Opinion ID: 1147525
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Withholding Mitigating Evidence

Text: During the proceedings below, defendant's trial counsel stated for the record that he had planned to call defendant's grandmother as a witness at the penalty phase. The grandmother would have testified, in brief, that defendant's parents were divorced shortly after his birth, that his father thereafter remarried twice and his mother four times, that defendant was rejected or at least neglected by his parents, and that as a youth defendant was shy, lonely, and nonviolent. Counsel stated that defendant, to his credit as a human being ... did not want to put his elderly grandmother through that kind of experience of the emotional trauma of having to come here and testify. And so, at defendant's request, the grandmother was not called as a defense witness. (19a) Defendant now contends that trial counsel, in agreeing to abide by defendant's wishes, rendered ineffective assistance and defeated the state's independent interest in assuring a reliable penalty determination in this capital case. Defendant relies primarily on People v. Deere (1985) 41 Cal.3d 353 [222 Cal. Rptr. 13, 710 P.2d 925]. In that case the defendant, with his counsel's consent, pleaded guilty to the charges against him and admitted a special circumstance allegation. Defendant waived jury trial on the issue of penalty, again with the concurrence of his counsel, presented no mitigating evidence, and requested a verdict of death. The resulting judgment of death was reversed on the grounds that defense counsel, in acceding to defendant's wish not to present mitigating evidence, rendered ineffective assistance and frustrated the state's interest in ensuring reliable penalty verdicts in capital cases. (Pp. 363-364; see also, People v. Burgener (1986) 41 Cal.3d 505, 541-542 [224 Cal. Rptr. 112, 714 P.2d 1251].) The logical underpinnings of Deere, supra, 41 Cal.3d 353, were recently reexamined in People v. Bloom (1989) 48 Cal.3d 1194 [259 Cal. Rptr. 669, 774 P.2d 698]. (20) We concluded that the reliability required by the Eighth Amendment in death penalty cases is attained when the prosecution has discharged its burden of proof at the guilt and penalty phases pursuant to the rules of evidence and within the guidelines of a constitutional death penalty statute, the death verdict has been returned under proper instructions and procedures, and the trier of penalty has duly considered the relevant mitigating evidence, if any, which the defendant has chosen to present. (P. 1228.) Deere was disapproved to the extent it suggests that a defendant's failure to present mitigating evidence, in and of itself, is sufficient to make a judgment of death constitutionally unreliable. ( Id. at p. 1228, fn. 9.) [17] Accordingly, the death judgment in this case is not to be regarded as unreliable merely because defense counsel agreed to defendant's request that his grandmother not be called to testify as a defense witness at the penalty phase. (19b) In People v. Guzman (1988) 45 Cal.3d 915 [248 Cal. Rptr. 467, 755 P.2d 917], the defense counsel acquiesced in his client's wish that available mitigating character evidence not be presented, but defendant described his background in his own testimony at the penalty phase. We rejected a contention that the defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel, noting that unlike Deere, supra, 41 Cal.3d 353, some mitigating evidence had been presented. (45 Cal.3d at p. 961.) Similarly, in the present case, some mitigating evidence was presented, in the form of the jail officer's testimony to defendant's good conduct while incarcerated pending trial. The proposition that defense counsel should be forced to present mitigating evidence over the defendant's objection has been soundly criticized by commentators. (See, e.g., Bonnie, The Dignity of the Condemned (1988) 74 Va.L.Rev. 1363, 1380-1389; Carter, Maintaining Systemic Integrity in Capital Cases: The Use of Court-Appointed Counsel to Present Mitigating Evidence When the Defendant Advocates Death (1987) 55 Tenn.L.Rev. 95, 130-142 [hereafter Maintaining Systemic Integrity ].) (21) As these commentators point out, an attorney's duty of loyalty to the client means the attorney should always remember that the decision whether to forego legally available objectives or methods because of non-legal factors is ultimately for the client.... (ABA Model Code Prof. Responsibility, EC 7-8.) To require defense counsel to present mitigating evidence over the defendant's objection would be inconsistent with an attorney's paramount duty of loyalty to the client and would undermine the trust, essential for effective representation, existing between attorney and client. Moreover, imposing such a duty could cause some defendants who otherwise would not have done so to exercise their Sixth Amendment right of self-representation (see Faretta v. California, supra, 422 U.S. 806) before commencement of the guilt phase (see People v. Hamilton (1988) 45 Cal.3d 351, 369 [247 Cal. Rptr. 31, 753 P.2d 1109]; People v. Windham (1977) 19 Cal.3d 121, 127-128 [137 Cal. Rptr. 8, 560 P.2d 1187]) in order to retain control over the presentation of evidence at the penalty phase, resulting in a significant loss of legal protection for these defendants during the guilt phase. (22) To establish a denial of the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel, a defendant must show that counsel failed to perform with reasonable competence, and that it is reasonably probable a determination more favorable to the defendant would have resulted in the absence of counsel's failings. ( People v. Fosselman, supra, 33 Cal.3d 572, 584; see also, Strickland v. Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 687 [80 L.Ed.2d 674, 693, 104 S.Ct. 2052.].) While selection of defense witnesses is generally a matter of trial tactics over which the attorney, rather than the client, has ultimate control ( People v. McKenzie (1983) 34 Cal.3d 616, 631 [194 Cal. Rptr. 462, 668 P.2d 769]), it does not necessarily follow that an attorney acts incompetently in honoring a client's request not to present certain evidence for nontactical reasons. (See ABA Model Rules Prof. Conduct, rule 1.2, comment [In questions of means, the lawyer should assume responsibility for technical and legal tactical issues, but should defer to the client regarding such questions as the expense to be incurred and concern for third persons who might be adversely affected.].) (19c) Given the attorney's ethical duty of loyalty to the client, it is not outside the range of competent attorney actions to fail to present mitigating evidence when the defendant adamantly endorses that position. ( Maintaining Systemic Integrity, supra, 55 Tenn.L.Rev. at p. 140.) Even if counsel had acted improperly in honoring defendant's wishes, moreover, the impropriety would not result in reversal of the judgment because the doctrine of invited error operates to estop a party from asserting an error when the party's own conduct has induced its commission ( People v. Perez (1979) 23 Cal.3d 545, 549-550, fn. 3 [153 Cal. Rptr. 40, 591 P.2d 63]), and from claiming to have been denied a fair trial by circumstances of the party's own making ( People v. Hammond (1960) 54 Cal.2d 846, 852 [9 Cal. Rptr. 233, 357 P.2d 289]). Thus a defendant who without justification has caused a courtroom disturbance cannot urge the resulting prejudice as grounds for mistrial ( People v. Linden (1959) 52 Cal.2d 1, 28-29 [338 P.2d 397]; People v. Gomez (1953) 41 Cal.2d 150, 162 [258 P.2d 825]), nor can a defendant who has volunteered information during testimony successfully urge error in the admission of the volunteered statements ( People v. Wilkes (1955) 44 Cal.2d 679, 684 [284 P.2d 481]). The invited-error doctrine operates, in particular, to estop a defendant from claiming ineffective assistance of counsel based on counsel's acts or omissions in conformance with the defendant's own requests. [18] In People v. Simmons (1946) 28 Cal.2d 699 [172 P.2d 18], for example, defense counsel, at defendant's insistence and against counsel's own better judgment, asked a police officer on cross-examination whether defendant had not been arrested for a robbery other than the one for which he was then on trial and the officer replied that defendant had been arrested for both robberies. ( People v. Simmons, supra, at p. 722.) Later, on cross-examination of another police officer, defendant insisted that the statement of Webb, an admitted participant in the charged robbery who had pleaded guilty before defendant's trial, be read in its entirety even though it implicated defendant in another robbery. ( Ibid. ). Finally, Webb was called as a defense witness at defendant's specific and insistent request, ( ibid. ) and contrary to the advice of his counsel ( id. at p. 708), and gave testimony replete with evasions, inconsistencies and contradictions ( ibid. ). On appeal from the resulting judgment of conviction, defendant based an ineffective assistance claim on these acts of counsel, but the contention was held to be barred by the invited-error doctrine because in each instance defendant had adamantly insisted at trial on the very actions of which he complained on appeal. ( Id. at p. 722.) Here also, defendant cannot be permitted to claim that his counsel was deficient for acceding, against counsel's own judgment, to defendant's insistent request that certain evidence not be presented. We observe, in conclusion, that defendant predicates the claim of ineffective assistance solely on his trial counsel's action in yielding to his demand, and not on any antecedent act or omission of counsel. Defendant does not contend, for example, that counsel failed to adequately investigate the availability of this evidence or to advise him regarding its significance. There is nothing in the appellate record to suggest that counsel's performance was deficient in either of these respects and it is the defendant's burden to establish ineffectiveness. (See People v. Pope (1979) 23 Cal.3d 412, 425 [152 Cal. Rptr. 732, 590 P.2d 859, 2 A.L.R.4th 1].) Accordingly, for the reasons given, we reject the contention that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by agreeing to defendant's demand that his grandmother not be called to testify as a defense witness at the penalty phase.