did not go over with them the particular questions they would be asked.” He explained that Doe’s “mother and aunt seemed like such nice, sweet ladies that I never got beyond consoling them about [Doe]’s plight so as to get to really understand his life.” The state’s argument that J.B.’s failure to prepare penaltyphase witnesses was an acceptable trial strategy is erroneous. Even if it were an intentional decision on his part – which is both doubtful and disturbing – spur-of-the-moment mitigation presentations form no part of constitutionally adequate representation. Witness preparation is a critical function of counsel. See Hamilton v. Ayers, 583 F.3d 1100, 1121 (9th Cir. 2009) (“[T]he failure to prepare a witness adequately can render a penalty phase presentation deficient. This is especially true when the insufficiently prepared witness[es] [are] the only penalty phase witness[es] called to testif[y].” (emphasis and citations omitted)); Douglas, 316 F.3d at 1088–89 (failure to prepare defense mitigation witnesses led both to inadequate development of evidence and also to lessthan-compelling testimony). A lawyer needs to know the 24 Actually, he met in person with Doe’s mother only two or three times, each time for less than an hour. It is not clear how much time they spent on the phone. DOE V. AYERS 37 nature of the testimony he will elicit, and a witness needs to understand the proceeding in which he is participating. Our case law, and an elementary understanding of the function of a trial lawyer in our adversary system, make plain that although there is no requirement of rehearsal,25 not preparing penalty-phase witnesses at all is not a legitimate defense method in a capital trial.